Blood Song

Blood Song
by Cat Adams
(4/5 stars)

I've never been a fan of vampires or werewolves or any of that of that paranormal stuff.  "Blood Song" really didn't change my opinion of that.  I have to say upfront, though, that if you are into that I think you'll find this book enjoyable enough.

In the world of this story there are vampires, werewolves, mages, and ghosts all living amongst us.  Unlike say, "Twilight," the vampires are not very nice; mostly they're evil fiends who feast on the living.  One night while working for a prince of fictional Rusland (which was also called Ruslund a couple of times) professional bodyguard Celia Graves is ambushed by the bloodsuckers and bitten.

She's not fully turned, so like "Blade" she's only half-vampire.  She doesn't need to drink blood but she can't eat solid food.  She can go out in the daylight, but it smarts after not long in the sun.  She can heal quickly, but not as quickly as a vampire.

After that the story focuses on Celia trying to adjust to life as an "abomination" and avoiding various attempts on her life.  There's also unraveling who was behind the ambush that nearly killed her.

The latter is not brought to a very satisfactory conclusion.  Especially the subplot about her "sire" or the one who turned her, which is dealt with in an extremely offhanded fashion.  I found most of the story very plodding and slow, really about 100 pages longer than it needed to be.  A lot of it seemed to be setting up characters for future books, which didn't help to make this first book all that memorable for me.

But I'm still going to give it 4 stars because it's capable enough and as I said at the beginning, if you're into vampires and werewolves and such without the "Twilight" teen angst then you'll probably enjoy this more than me.

That is all.