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Mardel
, July 30, 2009
(view all comments by Mardel)
The Sweet Scent of Blood is #1 in the Spellcrackers.com series, and the debut novel of Suzanne McLeod.
Suzanne McLeod writes about an alternative reality London, where Vampires and Witches have been around for hundreds of years, with an uneasy truce between them. In fact the vampires have taken advantage of public relations and marketed themselves as celebrities. Along for the story are Sidhe Fae and all sorts of "lesser" fae such as dryads, trolls, gremlins, brownies, pixies, satyrs, and others.
The main character is Genevieve Taylor (Genny) who is half sidhe fae and half something else (you find out later in the story). Genny works for an agency that helps deal with spell abuse, nasty spells, and spell detection called Spellcrackers.com. She has a talent for calling spells to her, or unraveling spells.
Genny is coerced into finding out the truth about the death of the girlfriend of a celebrity vampire. She is both stalled at every turn, and given "help" by unlikely people, help that she doesn't trust. Much more goes on in these pages, I was suprised at the ending (I rarely get surprised anymore), there are many entertaining and downright interesting scenes in this story.
The book flows from beginning to end, with nice little twists and some shivery moments, as well as some scares. Suzanne McLeod writes a great story with none of the awkward dialogue, or verbiosity that some newer writers use. It's nice to pick up a debut novel and be able to read it cover to cover, enjoying the entire thing- no awkwardness at all.
Something that works well for me-her "medical" fact based explanation of the vamp-virus, why humans crave the bite of the vamps, the chemical make-up of the virus that infects humans, causing a true addiction to their virus. Very well thought out. There is even a clinic devoted to helping vamp-virus addicts, much like clinics that we would have nowadays.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and was glad to see a sequel available (The Cold Kiss of Death). Ms McLeod is working on the third novel now (summer 09). Ms McLeod joins such writers as Lilith Saintcrow, Kim Harrison and Faith Hunter on my "auto-buy" list. The two books are definitely worth buying and keeping.
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