Ilaria Vecchietti's "Anime Predestinate - L'Unicorno Nero"

It begins like a teenage urban fantasy, following the well-worn trail of Twilight, with the protagonist, Ileana, about to experience her first day at university (a detail that, however, will not be mentioned again throughout this first volume - because that is what it is, the first installment of a forthcoming series). Gradually, the story grows darker and darker.

The setting is Verona: shadowed streets, bars steeped in a dark atmosphere, and the ancient stones of the Arena. The plot includes arcane prophecies, spells, and magical creatures of every kind. The fauna is the classic one - good and evil vampires, werewolves, witches, shapeshifters, fallen angels - all thrown into the Veronese cauldron, which is present but remains largely in the background.

Without revealing too much, I can only say that in this first tome there is a reversal of what has typically happened in vampire fiction since 2005 - namely, the transformation of a bloodthirsty creature into a drawing-room vampire. Here, at least for now, the opposite occurs.

The protagonist, Ileana, is not a Juliet leaning from her balcony but a far more threatening and powerful being: a vampire. And yet, she too falls in love - predictably, with a Montague. More than that, she is destined to reunite with someone she loved in the past and to retrace the same painful steps.

Ileana is a centuries-old being. This aspect might have been sharpened, not only by recounting fragments of world history but by conveying the depth of time and cultural stratification within her soul, in her way of thinking and expressing herself.

Ileana's family closely resembles the Cullen family in Twilight: all civilized, domesticated vampires. Here, however, the moral tension - the ethical struggle between good and evil - is muted in favor of ironic gestures, such as drinking blood from brightly colored, childlike cups. It has little in common with the melancholic inner war of Anne Rice's vampires.

The antagonist, who must be there by narrative contract, is Samonio, linked to the cult of Samhain. Ileana must fight him and his followers to save both the world and her beloved.

The helper is Laura, the human best friend (though not entirely human). An unaware witch whose power will emerge when needed. Her character is the most fully realized, the one that genuinely evokes affection and empathy from the protagonist. By contrast, Mirko - the beloved, the destined one - remains rather indistinct. The male character's human and emotional depth might have been developed further. In short, friendship appears less mannered and more spontaneous than romantic love.

Much is said (and written in Ileana's diary) about feelings, but little is truly made to be felt by the reader.

The style is fluid, at times redundant. Overall, it is a weighty novel that could be both streamlined and more deeply explored at the same time, favoring showing over telling, experience over repetition.