Review: Bloodlust

Michelle Rowen
PNR
283 pages
Nightshade #2
Chapter 1
Berkley Sensation

Synopsis:

For those who feast on blood, Jillian Conrad is a fatal attraction. After being injected with a serum that made her blood both irresistible and deadly to vampires, she was used as a pawn to assassinate the vampire king. Now, the vampires want her eliminated.

Hunted and unable to return to her old life, Jillian desperately seeks to prevent the poison in her veins from killing her. And she must find a way to help her dhampyr protector, Declan, whose exposure to the serum has split his personality into one part uncontrolled desire, and one part stone cold killer.

But an even greater danger is rising. The Amarantos – a secret society of vampires – is seeking the infant daughter of the slain king to complete their quest for true immortality. And if they succeed, no one, living or undead, will escape the darkness.

Review:

I am still shocked by the amount of twists and turns this book had in it. Just when I thought I was getting a grip of what was going to happen next, the author rips it out of my hands.  Some of it was well placed and exactly what the story needed to continue, and some of it wasn't.  It actually ended up created a weird pacing for me.  Normally I'm fueled to continue reading "just 1 more chapter" because I can't stop until event "whatever" happens, but here 14 other things happened on the way to that event, making me forget what I wanted to happen. It cooled off some of my original steam.  All in all though the story-line created a non-stop, adventurous, and dark ride.

The way the story unfolds, Jill spends nearly as much time with Matthias, as she does Declan, and it was great to see more than just the diabolic side of him here.  I actually got to a point in the book where I was genuinely rooting for him.  Yeah, crazy.  Additionaly, there were so many developments made this time, I felt like I needed to write them all down. Some many of the characters end up in places you never would have excepted, which was pretty cool.  In fact, the place where everyone ended up has really peaked my "what could possibly be next" interest.  It would be ideal if the next book took place 6 months later, allowing me to see some growth with the characters new positions.

Bottom Line: Super twisty un-guessable plot that, although drove me slightly crazy at times, was fun and opened up a world of possibilities for the rest of the series.

3 stars