Review--Blood Work by Kim Harrison

When Ivy met Rachel, the result wasn’t exactly love at first sight. Sparks flew as the living vampire and the stubborn witch learned what it meant to be partners. Now Kim Harrison, the acclaimed author of Pale Demon and Black Magic Sanction, turns back the clock to tell the tale—in an original full-color graphic novel.

Hot-as-hell, tough-as-nails detective Ivy Tamwood has been demoted from homicide down to lowly street-crime detail. As if rousting trolls and policing pixies instead of catching killers wasn’t bad enough, she’s also been saddled with a newbie partner who’s an earth witch. It’s enough to make any living vampire bare her fangs. But when a coven of murderous witches begins preying on werewolves, Rachel Morgan quickly proves she’s a good witch who knows how to be a badass.

Together, Ivy and Rachel hit the mean streets to deal swift justice to the evil element among Cincinnati’s supernatural set. But there’s more to their partnership than they realize—and more blood and black magic in their future than they bargained for.

It's so hard to review a graphic novel, yet it will give me practice for when I read and review the VA one! Anyways Blood Work, is Kim Harrison's first ever graphic novel and my first one to read as well! Pedro Maia and Gemma Magno were the illustrators and they did a fabulous job! Of course, being new to graphic novels I didn't know what to expect!

This is a prequel story to the Hollows and how Ivy and Rachel first met and what their first case was like. And they didn't get along right away--which we kind of knew from reading the books. But still the duo must put aside their differences and work together to get the case solved. Which is a nightmare, weres are being murdered for some reason and it's up to Ivy and Rachel to put an end to it.

Again, this was my first time reading a graphic novel and it was pretty enjoyable. Sure I read comics when I was a kid; comic strips and the Scooby Doo comic series (yup, I'm a Scooby girl, born and bred and working on getting my niece hooked!). So one thing I did struggle with was how the frames were arranged. At times I wasn't sure which way I was supposed to go, but backtracking wasn't a horrendous affair! And really I only got misdirected once or twice out of the whole book.

Since this is just Ivy and Rachel, Jenks wasn't there. Hopefully he'll popup in the next one! I really want him there to add some laughs to the duo. Ivy, as we know is all about the rules and doing things by the book, while Rachel is a little more spontaneous! So the two working together resulted in some funny moments.

Kisten was there too! YAY KISTEN! He LIVES!! It was sooo good to see him again! And REALLY see him this time too, not just my image of him! He makes a pretty good animated dude if I do say so myself!

Surprisingly there was a bit of an open-ended ending. From hearing Kim talk on her blog, there is going to be another one in the works. It just takes time to do put it all together! The ending even brings in another character that we're familiar with...or maybe not! Yeah, I'm speculating on who the mysterious character is, but I have a very good guess!!

At the end of the book there's also some extras, like seeing the earlier sketches of the characters, the making of a graphic novel in a simple step-by-step guide and a short conversation with Kim about the graphic novel! It was a really awesome read and one I recommend to Hollows fans! I sooo can't wait to read the next one or even The Hollows Insider which comes out in October! This is definitely a year of Kim with 4 books! 1 adult, 1 YA, 1 graphic novel, and 1 super cool book with details of the Hollows world!

Overall rating 4.5/5 stars