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Breed: Prophecy Reawakened
Despite having their fate supposedly pre-determined, there seemed to be plenty of surprises in the 400 years Damien and Chapel had been together. Aside from the usual vampire problems – Medieval warfare, ancient conspiracies, fire manipulators – they also faced several human challenges – a joyful reunion, a cruel father-in-law, adultery, and finally divorce. None of this was mentioned in the prophecy given by “The Lady of the Mountain”, only that they were one of the few privileged couples that were able to Breed. Like other pairs in their position they had tried and failed. Now, after 200 years apart, they find themselves in each other’s lives once again. With the past and present eerily similar, all new obstacles stand in the way of them fulfilling their destiny - the biggest being Chapel’s new boyfriend, Vega.
494 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 2, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 3, 2020
I really wanted to like this, because it’s an interesting premise that could have been handled in some really interesting ways (and maybe it was!). And maybe I will get back to it someday, but for now, it’s a DNF for me. I don’t think there were any major flaws, but there were a lot of minor issues that really added up and made it tiring to read.
Overall, this read like a solid draft that’s still a fair way from being ready for publishing.
First, there was — sorry to invoke such an overused phrase — still too much telling instead of showing where it mattered, whereas too often extraneous details that didn’t feel relevant were given too much description. (An example that comes to mind, without any spoilers, is the description of the projector setup in the lecture scene early on — does it matter that the reader envision that precisely the same way the author did? Does it tell us anything we wouldn’t otherwise know about the world, a character, the plot?)
I also felt that most characters, with the exception of Chapel herself, were weirdly over the top in their behaviour at least some of the time, which makes it really difficult to stay engaged with the story. Again, without spoiling anything, the example of this that comes to mind is a character in chapter 7 described as *screaming* in surprise at seeing someone they didn’t expect to see — how often do adults actually scream at something surprising but not threatening–looking? If this particular character has a reason for being unusually jumpy and loud, we needed to know that before this reaction. Not all of these overdone reactions are *quite* so extreme as this example, of course. And I don’t consider this a major flaw because characters’ underlying emotions always made sense — at least as far as I read — but their expression of them too often didn’t. I can believe in a world where vampires exist (speaking of which — minor spoiler, maybe — I LOVED that all those different types of vampire coexist in this world, I thought that was a really great detail and I hope there’s more of that later on), but I can’t quite get behind people behaving in ways that feel contrived.
Finally, something about the narration tone was a little off sometimes — descriptions that felt subjective or otherwise odd (for example, someone’s accent was described as ‘Irish–sounding’ — what does that even mean? Was it Irish or wasn’t it? Coming from a first person narrator established as not being familiar with accents from that part of the world, it might have made sense, but from a third person it didn’t), or times when details were emphasised in ways that didn’t make sense (similar to my first point, but more like — as vaguely as possible to avoid anything spoilerish — a certain character not caring about his wife or their marriage at all. Like, WE GET IT, but the narration kept pointing it out in a way that started to feel almost insulting — can’t readers be trusted to notice that themselves from the way he acts?). Committing fully to either a familiar, chatty first person narration, with all the opinionated descriptions and specific areas of focus that come with that, or to a third person narration that really acts like one, would have served this book better than this in–between style.
I do think it’s important to add that in spite of all this, I *am* still curious to know what happens and I do want to finish this book someday. And to the author’s credit, there were parts of the execution I felt were really well done: the pacing was good, as far as I got, and the time jumps were really masterfully balanced. But the issues it does have — which I really think should have been caught in the editing stages — make it hard for me to choose to pick this up over other books.
Overall, this read like a solid draft that’s still a fair way from being ready for publishing.
First, there was — sorry to invoke such an overused phrase — still too much telling instead of showing where it mattered, whereas too often extraneous details that didn’t feel relevant were given too much description. (An example that comes to mind, without any spoilers, is the description of the projector setup in the lecture scene early on — does it matter that the reader envision that precisely the same way the author did? Does it tell us anything we wouldn’t otherwise know about the world, a character, the plot?)
I also felt that most characters, with the exception of Chapel herself, were weirdly over the top in their behaviour at least some of the time, which makes it really difficult to stay engaged with the story. Again, without spoiling anything, the example of this that comes to mind is a character in chapter 7 described as *screaming* in surprise at seeing someone they didn’t expect to see — how often do adults actually scream at something surprising but not threatening–looking? If this particular character has a reason for being unusually jumpy and loud, we needed to know that before this reaction. Not all of these overdone reactions are *quite* so extreme as this example, of course. And I don’t consider this a major flaw because characters’ underlying emotions always made sense — at least as far as I read — but their expression of them too often didn’t. I can believe in a world where vampires exist (speaking of which — minor spoiler, maybe — I LOVED that all those different types of vampire coexist in this world, I thought that was a really great detail and I hope there’s more of that later on), but I can’t quite get behind people behaving in ways that feel contrived.
