Reviewed by Dee
TITLE: Blood Source
AUTHOR: Jennis Slaughter & A.D. Campbell
PUBLISHER: Shadoe Publishing
LENGTH: 451 pages
BLURB:
In a world where Vampyres battles wolves and other Vampyres, and all feed on the human race; a king must choose between the life of his daughter and the survival of his people.
Abigail was raised to be pure as wolves threatens to overrun them, she accepts her role in her father’s bargain with a Vampyre. When the enemy of your enemy is your friend, sometimes your friend needs a blood source.
Lexxington has lead the Black Sun Army in countless campaigns over the last three thousand years. Unmated for millennia, the warlord fights with reckless abandon, seeking ever more glory for the House of Frost.
When the warlord of the ever powerful Black Sun Army first tastes the blood source; sparks fly that could upset the balance of the coming war, and save the human race.
REVIEW:
Apparently there is an audience for every book, unfortunately this one wasn’t for me. I am neither endorsing or discrediting this story, so please bear in mind this review is based on my reading experience only.
So what drew me to this story? A female vamp, lesbian romance, talk of scandal, werewolves – all things I love in a good yarn. However, the execution of the story was often confusing and at the end of it I still can’t really say what the point of it all was. It took until around the 70% mark before things picked up pace, and then the battle was over almost as quickly as it began. Being a full length novel there were a lot of words, words, words, words, but many of them didn’t advance the plot, in my humble opinion.
Head hopping, swift changes of POV in a story, is a writing style I’m not fond of, which was often the case while reading Blood Source. I can keep up with two characters talking at once, but when given four or five peoples thoughts in one scene… suffice to say, I’m not a fan!
To begin with I thought I was going to be overwhelmed with a huge cast of characters, but there weren’t so many at all, just numerous monikers for each of them. Lexxington is referred to as – Lady DeWinter Frost, Lexxington, Lexx, the dark haired woman, Vampyre, Daemon, her (Abi’s) protector, Warlord, Ceann, Lomhara, and near the end Matera.
So we have eleven titles for one character! Without even starting on the list of name’s Abi was referred to. Throw a triad of those together in the middle of a sex scene and the confusing jumble of endearments served to do nothing but distance me as a reader, so while I’m all for sexy time, I didn’t find the erotic content – sexy! The constant reminders that Lexx the undead is cold didn’t help. The vision of cosying up to a human sized icicle, often made me shiver, and not in a delightful way.
There were some inconsistencies that threw me… I quote “Vampyres had no need to rest their undead muscles.” Yet further on Lexxington sleeps in a coffin in the ground as it helps to restore her strength. I guess fatigue and muscle strength are two different things?
Much the same as, I quote, “Vampyres unlike humans, did not feel the changing of the temperature.” Yet throughout the story there are references to things like, “Feeling the warmth of the human’s touch on her ice like skin.” I guess room temperature and heat transferred via touch are two different things?
The biggest killer for me, overall, was the dialogue, almost every sentence started with an ‘ing’ word and drove me to distraction. I tried to go with it and enjoy the story but the word order of sentences, at times, made no sense and started to frustrate the hell out of me, again pulling me out of the story. A small example. “Winding her fingers through dark hair, Abigail moaned and stepped away.” To do that would be pulling the woman’s hair out, which I don’t think was the intention of that sentence? And “Turning around to walk back into the cave, Lexxington quickly saddle both horses before dressing herself.” This sentence makes no sense, to me. It suggests she is walking into a cave at the same time as saddling the horses, which is impossible. Again things like this might not bother other readers.
There are numerous words where the letter I is replaced with a Y, which I have no issue with in a vampire story, but as the story progressed the use of words like, thou, wilt, wouldst, thus, seemed to become more prominent, and again I struggled to keep reading. “How long wouldst thou remain before thou art healed?”
I’m going to stop right there. As I type this review I’m realizing more and more, the story might not have been terrible, however the delivery overwhelmed me so much I couldn’t enjoy it.
I urge you to take a chance on this book and draw your own conclusion. You might very well enjoy it, and I sincerely hope you do. My rating is for the author’s blood, sweat and tears they clearly poured into creating a full-length novel. I wish them well.
RATING: 
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