A Vampire's Heart

Ellowyn Found, Book 1

By: Kayleigh Sky

Narrated by: Darcy Stark

Length: 11 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's Summary

Vampires live.

And they hunger....

Otto Jones, a cop assigned to the seemingly random murder of a vampire, would rather hide out in the nearest bar than waste his time on a dead vamp. He hates the bloodthirsty demons. But when the king of the vampires commands him to work with one of the lesser princes and find the killer, he has no choice. 

Prince Jessamine Senera is ready to sacrifice his happiness in a loveless marriage for his family’s benefit...but not yet. He dreams of adventure, excitement, and true love. He lives on romance novels and detective stories and wishes he could drink synthetic blood like every other vampire. But he can’t. He needs human blood to survive and is hated by vampires and humans alike. 

As Otto and Jessa draw closer to an entity that doesn’t want to be discovered, Otto finds the heart he thought long dead opening to the romance-loving Jessa. No good can possibly come from falling in love with a vampire, but when a shadowy assailant attacks Jessa, Otto will descend into the darkest pit of the earth to rescue him. 

If you like vampires, mythical and urban settings, intense suspense, and happily-ever-after, then you’ll love this first book in the dark and mysterious Ellowyn Found trilogy! 

A Vampire’s Heart is a stand-alone paranormal dystopian noir romance with a satisfying conclusion to the love story and a central mystery that weaves the trilogy together.

©2018 Kayleigh Sky (P)2019 Kayleigh Sky

Great new take on Vampires!

4 - 5 Blue Roses
4.5 Blue Flames

Narrator Darcy Stark is the King of paranormal erotica. OMG, OMG, OMG! he knows just how to throw that extra bit of emotion into his readings. In my opinion this narrator is slowly creeping up the ranks, spitting out one successful audiobook at a time. He has a smooth reading voice and has flexible versatility with male and female voices. It is subtle and I love his gruff manly baritone.

The author Kayleigh Sky is new to me, I'm so glad we had a chance to hear this on audio. It has fantastic world building and a whole new approach to vampires. I can not wait for the next installment, this series has tons of promise, I hope we can keep the author writing.

The sex is extremely hot and original.
The post apocalyptic plot with vampires emerging from the depths of the earth with talents undiscovered kept my interest 100%
I do recommend this audiobook, especially if you like vampires. Do not miss this one!

Happy Listening

Mystery and slow burn romance

This book surprised me. It's my first read from this author and first listen from this narrator.

I am impressed with the world building. A world with vampires living among humans, after an epic war between two species.
I can see the parallelism between the real world and the fictional societal issues we face. Divide between races, discrimination, trying to get everybody to conform.
However, there are time that I get confused too. There are moments where it felt like information after information were just being dumped.

I like a good mystery. This book definitely has it. But can Otto's bitter resentment and anger towards what happened to Maisie be limited? Yes, what happened to Maisie was horrible.. but it felt like it was too repetitive.
Otto seemed like every move he makes is all about Maisie and couldn't see out of his own prejudice and his own dark cloud of bitterness and resentment.
I adore Jessa. A true romantic who is under the protective umbrella of his family and a fiance who really doesn't accept him as he is, but rather wanted to use him as a stepping stone for his social climbing ways.

It was definitely a slow burn for this two. The audio is long, 11 plus hours. It felt so slow. However, when they got together, it was worth those hours!

I didn't realize this was a series, but now that I know it is, I can't wait to see where this series leads.