Finally, something about the narration tone was a little off sometimes — descriptions that felt subjective or otherwise odd (for example, someone’s accent was described as ‘Irish–sounding’ — what does that even mean? Was it Irish or wasn’t it? Coming from a first person narrator established as not being familiar with accents from that part of the world, it might have made sense, but from a third person it didn’t), or times when details were emphasised in ways that didn’t make sense (similar to my first point, but more like — as vaguely as possible to avoid anything spoilerish — a certain character not caring about his wife or their marriage at all. Like, WE GET IT, but the narration kept pointing it out in a way that started to feel almost insulting — can’t readers be trusted to notice that themselves from the way he acts?). Committing fully to either a familiar, chatty first person narration, with all the opinionated descriptions and specific areas of focus that come with that, or to a third person narration that really acts like one, would have served this book better than this in–between style.
I do think it’s important to add that in spite of all this, I *am* still curious to know what happens and I do want to finish this book someday. And to the author’s credit, there were parts of the execution I felt were really well done: the pacing was good, as far as I got, and the time jumps were really masterfully balanced. But the issues it does have — which I really think should have been caught in the editing stages — make it hard for me to choose to pick this up over other books.
February 14, 2020
This book was amazingly creative.
I was amazed at the descriptions and development of each of the characters, the time periods and settings.
I'd highly recommend this book to everyone! I can't wait for the next installment.......
that cliff hanger was mind blowing! I found myself yelling outloud, "No"! Great job Megan!
I was amazed at the descriptions and development of each of the characters, the time periods and settings.
I'd highly recommend this book to everyone! I can't wait for the next installment.......
that cliff hanger was mind blowing! I found myself yelling outloud, "No"! Great job Megan!
April 30, 2020
Review originally published here, at Reedsy Discovery: https://reedsy.com/discovery/book/bre...
A vampire couple's relationship is explored over hundreds of years and multiple timelines in this novel about family, prophecy, and murder.
I'll admit: I'm a sucker (pun intended) for a fancy vampire party. And not because these immortal beings could have brilliant conversations about history and art and culture--but for the gossip. You throw creatures who have loved and hated each other for hundreds of years together, and you get more drama than a reality television show. But Megan Carroll's novel Breed: Prophecy Reawakened (the first of a series) doesn't just give us a vampire centennial anniversary soiree; Carroll weaves the centuries-long story of a vampire couple--Chapel and Damien--across two timelines, exploring decades of relationship feuds, epic battles, loving marriages, and horrific murders.
Carroll's novel begins back in the mid-fourteenth century, when a man named Torrin is granted immortality and turned into a vampire by a mysterious cave-dwelling woman called "The Lady of the Mountain." This wish also comes with a prophecy: vampires will have to find "Breeders" who can reproduce naturally and birth more powerful vampires in order to ensure the existence of their species. All eyes are focused on these cherished vampire couples, one being Chapel and Damien.
In the present day timeline, Chapel and Damien certainly aren't reproducing: in fact, they haven't seen each other for 200 years. Chapel is teaching college classes on the occult and running a rad bookstore with her best friend Gabriel (by far my favorite character--a cheeky, sarcastic, flirty drunk who's a different kind of mythical being, but you'll get no spoilers from me). Chapel is also dating someone new--an artist named Vega, who she recently sired into a vampire. When some vampire friends from her past reach out, Chapel gets in touch and is thrown completely back into the fold--enemies and all. The main question is: what happened back in the past, to make Chapel leave? This is actually her second departure from her "family" of origin, the first time being soon after Damien sired her. Secrets of abuse and trauma lurk around Chapel's horrible father-in-law--Torrin from the opening--and his creepy henchmen Christian. Chapel will both have to reconcile with her past and prepare Damien for the fact that she's seeing someone else. And, she'll have to do it fast: someone's murdering vampires, and the murders look oddly similar to a case the family dealt with previously.
Breed: Prophecy Reawakened is beautifully detailed and brilliantly plotted; Carroll switches back and forth between her timelines at just the right times to increase tension. Her characters are nuanced and real--everyone, from Chapel's concerned father figure Michael to Damien's empathetic mother Alexandria, has their own distinct voice and emotional complexities. Impressively, the entire book is written in third person present tense; this is a hard mode to write in, but it's a perfect one for a book like this--where the characters are living in a perpetual present and not aging in either timeline. Given this book's excellent cliff hanger ending, I'm glad to know a sequel is on the way.
