Sanguine Symphony

So far, the story is quite interesting and the characters have really intrigued me. This author is very good at portraying real feeling characters that come alive on the page. I’m giving it five stars because overall everything is well made and well thought out. Great job!

Style: The style is superb. As the story unfolds, the writing gets more and more intense and the tone gets hammered on even harder. The feeling of the work is grim, and the style makes it so binge worthy.

Character: As I said before, the characters feel real, and like they have a mind of their own that doesn’t feel railroaded at all. They feel a lot and react accordingly. Great work on the characters.

Story: It hits hard following the two’s relationship as it unfolds. There’s so much each character learns along the way. And where I’m at in the story, it feels like they never stop growing and changing. It’s a very good story that compliments the characters perfectly.

Grammar: Very well done. Never got caught up on a sentence or looked at a word longer than needed. It’s an easy, smooth read prose-wise.

Give this a read! You won’t regret it, even if you don’t get the references.

First, I'll preface this by saying I don't normally read fanfic, but I have seen enough to know this is far above the standard quality of the genre. Everything I’ve read so far has been expertly crafted and at the level of what you’d find in traditional published stories. However, the story is more a slow burn—and incredibly dark—though I imagine it will pick up in the future.

Style – The author has an impressive style, where they paint the world with exquisite descriptions of and characters and locations. The writing comes alive as you read, and it’s easy to visualize the dark underground of the vampire world.

Grammar – The grammar is impeccable, and I think I only spotted a single questionable word choice. There is nothing to say here other than the author has obviously put in a significant amount of time editing.

Story – The author has done an excellent job of establishing the protagonist and setting up the vampire’s underworld, but there hasn’t been an inciting incident yet to kick off the story. To be honest, it probably wouldn’t hurt to establish a direction for the plot a little earlier in the story. However, with the solid base the author has established, I imagine that the story will pick up in the next few chapters.  

Character – The main character is well fleshed out and entirely believable, with a significant amount of backstory added for flavour. The same goes for the supporting cast, and everyone has realistic motivations and distinct personalities—a hallmark of good writing. The characters of this tale are undoubtedly the highlight.

I suspect this story is a perfect 5-stars across the board for the people for whom it's written. Those people are A) fans of erotic vampire fiction and B) fans of the 90s pop duo Savage Garden. For them, this is probably the best piece of writing that's ever been written.

I don't seek out a ton of vampire stories. I'm also old enough to have forgotten who Savage Garden are; I went to their Spotify page while reading this, listened to their big smash hit (which came out when I was 6), and was instantly transported back to the 90s. That song was part of the zeitgeist. But I had no relationship to them or their music, so a big part of the driving attraction of the story is lost on me. That's the story's major failure (not for the story itself, which, as I said, I suspect is perfect for the people who need it, but for me as a reader); if you don't care one way or the other about Savage Garden, then it's hard to get into.

That said, there's no questions it's a great piece of writing, written passionately about subjects the author is clearly invested in, and the story move along nicely.

Style: The style is somewhat baroque. I personally enjoy this, but I can imagine it might be off-putting to some readers. Chapter 1 starts with a bit of a lengthy verse, which, again, will turn some people away. Then it jumps into the 2nd person, which is a risky move that the author utimately handles well. On the sentence level, the style is good; the sentences flow nicely if not a bit theatrically, and the language is visual and rich.

Story: The story moves. At risk of sounding redundant, a lot of the story is concerned with parsing the imagined intricacies of the relationship between the two members of Svage Garden, so if you aren't particularly interested in that dynamic, it might drag. But in general, when story pulls away into action, it's fun.

Grammar: The grammar is essentially airtight. The author knows how to write.

Character: I've pretty much explained this already. A major expected investment in the characters is on an assumption of some previous relationship to the band. Without this, they feel a little flat. There might be a way to add certain more poignant qualities to the characters for the layman reader to invest in, so that people coming to the story without a preexisting commitment to them can find a foothold.