A must read for all you vampire lovers

Overall I really enjoyed this book. Both the narrator and the author are new to me and I can't wait for more from both of them. My only real issues were Otto constantly thinking about Maisie, its been 10 years yes I know her murder is still unsolved but it felt like every thought was of her. And I was having a problem with keeping all the names straight. Initially I didn't like Otto, he just rubbed me the wrong way, but it didn't take too long before I fell for him. Jessa I loved from the moment he stepped onto page. Jessa is a "drainer" someone who has to drink from humans and is allergic to the synth blood. He is such a romantic & all he wants is to love & be loved. He is engaged to Wen, an arraigned marriage, & has resigned himself to having a loveless marriage. Wen isn't bad to him and isn't disgusted by Jessa's need to drink blood from donors. There are so many secondary characters that I liked. Both Jessa's brother & sister, the king and Issac his donor. One of the sort of bad guy (you will see what I mean about "sort of" when you read the story) I knew was involved from the beginning. There wasn't anything obvious, I just had that feeling. So we have the investigation of a string of murders. Otto does something, and gets fired. The king hires him to investigate the killings and pushes Jessa to help Otto out. Otto, who despises vampires, is immediately drawn to Jessa & start thinking of him as his mate. Otto tries to deny his attraction.
Jessa is also immediately attracted to Otto. Okay for those of you who are turned off about cheating, which I absolutely hate, there isn't any cheating. Jessa & Wen haven't bonded yet & they are free to do what they want until then. Again, it's arraigned not because they love each other. As they get closer to figure out who is involved in the murders and why, they also get closer together until they give into their desires. I really loved these two as a couple and the sex was off the charts hot IMO. I can't wait to continue with this series.

Audio ARC provided by LesCourt Services in exchange for an honest review.

Cliche and poorly wrapped up

The world building is great and the premise has a lot of promise. Unfortunately, poor plotting ruins it. The mystery is solved practically through ESP, entirely without clues and no real explanation for anything. Cliché and nonsense buzz-lines ruin the tension during dramatic scenes, and vague descriptions of action and locations make it unclear what is going on when it isn't explained in dialog. The glossing of the topics make it seem like the author did no research on alcoholism or fighting and so those elements are weak and turn one of the main characters into a virtual characture that's hard to empathize with. Fantastic, professional work by the voice actor made it possible to finish but didn't redeem the story.

Thoroughly enjoyed this one...

Kayleigh, different and I liked it. It took on some darkness that is so vampiric it took me by pleasant surprise. I liked the antagonism you created in the characters and the development became wonderfully interesting the more I got into it. Good job...

Darcy, I really enjoyed your interpretation of these characters. I look very forward to hearing more from you.

Listener, This is a very different kind of vampire story that I enjoyed the more I got into it. It took 3-4 chapters for me, but once I did, I was engulfed into the story and characters. I wish the other books were on Audible, but I have to say, I will get the next one and read it if these don't come out soon on audible.

An Intriguing Approach...

This is my first time reading anything from this author, Kayleigh Sky, and I have to admit that I was enthralled with the approach taken to tell a new take on vampires and their world. The author provided a ton of information in the story that laid the foundation for an excellent tale, with hopefully more to follow. I am a fan. Additionally, the narrator, Darcy Stark was phenomenal and added so much to the story. The inflections that he incorporated into telling the story literally put chills on my arm...point in case...the fog! There is so much more there and I cannot wait to find out about it. The two protagonists, Otto and Jesse were adorably damaged but enlightened to the possibilities out there...well, maybe not Otto in the beginning, but at least he figured it out. This story has intrigue, mystery, murder, discovery, hot sex, and the emergence of love. I look forward to listening to the rest of the series, once they are made available. Loved this!

Great start for this series!

I love the world the author as built and really enjoyed the characters. The narration is amazing as well. There is a prequel novella, A Vampire’s Vow, that you can get by subscribing to the author’s newsletter via her website. It left me hungry for more of Rune. I’m moving on to book two in Kindle now. Really excited about this series!!

erratic story

Great narration but the story is a bit all over the place. There are too many unresolved or abandoned clues. The final outcome seems contrived and unsupported.

Family, lies, love and a new world

I have very mixed feelings about this book. 🤔 On one hand, I liked it but on the other hand, it was super confusing. 🤦‍♀️ I think it’s also because there’s no glossary in the audio version. Let’s review. 🙂

Otto is a detective on mission. Years ago, his sister was murdered and the murderer was never caught. Now he’s just drifting by in a world full of chaos and adjustment. The world he once knew was gone. Now it’s not a world for humans anymore but for vampires and humans. Half blooded Prince Jessamine never knew the old world. Frail and sickly, he has always been protected by his older brother and sister. He has longed for freedom for so long and he dreams of finding his fated love just like his father did. When a series of murders emerged and Jess has to work together with the grumpy detective Otto, he knew Otto is his fates. But he’s a vamp and Otto hates vampires. Moreover, the guy doesn’t have the word “commitment” in his dictionary. Meanwhile, the murders are continuing. How would Jess convince Otto that they belong together no matter who they are?

