Reviewed by Vicki

TITLE: Blood Bathory Like The Night

AUTHORS: Ari McKay

PUBLISHER: Torquere Press

LENGTH: 410 Pages

BLURB: Evan St. John, a young fashion photographer running from the pain caused by the death of his younger sister, is thrilled when he is offered a job with House of Nadasdy, a leading fashion house in Paris. What he doesn’t know is that Elizabeth Nadasdy, the elegant and powerful owner, is a centuries-old vampire with a penchant for collecting beautiful people. To Evan’s horror, he is turned into one of her “children.” Unable to bear what he has become, Evan flees to New York and to his best friend, police officer Will Trask. For years, Evan has nursed an unrequited love for Will, but he also knows Will is the one person who might be able to help him. As Evan and Will try to deal with Evan’s condition, they are drawn into the world of the theriomorphs: shape-shifters who are guardians of life and the sworn enemies of vampires. Caught in an ancient war between two powerful supernatural forces, Evan and Will find they must choose sides — because if they are to have any chance of a future together, they must destroy Elizabeth Nadasdy before she destroys them.

REVIEW:

This story is about Evan and Will, as they find each other after a seperation, and Evan drags Will in to a whole mess of trouble…

Evan has become a vampire against is will, and escapes his maker, Elizabeth. He runs to New York, to Will, for help. What follows is a fairly typical story of good versus evil. Elizabeth has been around for centuries and is a well developed enemy. The group battling against her has been around a while as well, they all seem quite organized and modern. It’s not a bad plot, but I did have some issues. I found myself wanting more action, more drama, and more involvement of Evan and Will in the battle. Things seem to happen around them, and sometimes to them, but I think it would have happened whether they were there or not. Will tries to be a bad-ass, but never quite gets to do much, until the big showdown at the end of the story. And even then, both Evan and Will aren’t that involved. I liked the relationship between them, how we learn of their history and what drove Evan to leave Will. There is a good background story to them, a history that comes out as we go, which I found interesting.

I found the big battle at the end to be somewhat anticlimactic, after this big long wait, with not much visible planning, there is a mad rush, a bit of fighting, and bam! It’s over. There was some action, but it was brief, and everyone took off. It had a good ending, but I found it slightly unsatisfying.

So my thoughts on this book…. It was good, it’s the first book I have read by this author, and I would go look for others by her. The characters were good, the story was interesting. I usually like a longer book, which this one is, but it had too much waiting around and not enough action. Lots of Will and Evan hanging out, talking about how much they love each other, want to be together, wish they hadn’t been separated, etc, etc, etc. On one hand that was sweet and romantic, but a bunch of it could have been eliminated and the story tightened up. The sex was good, once we got to it, but Evan keeps saying he wants Will to dominate him, take him hard, yet that never happens. They have nice, hot sex, but Will never really releases his inner bad-ass and uses Evan as he could. Evan is very whiny about being a vampire. He’s not happy about it, understandably, but spends way too much time worrying about what Will thinks about it. Will’s fine with it, isn’t turned off by Evan feeding, and just seems happy to be with him. Again, eliminating some of that, and giving us a bit more action would have been nice.

I am fond of vampire and shifter stories, this one was enjoyable but not outstanding. I give it 3.5 out of five stars.

RATING:

BUY LINKS: Torquere Press  ::  Amazon  ::  ARe