Review: Vengeance Bound

Vengeance Bound by Justina Ireland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So, after speed-reading and loving Promise of Shadows, I really had to go back and take a stab at Justina Ireland's debut novel right away. This one didn't lend itself so well to a speed-read, but that's okay, because it was just the opposite of straightforward enough that speed-reading would not have helped me at all.

It's a pretty cool concept Ireland's got going on in this one - the main character being, as other reviews before mine have noted, something of a hybrid of Buffy and Dexter. She's a small but deadly ass-kicker because of the presence of a murderous Dark Passenger. Or, more accurately, three Dark Passengers - the Furies of Greek myth. (Like Promise, Vengeance Bound name-drops its primary Greek-myth aspects and characters quite often, but trusts the reader enough to know the origins without explicitly saying so.)

Amelie, alias Cory, is on the run and hiding in a small Pennsylvania town, where she hopes to finally exact the Fury-driven revenge she's been waiting to have for so, so long. While she's there, however, she's got to blend in with her new schoolmates. Luckily, she makes friends very quickly, but in this school, being in a somewhat David Lynch-esque town, everyone has a dark side, and everyone's true colors show eventually.

Including those of Niko, who appears to be a bad boy at first, but soon becomes Cory's staunchest ally in her quest.

My only real issue with this book is that the ending, for some reason, felt too open for me. Especially given that it's a standalone. Honestly, I'd love to know there's some kind of follow-up, but at least the most important story threads aren't left untied in the end.

So now I just have to wait until Ireland publishes her next book...and hopefully my library will be quick to order it when that happens.

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