Overall it's a very well-written story with excellent, imaginative details and full-throated investment in its subjects. When the right people find this one, it's going to be a hit.

I can't say that I know who any of these people are, but I see how they are written, which is very nicely. Despite the unfamiliarity and general feeling of weirdness engulfing my soul when I read this fanfic, I admit that it was a breezy read. I always love some vampire aus in fanfic, even if I do not know who the fanfic is about.

Characters: Entertaining characters. I enjoyed seeing their interactions with each other. I don't know how accurately they are depicted, but I know well-rounded characters when I see them. I don't even know who this guy Darren is and yet I feel more empathy for him than I do most people. 

Story: The prose made it easily readable, the dialogue flowed smoothly, and I actually felt empathy for the characters. The characters and their interactions made me greatly invested, however, I couldn't ignore the whiplash from a pleasant introduction to the rest of the chapter displaying a toxic relationship and abuse. All in all, it was a story that sucked me in. 

Grammar: Not much to say about this one. The author writes well, and I could see no typos, no errors, no slips in sentence structure, nothing at all.

Style: Best I've seen. It almost makes me ashamed of my own style. The author stitches and weaves these words in such a way that once it all comes together, it unfolds into a fine tapestry of sentences that can be so easily visualized that it looks like a 4k film playing inside of your mind's eye. Dark romance and paranormal stuff usually aren't my thing, but seeing it paired with such an inviting style, I easily breezed through the chapters.

In summary, if you enjoy paranormal dark romance (and know about the people depicted in this fic), this is definitely for you. 

Sanguine Symphony is an urban fantasy.

One with vampires, and vampire hunters, and werewolves, and witches, and so on.

It’s also a fan-fiction. Thus for a very specific audience. Not one based on the pre-existing piece of fiction though, it is one that re-imagines the obscure singer as the vampire, which immediately sends this story a hit-of-miss category with potential to entirely alienate the large portion of the audience that found this story literally by random chance. I don’t have the slightest idea Darren Hayes is, or was, and find him just as alien as his vampire persona within this story, perhaps more. Yet, the novel expects an almost familial, or personal relationship with him, which is a gap that no amount of Google searches can fill. I can’t download your feelings. 

Style - The story itself isn’t badly written, it shows the visible effort, it can set up the atmosphere properly. It uses a mix of 2nd and 3rd person narration. On the one hand, this is a perfectly valid choice for storytelling, it helps to put the reader within the story (literally), but on the other it alienates the person who isn’t the target audience and doesn’t place the deep emotional significance on the characters the same way as the author does. Personally, I would choose 1st and 3rd person instead, where I would be able to put the emotions I experience on paper, instead relying on the audience to feel the same way the author does. Novels with 2nd person narration still have their fans. I, however, cannot fault the author for me not being the target audience, giving the style a 5-star.

Grammar - All stories I review should receive 5-star by default. English isn’t my first language.

Story and Characters - As far as urban fantasy goes, this is a valid story. I didn’t find any ideas put into it (including Aboriginal vampire hunters with boomerangs) particularly off putting. Story does kinda start “in the middle” but that’s not much of an issue. It’s not unusual. 

Only problem, and it is a very subjective one, is that I don’t know who Darren Hayes and Daniel Jones were, yet the story is essentially put together in the way that expects me to have deep feelings for them, something which the author of this story without a doubt had. And I feel for them, albeit only in the empathetic fashion by understanding it is important to them, and their need to express their feelings through writing this story. I agree. I am, however, not the author of the story, so I don’t share those feelings. 

Overall, I would suggest this story to the people who can say something about Savage Garden (a real world band) without Googling it. For me, they are essentially a mystery. 

Rest can enjoy it only if they could handle being thrown in the middle of something without the zero context.

I went into this not knowing fanfictions could be about real people. I have no knowledge about the band/celebrities pictured and am definitely not the target audience for this story.

