Urban Fantasy
223 pages
By Light Unseen Publishing
Blood Justice begins with the brutal murder of Justine Kroft's daughter. After her husband's death ten years prior, Justine's life has consisted of her job and her daughter, little else. So facing the loss of her daughter is devastating. After she discovers that her daughter was killed by vampires, Justine will stop at nothing, including becoming a vampire herself in order to avenge her daughter's death and destroy her killers.
Burton did a great job of making the grief our protag feels real for me. I'm not a mother, but the despair Justine emits had me imagining such a loss easily. Justine is driven by first grief and eventually revenge. And I love a good revenge story. The idea that a normal, extraordinary person can have such strength was interesting to watch.
Once Justine crosses paths with Simone, a 350 year old vampire, and Justine decides that she wants to be turned into a vampire as well, the story hit a bit of a rough patch for me. I enjoyed the introduction of all the new characters, but some of the character motivations weren't as sharply defined as I generally like. For example, Simone decides she wants to help Justine avenge her daughter after their first encounter. Simone has some revenge of her own to seek out, but she's been around for 350 years. Why has she decided that now is finally the time to dish out justice for what was done to her? We get some great flashbacks from Simone, but very little insight into the here and now. It's not nearly irksome enough to ruin the whole book; I just wish things were a little tighter.
Overall the book has some editing issues to work through, but the story is an interesting one and has some great ideas throughout. Even though I found it hard to understand why some of the characters were making certain decisions I found them all interesting and easy to root for.
Bottom Line: A good revenge plot with an interesting cast that needs a little tweaking.
2.5 stars
*Book was given to me by the author for review
It's too bad you didn't click better with this book but you wrote the review very well! Great job!
ReplyDeleteThanks Julie. Good premise with a lot of potential
ReplyDeleteYour review matches what I've heard from the book, but I still can't wait to read it!
ReplyDeleteSounds like this is a great start. :) Great review for the book though. :) Thanks! Something new for me.
ReplyDeleteColette: You should definitely read, Issues for me may be non-issues for you :)
ReplyDeleteMelissa: I just wanted more from my characters. Love a good revenge story!
ReplyDelete