Review - End of Days by Max Turner

As previously promised, here is the much anticipated second installment in Max Turner's Nightrunner series, End of Days.  Release date is scheduled for September 28th!

Blurb on back of book:

"While Charlie struggles with his vampirism, he, Zack, and their friends are pulled into a conflict with the mysterious Mr Hyde, a creature who hunts vampires.  As the story unfolds, and the ties between Zack and his girlfriend Luna intensify, the network of support around them collapses, forcing them to redefine their notions of good and evil and find a way forward."

I recently reviewed the first book in the series, Night Runner; and while I enjoyed the notion and premise behind the novel, I still found it lacking in parts, particularly sentence flow.  End of Days fixed all the glitches that previously had me tangled up.  Characters blossomed and gained dimension, the action never let up, and the dialogue and sentence structure variation were huge breaths of fresh air.  In short, I adored this novel...on a longer note, let me begin my review. :)

The story begins when Charlie's party boy personality collides with his new vampire traits at a rave.  Enter hot girls, flashing lights, dancing (much to Zack's dismay), and...a couple of looming black figures hauling butt straight for the boys.  At breaking speeds the boys take off, and so starts their novel's worth of running; honestly I felt like I was falling behind by not flipping the pages any faster, haha.

A few new characters emerge; however, most of the old ones return and return with a vengeance.  We are introduced to Mr. Hyde, a colossal creature, definitely not human but not really vampire either.  Mr Hyde has made it his personal agenda to take out vampires everywhere, naturally Zack can't let that happen under his watch.  The vampires, Zack's crew of teen vamps, and police all band together...and butt heads...while on the search for this mysterious animal.  The action culminates in a tangled web that you just have to read for yourself to fully understand.  There was only one scene during the ending fight sequence where I felt there was a hole or gap within the action.  Huge improvement over the debut novel particularly with flow!

The sarcasm and humor I fell in love with in Nightrunner has a star spot within End of Days as well.  Here is a short list of my favorite lines.

"I hate to break it to you, Edward, but you aren't in Forks anymore"

"Cheese!...Yeah, I'm definitely tagging you on my Facebook page"

"Hell hath no fury like a demented vampire.  I'm sure Shakespeare said that somewhere."

I literally laughed out loud at parts, fell in love with various characters, and rushed to keep up with the fast paced storyline.  I highly enjoyed this installment and would definitely check out future releases within this series.

Rating: 4.5/5

~Helena