Taking all that in mind…

Style is fine. It’s (other than an experimental section in second person near the start) written in third person subjective style. There is a narrator who understands/sympathizes with Darren’s point of view and describes a few of his thoughts. I think the second person scene in chapter 1 is hard to read, but it's also one of my favourite parts because of its novelty. You never see second-person POV's ever and it's fun because of that. Props.

Story is weird It's not something that sucked me in, but, after the bare minimum of research seems to be almost accurate in a fantasy manner. The band presented actually split apart due to how Darren saw his relationship – toxic. There is obviously a lot of liberty taken with the details... but that is about par for fanfiction so I'm going to say it's tentatively well done. I liked the details given to the vampires and their society. I recommend skipping the overview at the start – it seems less like a glossary and more like a paste of the author's notes.

Grammar/Spelling is fine. There are a few minor mistakes sprinkled throughout, but nothing that distracts or takes away from the reading experience.

The character score is based on mostly on Darren's character – as it’s been fleshed out. I feel like I know his personality (know the fanfictions version of his personality) and backstory. Daniel seems like a wild card but that feels purposefully done. I don’t really know what he is like except through Darren’s thoughts and a few scenes but that’s fine.

Overall this is an experience. I think it’s aimed at a niche/fandom I am not a part of but I don’t think it's badly done. There's obviously a lot of raw enthusiasm and care put into it and I think it will go over well with its fanbase.

Now as given in the title, I don't normally read stories like this. Especially fan-fiction. But given this is out of the realm of regular fanfics and more so a retcon or retelling of an existing person's life with supernatural elements, well let's say it falls quite out of the norm and even veers more toward the literary side, making for an interesting and at times seductive read.

Story: Beautifully presented to us through the mind of Darren, an ex-member of the band Savage Garden, who's now a vampire, as he navigates his life with his abusive partner Daniel and the vampiric underworld.

Much of the world-building is given upfront in separate Note and Overview Chapters and is passively mentioned through Darren's narration. This kind of a story doesn't need it, but the fact that the author went through such pain-staking detail to account for many of the terms and ways of behavior of both human and vampiric orders is something I commend!

Time is spent explaining these elements but not to the detriment of what Darren's showing us. There is quite a bit of mystery of how this society functions and is something I'm sure will be elaborated on in later chapters, perhaps to be tinted in perception by Darren's thought.

Style: No problems here. While the language is informal, it can get quite articulate especially in the descriptions. I found the balance stays steady throughout.

Grammar: No problems here. Everything is well edited, with only a few instances of pronoun usage that I was confused. Nothing to detract from the reading experience as a whole.

Character: This is where I think the story truly shines! While this story is in third-person it is presented mostly through Darren's perspective, and as such his perception clouds the entirety of the narrative. We see how his actions and reactions toward certain things be influenced by his past, such that even a rather simple off-hand remark of his partner, Daniel, sends him into an obsessive spiral of wondering why he would've said that, laced with murderous intent.

The supporting cast do a good job in having us focus our attention to Darren as a whole, and while they have lives and personalities of their own, this truly is a story about Darren and so I put the primary emphasis of this portion of the review on how well he as a character is executed.

I'm pleased, and pleasantly surprised, to have enjoyed a narrative of this type. This may not be a story for most, including me, yet I appreciate the lengths the author has gone in presenting this retelling of one of their most beloved bands!

Conclusion: A really interesting take on the vampire genre whilst fused together with a fanfiction. Give it a read!

Style: It started off weird from a strange perspective/present, to suddenly third person/past tense. Beyond that, the style was solid. It was consistent throughout the entire story and nothing really stood out as bothersome. The chapters were thick for your average reader, but would no doubt fit the targeted audience.

Grammar: Minor errors here and there. The Author has stated to want to convey an informal approach to writing, which is fine. The errors I did find are those that are easily fixed after a second look or by an editor. Nothing major that broke the immersion for me.

