Paranormal romance fans
who are looking to up the ante will be drawn to this tale of horror,
fantasy, and romance. For Mab Prowd, the practice of blood magic is as
natural as breathing. It's all she's ever known. Growing up on an
isolated farm in Kansas with other practitioners may have kept her from
making friends her own age, but it has also given her a sense of
purpose—she's connected to the land and protective of the magic. And she
is able to practice it proudly and happily out in the open with only
the crows as her companions. Mab will do anything to keep the ancient
practice alive and guard its secrets. But one morning while she is
working out a particularly tricky spell she encounters Will, a local boy
who is trying to exorcise some mundane personal demons. He experiences
Mab's magic in a way his mind cannot comprehend and is all too happy to
end their chance meeting. But secrets that were kept from Mab by the
earlier generations of blood magicians have come home to roost. And she
and Will are drawn back together, time again by this dangerous force
looking to break free from the earth and reclaim its own dark power.
I received this e-ARC from the publishers via Netgalley for review
Tessa Gratton's The Blood Keeper is the second in her series, The Blood Journals. It's been so long since I read the first book, I was worried I would be lost. Well, it wasn't too much of a problem since this book features new characters! But the old ones are still there too!
Mab is a powerful blood witch, constantly surrounded by crows. Will is a normal Joe, but one day he sees something kinda weird, and later discovers that he didn't escape unscathed. He turns to Mab for help since she is known for being a little "odd", yet he soon sees the other side to her "oddness".
Dark and powerful magic is involved. Will is cursed and Mab may be the only one to save him. To add to her problems, a younger boy is also there because he needs a curse removed.
While the storytelling was good, for some reason I just could not get into this book as much as I recall getting into the first one. I struggle to write this review even, since it took me a few days longer to read this book. It's not that it was a bad read, it just kind of lost me at times. I feel like I was struggling to remember the first book so much that I wasn't really enjoying the second one because of it.
Old characters do in fact return, Silla, Nick, and the ravens we know as Reese. But Silla and Nick are not really there for the most part, since this is Mab and Will's story. There was also chapters that didn't have the narrator's name at the top, which was confusing at first. But then I realized these were excerpts from another character at another time. Perhaps that added to my confusion with the book. But we soon learn who these characters are and their roles into the story now. And it does end up playing a big part!
The pacing was probably somewhere down the middle for me. It moved fine at times, but every once in awhile I felt like it lagged a bit. But it usually picked up again as well!
Overall I feel like this was just sort of an average book for me. The first one I thought was a little "bloodier" for being The Blood Journals. There's still blood in this one of course, but not as much as I remember from the first one. Still, the concept of blood magic and how these characters use it, makes for an interesting read!
Overall rating 3/5 stars
The Blood Keeper releases August 28, 2012
Whoa... For some reason I thought that this was a prequel of sorts to the first. Obviously I was wrong! Clearly I should learn to *actually* read synopsis'. ;)
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