Blood Bound (2007)

Hmmmm, I'm BLOWING through these at one every other day...so far, I'm still loving it! I would prefer that she sorts herself out regarding the love triangle, however. Even if it is quite a small part of the story so far, it rankles. ( )

This is the second instalment in the Mercy Thompson book series. The first one was essentially a werewolf story. This one expands the “bestiary” somewhat to include demons and vampires. Okay, there was a few mentions of vampires in the first one as well but the story of this book centres primarily around vampires.

As far as I am concerned the author handles vampires as well as she handles werewolves. The characters are interesting and there is a lot more to each of them than just sucking blood and general mayhem. Just as with the first book this is not about some devious plan for world domination but much more down to earth which, to me, is one thing that makes these books different from a lot of monster fiction.

The werewolves have also started to “come out” in this book in the sense that they have started to reveal themselves to the humans although it is more of a mentioning than a part of the plot. The vampires however are still hiding since it is considered “too scary” for the humans if they knew vampires where real. I find this a bit weak since when it has already been revealed to humans that faes and werewolves are real you have to be rather stupid not to believe vampires and a lot of other scary stuff would be real as well. That’s more of a minor nit-picking though.

There is a lot of talk about Mercy supposedly having some advantages against the vampires by being a “walker” but this part is never really becoming very developed. I guess it is in line with the general style of the book trying stay moderate with the monster and magic “effects” but I cannot help wishing for Mercy to get a bit more of an advantage every once in a while.

Bottom line is that I liked this book as much as the previous one and will surely continue to read this book series.
( )

It has taken me a long time to find the will to finish this book. But it was better than the first and it had more to do with my mood and lack of reading for a while than with this book.
It was darker and there was more of a story and I enjoyed it. ( )

While I wasn’t expecting a whole heck of a lot of drama in the second book in this series. I was hoping for a little more towards the end.
Mercy, gets a call from her vamp “friend” Stephan to accompany him on a little field trip. He calls her because she can shift into coyote form and most magic works differently on her than others. So her a Stephan make a trip to visit another vampire whom has not asked for permission to be in the area. While there it is not a great time for Mercy or Stephan because it turns out that the vamp in question is a sorcerer and has semi control of a demon.
The Sorcerer vamp be-spells Stephan and makes him believe that he is the one that killed the maid in the room. Mercy is in a harness and leash and can not escape and ends up getting hurt by the demon ridden vamp.
Eventually Mercy is called to the Seethe by the vamp mistress and ends up sitting in a magical chair that with the help of Wulfe can tell truth from a lie. After the mistress hears what really happens she allows Stephan to hunt this sorcerer vamp and Stephan takes two wolves from Adam’s pack, Warren and Ben.
Ben and Stephan are captured by the Sorcerer vamp and Warren is badly wounded. Of course you know that Mercy is ticked and wants to hunt him, so when the vamp mistress asks for her help and gives her use of Andre ( vamp mistress’s left hand man), Mercy has no problem accepting the “challenge”.
Zee and Uncle Mike give Mercy a vamp killing kit that includes a medallion that will cause the vamp it is used on to go up in flames once Mercy speaks it’s name.
After a little research on her own and the fact that she can see ghosts, Mercy figures out the vicinity that the sorcerer vamp is in and then it occurs to her that someone had to make this vamp and she comes to the conclusion that it was Andre.
I won’t spoil the entire book, but in the end almost all is well and Mercy does something that in the long run could cost her her life. ( )

Sequel to Moon Called and very similar. The vampires are seriously creepy and not people anyone would want to spend time with. They are attracted to people, but sorry, not because they love the heroine's lovely body. They're just ready for lunch. ( )