Author: Stuart Land
Title: Original Blood
ASIN: B004LROREI
Publisher: Stuart
Land (2011)
Disclaimer: Copy
received for review purposes.
| 
My rating: 4 of 5
stars
“-ORIGINAL BLOOD is the delicious, but tormenting tale of Zondra and Gailene as they’re turned into vampires against their will. Separated by two centuries but bound by familial blood that threatens to destroy the vampire nation, Zondra experiences a mind-bending skewed Cinderella story with hot motorcycles, limitless money, and ancient mansions teeming with the undead, while Gailene must rise from devastation, rage, and vengeance to become a powerful vampire leader in the New World. Both women are forced to overcome their circumstances, one of privilege, one of destitution, to gain the power that will save themselves and the man they both love from the retribution of their creator-“ GoodReads’ blurb
Original Blood has
been a extremely difficult book to evaluate for me. Overall, I did enjoy it,
and the quality of the writing is more than average, but there were a couple of
things I did not care much for. Let’s take it step by step:
The storyline here
follows two women from the same family: the one was turned into a vampire in
the England contemporaneous to the French Revolution, and the other lives in
current day States. Little by little, the lives of these two women begin mixing
up, and both of them change as the new events are incorporated to their
characters, and everything coalesces into a final confrontation against a man,
a vampire. This was the part that I enjoyed the most. Not only did the
characters, Zondra and Gailene, change and evolve little by little, but their
discoveries about what is happening lead the reader into understanding the
events. The voices are different, yes, but it’s more than just two people being
different: when we switch from present to past, the whole style of narration
changes, and it truly feels as if we had gone from a modern supernatural novel
into a classic novel with gothic horror tinges.
This book gripped me from
the beginning, leaving me eager to find out what was going on, but I’ve to
admit that as the story progressed, it became more and more obvious that the
answers I sought would be a long time coming, and that Original Blood was more
a story meant to be enjoyed, sitting back and travelling from past to future,
watching the world change and peeking into the roles Gailene and her vampires
have played into well-known events – and how that’s going to affect Zondra
today. Therefore, if you pick this one up hoping for a quick, thrilling read,
you might be disappointed. Otherwise, the prose is really smooth and enjoyable.
I said there were two
things I didn’t really care for, though. That’d be an excess of eroticism and
the final confrontation itself.
Now, I’m not exactly
a shy reader, no matter how much YA I review in this blog. I enjoy the eye
candy as much as anyone, but I found that in this case, the relationships with
the two vampire woman don’t serve to advance the character of Gailene, but do weaken
her romance with Jeremiah. And taking into account that Jeremiah’s the link in
the chain between past and future, the reason Zondra’s how she is, and in some
way the catalyst of the final confrontation, I think his importance would have
been underlined if he’d been more unique. I’m not saying that Gailene shouldn’t
have had another person in her life, but I’d have wanted this (or these) other
person to help the character growth rather than just be. As it was, instead of
making Zondra and Jeremiah precious, I felt they were just another couple and
that was such a pity. When the main character gets almost as much pleasure from
riding a bike with her best girl friend, from drinking an Amaretto, or from
sleeping with the lover of her life...
The other grip I have
with this one is the climax, as it were. We’ve spent the whole novel building
up to a revelation – waiting for Zondra to remember the Jeremiah from her
ancestor’s life. We’ve been conscious of lurking danger, and finally we know
what that danger is. And I even get why it was solved the way it was, why it’d
take such actions to finally end the hostilities, but... It came a bit too
abruptly for me. It was over a bit too soon. I can’t go into more detail
without spoiling the book for you, but I was left wondering, okay, now what?
That’s why it was so
difficult to rate Original Blood. As far as quality is concerned, you won’t be
disappointed. The novel is very good indeed, better than a lot of legacy
published titles. I have to note that. I also have to note that I can’t
recommend this book to any and all, because some readers might be uncomfortable.
What I can do, though, is guarantee that if what I’ve called “the weakest
points” in the novel don’t bother you, then you should definitely read it,
because it’s worth it. So, there you go: my four stars with a warning.
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