The Blood Books, Vol. 3 (Blood Debt / Blood Bank)
Registered by emmejo of Cincinnatus, New York USA on 1/23/2015
This book is in a Controlled Release!
3 journalers for this copy...
After Vicki turned, Henry settled into his own territory. But when he is being haunted and can't make the spirits leave on his own, he has to find a way around one of the basic natures of a vampire: extreme territoriality, leading to the urge to kill any other vamp on sight, because he needs Vicki's help.
The author admits that she didn't intend to write this book, and it does feel a little disconnected from the previous tales, but is a solid mystery and gives the reader a chance to examine more of the vampire world.
The rest of this book is a set of short stories featuring these characters. My favorites were:
"This Town Ain't Big Enough" where we see Vicki strike out on her own and figure out how to balance work and her new un-dead state.
"The Vengeful Spirit of Lake Nepeakea" balanced humor and horror perfectly, with a love-to-hate antagonist.
"Someone to Share the Night" was a short, humorous tale on attempted supernatural dating.
"Sceleratus" gives us some back story on Henry's history and is both dark and sad, giving us an expansion on the bits we see of this tale in the main series.
The author admits that she didn't intend to write this book, and it does feel a little disconnected from the previous tales, but is a solid mystery and gives the reader a chance to examine more of the vampire world.
The rest of this book is a set of short stories featuring these characters. My favorites were:
"This Town Ain't Big Enough" where we see Vicki strike out on her own and figure out how to balance work and her new un-dead state.
"The Vengeful Spirit of Lake Nepeakea" balanced humor and horror perfectly, with a love-to-hate antagonist.
"Someone to Share the Night" was a short, humorous tale on attempted supernatural dating.
"Sceleratus" gives us some back story on Henry's history and is both dark and sad, giving us an expansion on the bits we see of this tale in the main series.
Added to the Vampire Bookbox
I've read this one, so I'm leaving it in the Vampire Bookbox for someone else, but did want to add my comments:
Blood Debt is the fifth and final "Blood" novel, and takes place after some very significant changes in the lives of all the major characters, so it could be even more of a spoiler than other books in the series; if you like reading your series-books in order, take note!
The story opens with Henry finding himself the unwilling recipient of ghostly visitations - from spirits that are apparently in desperate need of his help. They target Tony as well, causing even more tension between the two - and, eventually, forcing Henry to ask Vicky for help, even though they had both thought it would be impossible, or at least highly dangerous, for them to ever meet again...
The collected short stories are good, some dark, some amusing; they fill in details between and after the novels - and in some cases include spoilers, so if you haven't read the novels and don't want to know who ends up where or with whom, save the stories for later. [I think most of them stand alone fairly well, but they're more interesting when you know the back-stories.] Most of the stories focus on Vicki, but "Someone to Share the Night" is an amusing/bittersweet tale about Henry, and "Sceleratus" includes some details about Henry's past.
Then there's "So This is Christmas," an impressive, darkly humorous but wrenching take on A Christmas Carol, with Vicki in the Scrooge role; she doesn't want to spend Christmas with her lover's family (and isn't much interested in celebrating at all, for reasons which I won't mention because they're spoiler-y). The spirits are in the form of the other main characters in the series, and each delivers the appropriate message in a manner suitable to the character; Tony's is especially amusing, but I had to laugh when one of the "see how loving families celebrate" scenes featured a family of werewolves!
But the spirit of Christmas Yet To Come... Whew! There are spoiler-related reasons why I can't go into detail there, but it shocked me - even when I realized that it was the perfect choice given the situation. Dickens' old chestnut of a story has been re-done many and many a time, and here it holds up under the most - unorthodox - treatment...
[There's a TV Tropes page on the series that may be of interest, but do beware of spoilers if you haven't read all the books yet.]
Blood Debt is the fifth and final "Blood" novel, and takes place after some very significant changes in the lives of all the major characters, so it could be even more of a spoiler than other books in the series; if you like reading your series-books in order, take note!