A vampire couple's relationship is explored over hundreds of years and multiple timelines in this novel about family, prophecy, and murder.
I'll admit: I'm a sucker (pun intended) for a fancy vampire party. And not because these immortal beings could have brilliant conversations about history and art and culture--but for the gossip. You throw creatures who have loved and hated each other for hundreds of years together, and you get more drama than a reality television show. But Megan Carroll's novel Breed: Prophecy Reawakened (the first of a series) doesn't just give us a vampire centennial anniversary soiree; Carroll weaves the centuries-long story of a vampire couple--Chapel and Damien--across two timelines, exploring decades of relationship feuds, epic battles, loving marriages, and horrific murders.
Carroll's novel begins back in the mid-fourteenth century, when a man named Torrin is granted immortality and turned into a vampire by a mysterious cave-dwelling woman called "The Lady of the Mountain." This wish also comes with a prophecy: vampires will have to find "Breeders" who can reproduce naturally and birth more powerful vampires in order to ensure the existence of their species. All eyes are focused on these cherished vampire couples, one being Chapel and Damien.
In the present day timeline, Chapel and Damien certainly aren't reproducing: in fact, they haven't seen each other for 200 years. Chapel is teaching college classes on the occult and running a rad bookstore with her best friend Gabriel (by far my favorite character--a cheeky, sarcastic, flirty drunk who's a different kind of mythical being, but you'll get no spoilers from me). Chapel is also dating someone new--an artist named Vega, who she recently sired into a vampire. When some vampire friends from her past reach out, Chapel gets in touch and is thrown completely back into the fold--enemies and all. The main question is: what happened back in the past, to make Chapel leave? This is actually her second departure from her "family" of origin, the first time being soon after Damien sired her. Secrets of abuse and trauma lurk around Chapel's horrible father-in-law--Torrin from the opening--and his creepy henchmen Christian. Chapel will both have to reconcile with her past and prepare Damien for the fact that she's seeing someone else. And, she'll have to do it fast: someone's murdering vampires, and the murders look oddly similar to a case the family dealt with previously.
Breed: Prophecy Reawakened is beautifully detailed and brilliantly plotted; Carroll switches back and forth between her timelines at just the right times to increase tension. Her characters are nuanced and real--everyone, from Chapel's concerned father figure Michael to Damien's empathetic mother Alexandria, has their own distinct voice and emotional complexities. Impressively, the entire book is written in third person present tense; this is a hard mode to write in, but it's a perfect one for a book like this--where the characters are living in a perpetual present and not aging in either timeline. Given this book's excellent cliff hanger ending, I'm glad to know a sequel is on the way.
February 5, 2020
Formal review to come!
July 16, 2020
This story has an interesting idea, but it takes awhile to actually get to the main theme. A lot of superfluous descriptions for my taste, but not to the point where it was a deal breaker. Some of the wording / word choices seemed a bit off / jarring but that could easily be corrected. The main characters seem well developed, and engaging enough to keep interest.
November 17, 2025
Breed: Prophecy Reawakened is not your typical vampire story, and that’s exactly what makes it so addictive. Damien and Chapel’s 400-year history is messy, dramatic, and oddly relatable despite all the supernatural chaos swirling around them. I loved how the book blends immortal struggles prophecies, conspiracies, elemental powers with painfully human themes like betrayal, heartbreak, and trying to rebuild a life after everything falls apart.
What pulled me in most was the second-chance dynamic. After two centuries apart, their reunion feels charged with unresolved emotion, and the tension only grows once Chapel’s new boyfriend, Vega, enters the picture. The prophecy looming over them adds a great layer of mystery, but it’s their personal journey that really hooked me.
It’s dramatic, heartfelt, and full of surprises. If you enjoy paranormal romance with depth, humor, and a lot of emotional complexity, this one is definitely worth reading.
What pulled me in most was the second-chance dynamic. After two centuries apart, their reunion feels charged with unresolved emotion, and the tension only grows once Chapel’s new boyfriend, Vega, enters the picture. The prophecy looming over them adds a great layer of mystery, but it’s their personal journey that really hooked me.
It’s dramatic, heartfelt, and full of surprises. If you enjoy paranormal romance with depth, humor, and a lot of emotional complexity, this one is definitely worth reading.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews