Review--Blood Bond by Jeanne C. Stein

As a vampire, Anna Strong has an immortal life…but now she’s running out of time.

Anna’s relationship with shape-shifter Daniel Frey has given her hope for a future with him and his son—especially when Frey proposes…

But just when Anna starts to think her life couldn’t be better, she must fly to France to be at the side of her dying mother. There she learns that not every vampire accepts her Chosen One status. And one such vamp is about to go rogue—by leading his followers in a fight to usurp humanity…

It's sad when a series comes to an end. I've been reading Jeanne C. Stein's Anna Strong Chronicles since the very beginning and I've loved every moment of it! Blood Bond concludes Anna's story in some ways, but it also leaves it open enough that should Jeanne choose to give Anna a few more "problems". And while I did enjoy the ending to Anna's story, I was a little upset about a few things here and there as well. Moving on...

We open up with a very quick reprisal of how Haunted ended--and truly broke my heart in some ways. Anna and Fray have decided to tie the knot. Frey proposes and Anna accepts, a time for joyous celebration, right? Not so much. First is the issue of Harris, a cop who is still looking into the death of Williams and the disappearance of his wife. Anna was in fact involved in both deaths, but Harris doesn't know that, but his constant prying is going to put a damper on things. Then to add to troubles, Anna gets a call from her father in Paris telling her that her mother is dying from cancer.

Anna and Fray, with John-John rush to Paris to be by her side. The cancer was untreatable, it was just too late to do anything, so Anna's mother is on borrowed time. Which suddenly makes the push to have the wedding as soon as possible, like in two weeks. But it's something Anna's mother would love to see before she passes and Anna and Fray agree.

In some ways, this book was about the human Anna moreso than the vampire Anna and I liked that in some ways, but I also missed the action. The danger and excitement that tends to follow Anna around. We get a little bit of that with the case of Steffan. He's a European vampire and the vampires of Europe are not apart of the council that Anna has come to know. Steffan seems himself as their ruler, but that's not exactly the case as Anna will learn. At Steffan's big ol' shindig, he invites Anna as a guest, this is where she meets another particular vampire who is probably more the rightful ruler of Europe than Steffan. A very famous vampire by the name of Vlad.

I was quite pleased with Jeanne's Vlad. We've seen many versions of him throughout Urban Fantasy and his character was definitely intriguing and a little bit of fun too! He wasn't a critical player in this game, but he was a bit above par in the grand scheme of things.

However, the matter of Steffan gets settled and done with pretty quickly. Only lasting really a sizable amount of pages. Then it's back to the wedding planning and the wedding itself. That's probably what caused my dis-enjoyment of the story. But as I said, reflecting back on the story now while writing this review, this final novel can really be about the human Anna rather than the vampire Anna. Anna has to come to grips with the fact that she is vampire and will outlive all her family and friends. But in the meantime she needs to make the memories now so that she may reflect back on happy times in the years to come.

It was quite moving at some times with Anna and her family. Knowing that even Fray will someday die and she will live on is saddening, and yet, she still marries him and intends to have as happy as a life that she can have with the time given. That makes Anna the strongest heroine ever. Instead of pushing everyone away in order not to get too close for when the time comes and she loses them forever, she holds them as close as possible and form memories to last.

Who knows, maybe this won't be the last time we see Anna--Jeanne told me herself earlier this year at RT! But for now, this is the end. And it was a very nice way to go! Kudos, Jeanne!


Overall Rating 4/5 stars