The minute I heard that Shannon Mayer (one of my favorite urban fantasy writers of all time) and Denise Grover Swank (a favorite of mine, as well) were teaming up to write a book, I got all excited and giddy. It had to be good, right? I mean, these two on their own are amazing writers and successful authors, so I figured the Blood Borne Series was certain to be worthwhile.
Turns out I was right.
Rachel is a reporter who stumbles across a huge story that involves murder, vampires, military experiments, corrupt government, danger, and Lea.
Lea is a vampire and a cazador. A hunter. She hunts her own kind, determined to eradicate the vampire virus from the earth.
Together, Lea and Rachel take on a vast conspiracy and some very nasty people and creatures in order to get to the bottom of things. There's action, adventure, violence, a little blood, love and pain, and everything else that makes for a great story.
All books have things in them that someone here or there won't enjoy, and this book had one of those for me. I'm not going to say what, because you might like it and I don't want to influence your opinion of this book. Suffice it to say that the story was compelling enough, and the writing engaging enough, that my dislike of one aspect didn't convince me to put the book down. I read this book in a total of about four hours and loved it overall.
The most notable thing about this book is that the shift between writers and characters is flawless. You absolutely cannot tell which woman is penning a particular segment. So often, when a book has more than one writer, the shifts between authors can be distracting, or even detrimental to the story. Not so here. It's almost as if Mayer and Swank are the same person, but . . . wait! I have never seen them in a room together! Could it be? No, of course not. But really, the writing here is smooth, intense, appealing, and utterly seamless. Swank and Mayer pull this off like they've been writing together for decades.
Overall, this was a really enjoyable story, featuring a couple of tough, strong, intelligent, resourceful, heroic women. They don't need rescuing, they do the rescuing. Gotta love the girl power!
The Bookish Bitch gives this book 5 bottles of Happy Bitch wine:
And one bottle of Jealous Bitch. Because I wish I'd written this. It's that good.
Click on the picture of the book to order this on Amazon, starting Tuesday, October 27.
