Jennifer Armintrout, Blood Ties: Possession

Blood Ties: Possession

Jennifer Armintrout

Mira, Feb 2007, $6.99

ISBN: 0778324184

The vampire broke through the gray veil to pull Cyrus back from the realm of the dead to the living. Realizing he is a weak human surrounded by vampires, Cyrus vows to cut out the heart of Carrie who killed him when he was bloodsucker.

In Grand Rapids, Carrie lives with Nathan who saved her life when her former sire Cyrus almost killed her. However, at their apartment she is attacked by a berserker demon, who to her shock turns out to be Nathan. He flees just before he would have killed her. She calls their best friend vampire Max Harrison, who tells her he will be right over.

Cyrus learns from the weak female in the church with him that a priest and nun were slaughtered there, but she is to keep him alive. At about the same time Max calls the Volunteer Vampire Extinction Movement who flies them to their headquarters in Madrid where they learn a maniac has sliced the throats of women back in Grand Rapids and General Breton tells them he believes Nathan has become a killer who must die. While Carrie visits the oldest vampire, the Oracle, who tells her Cyrus is back and to beware of the Soul Eater, who happens to be Cyrus' father, Breton assigns the murder of Nathan to werewolf Bella DeCesare. Soon everyone will collide in Grand Rapids.

The key to the second Blood Ties tale (see BLOOD TIES: THE TURNING) is that readers will believe that vampires and werewolves are real species because the cast is solid and deep. The two subplots consistently intermingle and cross. This leads to an electrifying, action-packed storyline that contains a strong psychological suspense element yet never slows down until the climax but the audience will not know what to expect until the final collision.

Harriet Klausner