The story opens with Henry finding himself the unwilling recipient of ghostly visitations - from spirits that are apparently in desperate need of his help. They target Tony as well, causing even more tension between the two - and, eventually, forcing Henry to ask Vicky for help, even though they had both thought it would be impossible, or at least highly dangerous, for them to ever meet again...
The collected short stories are good, some dark, some amusing; they fill in details between and after the novels - and in some cases include spoilers, so if you haven't read the novels and don't want to know who ends up where or with whom, save the stories for later. [I think most of them stand alone fairly well, but they're more interesting when you know the back-stories.] Most of the stories focus on Vicki, but "Someone to Share the Night" is an amusing/bittersweet tale about Henry, and "Sceleratus" includes some details about Henry's past.
Then there's "So This is Christmas," an impressive, darkly humorous but wrenching take on A Christmas Carol, with Vicki in the Scrooge role; she doesn't want to spend Christmas with her lover's family (and isn't much interested in celebrating at all, for reasons which I won't mention because they're spoiler-y). The spirits are in the form of the other main characters in the series, and each delivers the appropriate message in a manner suitable to the character; Tony's is especially amusing, but I had to laugh when one of the "see how loving families celebrate" scenes featured a family of werewolves!
But the spirit of Christmas Yet To Come... Whew! There are spoiler-related reasons why I can't go into detail there, but it shocked me - even when I realized that it was the perfect choice given the situation. Dickens' old chestnut of a story has been re-done many and many a time, and here it holds up under the most - unorthodox - treatment...
[There's a TV Tropes page on the series that may be of interest, but do beware of spoilers if you haven't read all the books yet.]
This book rode to the end of the Vampire bookbox and didn't find a new reader, so it will be setting out on another reader-hunt shortly
Sent out as a RABCK.
Tracking number: 9114 9011 8986 6568 3316 70
Tracking number: 9114 9011 8986 6568 3316 70
Thank you emmejo, I appreciate it. <3 Can't wait to read it! Actually, I should probably reread the previous one first, it's been a while.
I don't have the space I used to to collect volumes of books. :( I have these on ebook now though.
I recently discovered that a channel on my Roku TV runs the TV show adapted from the books and really enjoy watching them!
Bookcrossing
n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.
(added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary in August 2004)
Please take a moment to let me/us know that you've found this book by writing a journal entry. You can make a journal entry without becoming a member of the site. If you do join, your level of anonymity is up to you as others will know you only by your username, and no one is ever given your email address. You can now do whatever you want with the book - keep it, give it to a friend, release it back into the wild, etc. You don't have to read the book, but if you do I hope you enjoy it.
BookCrossing is free (paying for the extra features is entirely optional) and there is no spam mail involved. The only emails you will receive are journal entries on books that you yourself have also journaled, and maybe the odd private message from other bookcrossers. For more information about BookCrossing, check out the homepage and the FAQs.
http://bookcrossing.com/
http://www.bookcrossing.com/faqs
I recently discovered that a channel on my Roku TV runs the TV show adapted from the books and really enjoy watching them!
Congratulations on finding a BookCrossing book!
Bookcrossing
n. the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise.
(added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary in August 2004)
Please take a moment to let me/us know that you've found this book by writing a journal entry. You can make a journal entry without becoming a member of the site. If you do join, your level of anonymity is up to you as others will know you only by your username, and no one is ever given your email address. You can now do whatever you want with the book - keep it, give it to a friend, release it back into the wild, etc. You don't have to read the book, but if you do I hope you enjoy it.
BookCrossing is free (paying for the extra features is entirely optional) and there is no spam mail involved. The only emails you will receive are journal entries on books that you yourself have also journaled, and maybe the odd private message from other bookcrossers. For more information about BookCrossing, check out the homepage and the FAQs.
http://bookcrossing.com/
http://www.bookcrossing.com/faqs