Reviewed by Vicki
TITLE: Blood and Ghosts
SERIES: Blood #2
AUTHOR: Shira Anthony
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 230 pages
BLURB:
Sequel to Blood and Rain
With vampire Nicolas Lambert’s marriage to a rival clanswoman only weeks away, Adrien Gilbert struggles to come to terms with his defeat at the hands of Verel Pelletier, a vampire hunter and an immortal like himself. Adrien and his former teacher, Roland Günter, begin to explore his newly acquired abilities. But without his soul’s sword, Adrien flounders.
On Nicolas’s wedding day, a two-hundred-year old secret is revealed, sending the wedding party into a blazing battle between hunters and vampires. Once again Adrien finds himself facing Pelletier’s superior strength. Just as Adrien believes all hope of a future with Nicolas is lost, he finally learns his true gift—he can turn back time. But time travel comes with a high cost. To save Nicolas, Adrien must become strong enough to use his power without descending into madness.
REVIEW:
Blood and Ghosts continues the story of Nicolas the ancient vampire, and Adrien the vampire hunter/immortal. We met the two of them in Blood and Rain, which was split between Nicolas and Adrien, and Francois and Charles. One of my complaints about the first book was the sharing of page space between the two couples, so I was happy to see the focus shift to just one couple. Another issue I had was the difficult to follow plot. Unfortunately that didn’t change in this book. While we only have one couple to focus on, they don’t spend much time together.
At the end of the last book, Nicolas is kidnapped by Pelletier, who is fighting to take over the Hunter Counsel. This picks up 100 or so years later, and follows Adrien as he’s trying to find Nicolas. Again, there are lots of characters, luckily this time there is a list of characters at the beginning of the book, that I did refer to on occasion. We have Adrien looking for Nicolas, Roland who is a hunter and trained Adrien, Jean is Nicolas’s brother, Blaise from a rival family that Nicolas was supposed to marry in to, Pelletier the bad guy, Charles, Francois, Adrien’s father, Giovanetti another bad guy, all running around and in to one another.
Then to really confuse things Adrien starts jumping through time. He pops around, seeing Nicolas at various times in his life, he visits his sister as she dies of old age, visits Roland who knows what is happening, all to try and stop Nicolas from being taken by Pelletier. Roland knows what is happening and tries to help him, Nicolas can sense that something is different with him but not why. But as usually happens with time travel, you can’t fix the future. He only makes things worse.
I am having a hard time with this series. I am a fan of paranormal romance novels, and I particularly like vampires, but I’m just not sure about these books. I don’t normally have trouble following plots, so I’m not sure what my problem is. These are exciting, interesting books, with creative characters. I can’t even say why I don’t love them, I do like them certainly, but I didn’t love this book. I want to, I really do, but it just didn’t keep my interest. I did like Adrien and his love of Nicolas that drove him so desperately, I liked the concept of the time traveling, I just didn’t get why he needed to.
I know the first book was popular, if you liked it you’ll like this one. If you haven’t read the first one, give it a try.
RATING:
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