Blood Oath (edition 2011)

Read and reviewed in 2010 from copy provided by Amazon Vine in exchange for an honest review.

Once I started reading this book, I did not want to put it down - it is fabulous! It could be described as sort of a vampire meets James Bond meets Charles Stross' Laundry (On Her Majesty's Occult Service), but with a few twists all of its own - such as the fact that the author uses actual events from the history of the US as a base for the book! (See The President's Vampire: Strange-but-True Tales of the United States of America and Oval Office Occult: True Stories of White House Weirdness for just two of the books he references).

Zach Burrows has been working hard in the White House - he is ambitious and has plans to go places and be someone. Then, to his surprise and chagrin, he finds himself relegated to a top secret position as the partner to the president's secret weapon - a vampire named Nathaniel Cade, who was pardoned from a death sentence 140 years ago contingent on taking a blood oath to protect the President (then Andrew Jackson) and those under the President's orders. Cade and Burrows are there to tackle the sorts of problems that most people don't even know exist - and probably wouldn't believe exist if they were to find out.

Keeping in mind that what I was reading was a bound galley, I also have to comment that this is the cleanest text I have seen since ... I can't remember when. I didn't notice any typos, grammatical issues or continuity errors (that's not to say there weren't any, just that they weren't obvious enough to catch my eye), and this on only the galley - I'm impressed. If only more books were this clean when they were published in the FINAL form!

That said - this is the first book in a promised series, and I for one can NOT wait to see where it goes. I'm hooked already - write fast, Mr. Farnsworth - write like the wind. You have one die-hard fan here already! ( )

Empty calories. ( )

3.5 stars. it's a lot of fun, but in a popcorn-chomping summer movie kind of way.

zach is a bratty, entitled white house staffer, straight out of central casting's stock of "smart-mouthed whippersnappers." for reasons he never completely figures out, he gets assigned to be the liaison for the president's vampire. turns out, Andy Jackson bound the bloodsucker with a magical oath to uphold the integrity of the union, so the US has its own one-man black ops team; supernatural hijinx ensue, ass is kicked.

this book reads a whole lot like a summer action flick. it's quick and compellingly readable, full of the sort of sassy, snappy (i.e., ridiculous) dialogue that Bruce Willis would toss out of the corner of his artfully bruised mouth during a torture/interrogation scene. both of the major characters are fairly one-dimensional, and besides a couple of bit parts, there's not really any women to get in the way of the budding bromance. villains get to monologue as heroes realize they just screwed up. flipping to the back page's author's blurb, one finds out that he's a Hollywood screenwriter, so the only surprise at this point is that they haven't gotten around to filming this just yet. ( )

Pure-dee fun! Really enjoyed this one, and will be starting book II (The President's Vampire) shortly. Really clever premise and execution. While the bad guys are as bad as you think, it may be that not all the good guys are as good as all that. Well worth the read. ( )

Enjoyable and fast-paced, though I'm not sure if it was hardcover worthy. ( )