Sunday, August 26, 2007

BLOOD PRICE/BLOOD TRAIL by Tanya Huff

I wasn't going to do a book review for these--mostly because they were published back in the early nineties. But then I thought -- well heck, _I_ didn't read them until now. Perhaps others are curious, too. (g)

Brief Synopsis of the series: Vicki Nelson is an ex-cop, forced to quit her job when her eyesight begins to fail her, limiting her peripheral vision, and reducing her to near blindness in the dark. She becomes a private investigator. During one of her cases, she stumbles across Henry Fitzroy, a 450-year old vampire and son of Henry VIII. Long story short, they partner up -- Vicki covering days, Henry covering nights. They're highly attracted to one another, but their relationship is complicated by Vicki's ex-partner, Det. Mike Celluci. It's a love-triangle made in the twilight zone. (g)

Blood Price -- the original book that brought Henry and Vicki together. A demon is stalking people, and they team up to track down the human summoning it.

Blood Trail -- Vicki lends Henry a hand with tracking down a sniper that's taking out a family of werewolves, one by one.

Okay...here's the skinny.

These books are...fun. They're not the most well-written or even well-plotted fiction I've ever read. I can't decide whether I've managed to get through two of the books because of the TV series or because they're actually interesting in their own right.. I suspect the former, though. LOL.

The first book was rather weak, plot-wise. To me, the ending was cheese to the extreme -- cringe-worthy, actually. The second took a HUGE step up, but still had a certain "OMG-factor" to it. The one thing that kept me going was the "will they or won't they" thing going on between Vicki and Henry... As well as the "will he or won't he kill Henry" thing Celluci has going.. You see, he and Vicki were lovers when the book began. Now he's been relegated to ex-partner and he's not happy about it. Y'all know I'm a sucker for triangles, so perhaps that's why I'm considering buying the next two-book volume. (g)

At any rate, I'm not sure why, but when I envision what a vampire book will be like, I always sort of assume there's going to be a fair amount of sexual urges fluttering about... and yeah, there are in this book. But man, she blacks out when the deed is going down! Okay, where's the fun in that? All right, so I do the same thing with my books (mostly) -- but STILL... this is a VAMPIRE book. The last time I read one (suggested by my sister), it was so full of sex scenes that I forgot it was an actual novel. (g) If you're interested, it was called THE DARK PRINCE by Christine Feehan. I haven't read a second one. (g) Call me crazy, but I like story, too. LOL. Anyway, if that's the type of book you're looking for, this ain't it. Of course, the tension of whether anything will happen is pretty good.

All in all -- these books are pretty fluff. But hell, two books in one for about seven bucks... That ain't bad. Oh -- and fair warning. She's a head-hopper to boot.

Buy or Rent? Flip a coin.

P.S. No matter what, definitely check out the TV series! (g)

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