I think the main issue with this book is that the author tried to achieve too much in too small a book. 🤷‍♀️ Don’t get me wrong, this is not a short book however this book needs at least 200 pages to cover everything and for readers to understand everything. I was sprung up on with so many words and phrases I don’t know and o had zero idea about the background and the world building of it. Again, don’t get me wrong. I think the world building is expansive and super creative but I don’t understand most of it. Frankly, I still don’t get most part until the end. And another issue I have with this book is the romance aspect of it. I don’t feel that connection and spark between Otto and Jess. 🤦‍♀️ For me, I feel like they ended up because they are fated and because it’s convenient. 🙃 They are not dying for each other if you know what I mean. The one remarkable thing about this book is the narration of Darcy Stark. The guy performs. ❤️ He doesn’t read. He acts, performs and he excels. It was a phenomenal performance. 👏 Loved it and I’ll definitely try more of his narration.


3.5 family, lies, love and a new world stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️💫




Audio rating

Story - 3 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Marathon - 4.5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Performance - 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Overall - 3.5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Secrets..

Otto Jones is a cop that struggles with his job and his life in general. He feels extreme guilt over the death of his older sister at the hands of an unknown vampire and for the last ten years has been unable to move on from her murder. His new partner is not helping as he is a vampire and none other than the detective that investigated her death and who Otto holds responsible for her case going unsolved.
When Otto is given the case of a murdered vampire with a missing human witness there are many similarities to his sister's death and Otto is left questioning if they are somehow connected.

Prince Jessamine is a half human/half vampire whose body has rejected the synthetic blood that most vampires drink to survive. He is known as a drainer and must wear a mark to let others know of his condition. He is looked at as weaker and someone of lower status by most vampires. Jessa is engaged to another vampire but they have no real connection beyond his fiance's ambition to join a higher ranking family and Jessa's need to relieve his family of what he perceives as a burden.

Jessa is asked to work with Otto as a go between to ease tensions between humans and vampires. Jessa, a romantic at heart is captivated by Otto from their first encounter and Otto sees Jessa as beautiful and strong and someone he wants even though Jessa is a vampire and engaged to someone else.

Otto and Jessa are beautiful in the devotion and tenderness they show each other even when they see no possible future together. The heat and desire between them burns hot and lights up this story in no way taking away from it but only enhancing an already detailed and exciting book.
I enjoyed Darcy Stark's narration of this book.

I received a copy of this audiobook but this is my honest review.

A World where Vampires have surfaced

This was an interesting dystopian tale where terrible earthquakes have forced vampires to surface and rule.
Darcy Stark is a good narrator, but I didn't fall in love with the story the way I do with some books, but I quite enjoyed it as it was different to the typical Vampire story that involves the creatures of the night blending into our world, so instead there have been world shaking earthquakes that have destroyed the underground realms of the vampires so they have brought their culture and power struggles to the surface and the humans are the ones who have been blended into their new world order and who live with the shifted reality. I highly recommend this to lovers of Vampires and dystopian societies.

Stark is truly amazing.

This story was not bad, interesting at points, but somewhat lacking in something. Stark however manages to bring to life and create interesting vocalizations to each character. I found myself captivated by Stark’s voice.

Interesting, and intriguing!

🌟🌟🌟🌟 4.5 stars
🔥🔥🔥🔥 Heat Level: 4
🎧🎧🎧🎧 Narration: 4.5

Interesting, and intriguing! I was impressed!

I really enjoyed this story and the somewhat different take on vampires and fated mates. So much happens in this book and with so many characters I admit I had to "read along" with the narration so really follow what was going on and who what interacting with who.

With so many twists and turns I was on the edge of my seat as to what would happen next and who would be in danger next. I enjoyed the vampire elements and the idea of half-lings. I loved the mystery and detective elements and really enjoyed Otto's character growth and healing. A good take on Vampire Royalty too, and I loved that Otto was of course fated to a vampire.

I loved Jessa, he's so sweet and such a great character! I loved his passion and desire to help and even his overly romantic nature was endearing!

I really liked this adventure and look forward to the next one and hopefully more of Otto and Jessa and the world of intrigue and betrayal that lies ahead!!