Story: For a fanfiction, it was actually really well done. I’d go as far as to say that it could have been worthy of an actual book with original characters. Without spoiling too much, I can say that this story has enough drama, action and a darker tone. I was hesitant about the latter, seeing as some authors like to paint with a wide brush when they go for the more sensitive topics, yet here it is done subtly. You don’t feel assaulted after reading it, but rather a sense of intrigue at the darker tones of this ‘vampiric society’.

Also, Vampires! Who doesn’t like vampires?

Characters: This is where the story shines the most. Each character feels ‘real’, beyond who they represent in real life. Thoughts, fears, cravings, everything feels right and real. The MC’s of the story all have a story to tell and the reader can almost imagine the sights, pleasantries and horrors that these characters undergo. I really enjoyed the character arcs/developments of these.

The best part for me was the fact that the darker tones were occasionally mixed with humour, allowing the reader to decompress now and again and view the story and its characters in a new light.

There were a lot of things I was skeptical about when I first started this story, mainly because almost all vampire stories these days are a drag if the same things over and over again. So considering this work is a fanfiction, I was very impressed because it does better than non-fanfuc vampire stories. 

The writer actually dices into the vampire lore and world building, giving deatil to the little things and building a ground work for why vampire characters do this and that. In other stories they just give us a vampire and say hey, here's a vampire, he's hot and when he wants blood he's even hotter. No story about them whatsoever, them being a vampire is meant to suffice and I'm this story didn't go in the tragectory of lazy writing. 

The vampires here feel like real beings you want to get to know more of and are actually fascinated by, so yeah, good job.

Another thing I want to commend is style, can't really put my hand on it but I loved they way each new piece of info was given. Sure there's a chapter dedicated to it but that doesn't stop the writer from weaving them into the story. I also liked the added info of vampires and weres hating each other because of slavery , most of the time they just hate each other for no reason because 'they're just meant to, it's instinctual:

I didn't really love any of the characters though, I felt more of a drive to be entertained by them rather than form any real connections with anyone. Seeing as it's just fanfic I shouldn't really be scrutinizing this aspect as those who know the fandom already have a connection to these characters but I just have to. The writer still does a good job of not making the dysfunctional relationship trope not seem stale. They're having real problems with the added burden of only being able to drink blood and blood wine. Darren is the loyal good boy with trauma who will probably have to learn the lesson of leaving your abusers before it's too and Daniel is the guy we pretty much have to hate until he gets his redemption arc, if he does.

All in all, I enjoyed reading, can't wait for more chapters and I'd wholey recommend this story to anyone into gay vampire fiction, you don't have to like fanfic because essentially this story doest feel much like a fanfic and I like that.

I am not a Savage Garden fan or that I know who any of these people are; however, I see how their passion is written in this project/story. Despite my unfamiliarity and general feeling of these characters. For example, Darren is pretty epic and has lots of details plus development.This story has some awesome vampire fanfic.

Side note! Lots of epic details in the background/world building. I like the idea behind the hunters. 

Characters: Entertaining characters. My favorite is Darren. He has some struggles and I enjoyed learning about this world with his eyes. I enjoyed seeing their interactions with each other. I don't know how accurately they are depicted; however, I feel more empathy for Darren than I do most people or other stories I have read. 

Story: This story really took me back to the days when I used to read Anne Rice. I am not currently a huge vampire fan, but for better or for worse, it is a classic styling of vampires that reminds me of Rice’s vampires. Basically, to sum things up, it's a pseudo-fanfiction based on an Australian band that fell off the grid which is powered and fueled by the author's vivid and excellent imagination which was sparked by his passion for Savage Garden.

Grammar: I am not great at grammar myself; however, I wasn't held up by the need to reread anything. Overall, not much to say about this one. The author writes well.

Overall, it's a great piece of writing, written passionately about subjects the author is clearly invested in, and the story moves along nicely.

I hope you enjoy the story.