Christopher Farnsworth

Zach Barrows, ambitious White House staffer, made the mistake of sleeping with the President's daughter and now he's been reassigned as partner and handler of secret agent Nathaniel Cade. Cade's mission, given to him by President Andrew Johnson as part of a pardon for vampirism, is to protect the Union from supernatural horrors that the daylight world, and Zach, are not prepared to cope with.

Blood Oath is the first in the Nathaniel Cade series by Christopher Famsworth. Nathaniel Cade is the show more vampire version of Jack Reacher with a little bit of The West Wing thrown in. In this mission someone has been shipping dismembered American soldiers back to the States with the intention of reassembling them in a kind of frankensoldier based on old Nazi experiments.

Cade is more of what I'd consider a "classic" vampire. Ultra strong and fast, drinking blood helps him regenerate from wounds, severe sunlight allergy. He has a strong moral compass for a vampire that could make for some interesting situations in the future. Basically everything but the supernatural seduction because:

"Humans are our food. Do you want to have sex with a cow?”

Did I mention there's some humor too? On the flip side, Zach Barrows starts off highly unlikable and obnoxious. I believe this is by design so we can see his character grow as he adjusts to the full reality of his new job situation. I ended up with how well Zach handles himself by the end of the book.

I listened to the audio book narrated by Bronson Pinchot. It took me a bit to get used to the narration as he was more monotone than I prefer. It made more sense as the story went along and more characters were added which upped the variety of voices.

Famsworth had fun drawing inspiration from popular horror legends and weaving them together into an entertaining horror/thriller. Fair warning, there are a couple gory parts and one in particular that made me cringe. That said, I enjoyed the set up and I'm looking forward to continuing the series. show less

I like vampires...a lot. This is a love affair that started with Bram Stoker's Dracula, read way back in elementary school. Vampires used to be for adults only - scary, threatening, evil, and yet sexy - and I was okay with that. Then, the trend became to make them young, cool, still sexy, but not so evil; I was okay with that trend too. However, every once in a while, it does not hurt to go back to your roots, to where vampires were evil, scary and not friendly. Blood Oath does just that. show more Frightening and gory, these vampires are truly monsters. I thoroughly enjoyed myself on every page.

One of the surprising, better aspects of the book was the fact that it read like a screenplay. As a result, the entire book was extremely visual and engaging. There was the opening scene that hinted at what was to come, the closing scene that was a prelude to the next adventure in the story, a gratuitous sex scene, violence, language - in essence it was a rated R movie in book form. While this might seem like a turnoff, it worked very well with the story. Mr. Farnsworth is able to take the more visual aspects of the story and blend it seamlessly with the narration, allowing the reader to better empathize with each of the characters and thereby become more involved in the story itself.

Every time vampires appear in stories, the inevitable questions about death, mortality, free will, and monsters come to the fore. Again, Mr. Farnsworth bends these questions to better tell his story. How far should one go to cheat death? What makes a monster? If someone (or something) is acting within its nature, can we really fault them for it? Can we be happy without free will? While the book does not hold the answers, the reader is left with something to ponder long after reading the last page.

History, vampires, and a thriller - Blood Oath is literally the trifecta of awesomeness. A reader cannot help but fear and yet cheer Cade through his struggles. Zach is laughable but endearing, in a little brother-ish way. Mr. Farnsworth adds enough depth through his questions to make it more than just a quick page-turner. Blood Oath is complex in its ideas and detailed in its research and unique spin of history. Cade is not your teenager's vampire, and Blood Oath is not your typical light-hearted vampire fare. I cannot wait for the next book in the series, and I predict that others will be anxiously waiting along with me. show less

Fun romp. Not at all what I expected or feared of yet another vampire tale. The setup is that a vampire was pardoned by Pres. Andrew Johnson in exchange for a pledge to protect and serve all future presidents. Ridiculous right? BUT... it's a terrific page turner, with tight pacing, engaging characters, LOL funny in spots with very apt 'reshoots' of some historical scenes.
A bit like Kavalier & Clay superhero meets West Wing--just read it for the sheer pleasure of the outlandish.
And, this is show more the first in a planned series. I'm in. show less

I enjoyed the first book of the series. The second took a step back. I like Cade. He makes for some fun. This book took a lot of that fun away.

I admit, one of the things I loved about the earlier books was the quotes at the start of each chapter, especially those that give reference to the classified document "Nightmare Pet." Another thing I enjoy about this series is there is just the right mix of horror, humor, and commentary to make the book fun. This one has some infinitely awesome show more quotable material in the first 15 chapters. Though some of the back story chapters I'd probably drop to make the story flow better.

While the story line has the some of the usual fun, I felt like someone let the agent and editor loose in the text. Some of the writing felt forced and not where the author wanted to be.

Much as I don't like to or believe in celebrating death, I cheered when Cade killed off Megan Rourk, the most annoying character in the book to date. I wanted more to suffer a similar fate, as the book had a plethora of bad characters this time around.

This book doesn't hold up as well as the last two. It felt forced, too much like the editors were hip deep, rather than simply suggesting changes. Some of the story felt squished, like this could have been two or three books, rather than one.

I'd say yes for the first one, maybe for the second one, but NO to this one. show less