Exceptional narration from Darcy! I love the different character dialects and passionate overall narration!

Thanks for reading!

Awesome

I really enjoyed this audiobook.
The story was very entertaining.
I really enjoyed the narration of this audiobook.
I can’t wait to listen to more of this series.

Different.

A new to me author Kayleigh Sky writes a complex and totally absorbing book. Add in Darcy Stark, honey voiced and so easy to listen too, it becomes something ... well, just ...other!
I like the different spin on the Vampire Lore. Otto and Jess are fabulous together, the slow burn then the Heat keep the story flowing. The mystery isn’t one of those “ I knew who did after the first chapter” type, the listener needs to keep up.
I’m looking forward to more in this series.

Amazing audiobook

This was a new to me author and narrator, and I recommend them both.

The story was amazing. Very well written and the plot was created so well that I didn't know who has done what until the end.
I loved Otto and Jessa and their story was a mix of slow burn and hot flame that was amazing to read. I loved their interaction from the beginning and I loved how it ended.

The narration was great and Darcy Stark voice is amazing to listen to.

Really enjoyed it

Different take on a vampire world.

This is an interesting story, with a different take on the vampire world. The world building could have been a bit more structured, but overall, it was easy to basics of the vamp hierarchy.
Jessa and Otto were an unlikely couple - Jessa is a vampire prince who cannot drink synthetic blood; Otto's sister was killed by a vampire, so he's not exactly fond of them. Both of them are thrown together to find out who is killing vampires.
The mystery is interesting, the story a good start to the series.
I really enjoyed listening to Darcy Stark's narration. He brought out the noir-ish feeling of the story and he was great with the different characters. He enhanced the feeling of the world being built, so after a while I got a better feel for the world the author was trying to portray.
This is probably my preferred way to experience the story and the series :)


Audio ARC provided by for my enjoyment. My review is my unsolicited opinion.

Awesome paranormal world building

Otto, a human detective who hates vampires bound to work with a vampire Prince, Jessa. Their journey unravels secrets and the mistery around crime. I enjoyed the world building, the story has a slow burn romance and full of great characters. Jessa though is my favorite, the gentle vampire caged by his family and on his way to a loveless marriage but he has an adventurous heart. Otto will find hate has a fine line that separate it from love. Mr Darcy made the story come to life.

Complex and compelling

I loved this complex and compelling slow-burn romance. There are so many twists, turns, and questions from the very start. Friends become enemies, enemies become friends, and everyone seems to have secrets and hidden agendas. Except Jassimine. He just wants to do his duty to relieve his family of the burden he presents to them...but not yet. First he wants to go outside his restrictive existence and experience action and adventure before he marries and gets put on the shelf forever. I loved Jessa and his innocent naivete. I loved his brother and sister too, and how they were so protective of him. The love between Jessa and Otto was slow to develop, and they both resisted it, but in the end even supposed enemies can't fight fate. This book/audiobook could be listened to alone. It does wrap up the immediate story and mystery, but there are still questions left open and secrets to be revealed, so I hope more books come soon and continue with these characters.

Darcy Stark is a phenomenal narrator for this story. He does a perfect job with the sly, arrogant, silky tones of the vampires as well as the menace. Great job with Otto, too, and all the emotions.

I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook and am voluntarily leaving this honest review, and two thumbs way up!

“Compelling!”

This is a very complex story of vampires, humans and a future world where the vampires and humans live side by side and earthquakes are common place.
I love Jessa, a low ranking Vampire Prince, who cannot survive on the artificial blood that nearly all other vampires live on and needs to drink from consenting “feeders”. He is hated by humans and vampires alike.
Otto is a human detective, he has valid reasons to hate vampires, especially “Drainers” like Jessa, but when their paths cross during an investigation Otto finds himself drawn to Jessa and his gentle ways.
This is one of the best Vampire stories I have listened/read in a long while, but it it is very complex. That may have to do with where my head was at the time but it didn’t stop my enjoyment of it and I found it compelling and couldn’t stop listening.
I believe this is going to be a trilogy so I eagerly look forward to the next two books.
Darcy Stark was the perfect narrator and and I hope he continues to narrate the next two books.