Die For Me by Amy Plum

Amazon Synopsis: My life had always been blissfully, wonderfully normal. But it only took one moment to change everything.
Suddenly, my sister, Georgia, and I were moving to Paris to live with my grandparents. And I knew my life would never feel normal again. Then I met Vincent.
Mysterious, sexy, and unnervingly charming, he put me in danger of losing my heart all over again. But I was ready to let it happen . . . until I realized that Vincent Delacroix is no normal human--that he has a terrifying destiny and enemies who are determined to destroy him and all of his kind.
Can I risk everything for love?

So this story follows a girl, Kate (heh same name as me), and her family as they grieve for the loss of her parents. She is sent to Paris to live with her grandparents, but she still feels the deep loss acutely. Mix in some paranormal features, some romance, and some near death experiences and you have this book.

So, I feel I should start with the main character, Kate. The main character was not annoying. This is incredibly important because it was this well constructed character that made sure the book did not sink towards the third act (it was certainly in danger of doing so). She was intelligent and well rounded, and ultimately she was grieving. This deep emotion was written rather well in my opinion, because it led to character development. We were also shown different sides of grief through her grandparents and her sister, Georgia.

Vincent I do not like so much. I have a moto in life that is 'never trust a guy that nice or devoted instantly', and I am usually right so I have this thing where I was waiting for Vincent to stab someone. He just was not my ideal guy at all. It seemed he had no flaws, plus he was a little creepy with the devotion and the stalky behaviour. Yeah, I am suspicious.

I liked the setting of Paris. It added a bit of culture and history to the story and the characters, in turn making it a little nicer to imagine and experience. Most of the books I read are set in the United States, and though I love America (mostly), it is hard to believe that a mystical being that was hundreds of years old would settle in a country that has only a couple hundred years of 'history' over more ancient cities in Europe or Asia. That is just me though. If I was immortal some obscure town in the South of America would be my last choice to go.

Anyway, went on a bit of a spiel there, Paris was a great setting. Especially since it is the city of loooooove.

Which leads us onto the actual love story. It was pretty fast to be honest, but not full on 'we met three days ago of course we are soulmates' kind of love - Kate waited at least 3 weeks.

Had she instantly accepted his love then this would have been a two star review, because there is nothing I hate more than instant love. I find it unnecessary and dull, but that may be the screwball lover in me talking. Plum made sure that the characters were not instantly together but there was that 'our eyes met across the room' cliche going on and that just made me want to roll my eyes.

Plotwise I found I did not care that much. What I liked the most was Kate's relationship with her family. Vincent needed to chill and go get some tea or something a lot of the time. I liked the good vs evil thing going on but it seemed very much like Highlander to me (if you have not seem that movie GO WATCH IT. It is a fantastic piece of 80s cinema).

Overall I enjoyed this book but do not think I am romantic enough at heart to fully appreciate the gooey affection of the two leads. I honestly cared more for the side stories (Charlotte was bae).