The Light of Blood - Jade Christy
Vampires can come and play in the sunshine now, thanks to an invention
by Cassandra Burke. Scientist, scholar, extremely hot and expert level
“not like the other girls”, Cassandra has devoted her life to all things
vampy, and when she is invited to study newly discovered vampire texts
she's hopping on the next flight to the ancient city of Nivara.
Meanwhile
in vampire society, things are not well. While the American vamps have
embraced Cassandra’s “Lumiere” formula, the Europeans, always a stickler
for tradition, are not so pleased. Vampires are the night, power,
blood, not prancing about with lesser species. While some do take
advantage of being able to see the sun and live a “normal” life,
anti-Lumiere factions have risen and things are getting violent. While
Cassandra works on the old texts, falls in love with Nivara’s regent and
attends parties and council meetings, those factions begin to plot and
act.
From the start I was thinking this book maybe wasn’t right
for me. I couldn’t feel attached to any of the main characters (shout
out to my main man Dr Aeternus, my favourite out of them all), the
romance between Cassandra and Dominic was just not believable, even if
they are soulmates and the spice was lacklustre at best. However, if I
look past these, the story is actually pretty interesting. There is
enough going on to keep you flipping those pages, the political intrigue
is hot enough without the need for bodice ripping. You suspect everyone
of being a “traitor” but in all honesty I’m not even sure Cassandra and
Dominic are on the “right” side of things, so while I would give this
low marks in the romance category, it’s certainly up there with mystery.
When the author ends the book on what felt like a fade to black, I
immediately went to find the next one. For a book I wasn’t sure of, that
was not the reaction I was expecting to have.
As I am a monster
romance reviewer, it would be remiss of me to not look into the spicy
scenes a bit more and I have to say if this book just skipped over them I
would probably have higher praise for “The Light of Blood”. It wasn’t
that they were truly awful or anything, just made me cringe a bit.
Steamy enough to make your great aunt Ethel fan herself, but on the
whole cheesy and the dialogue a bit too proper, but then again, one of
our couple is an ancient vampire and the other a sexy genius who doesn’t
have time for men. Since I am neither of these things I cannot possibly
comment that this is how things would go down. The romance added
nothing to the overall plot, didn’t make you like the characters any
more than you already did, and you really wonder if they are soul mates
or just two attractive people locked together due to circumstances.
If
you enjoy magical girl/vampire/nobility/prophecy/world ending evil
tropes then try this one out for size. The writing can sometimes be a
bit clumsy (please remember Europe is a continent not a country) and the
characters a bit one-dimensional I would still bother. The bones of
this book are good, and I look forward to the next one.
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