Author: K.J. Wignall
Published: September 2011
Publisher: Egmont USA
Series: Mercian Trilogy #1
272 pages (galley)
I got a copy of this book from the ever-wonderful NetGalley. I was interested in reading a book about vampires, especially after I heard that Blood dealt with the more ‘traditional’ vampire. However, I didn’t really end up enjoying this particular story very much.
The plot of Blood is a little too obscure for my liking, but it certainly has potential; I think it was the execution of said ideas that dragged the story down a bit. It’s about William, Earl of Mercia, who “fell ill” (that’s lingo for “turned into a vampire”) in the 1200’s and was buried away in a crypt. Over the past 800 or so years, he’ll wake up every so often to feed on human blood.
The story opens up with Will waking up and looks for a person to feed on, as per his usual routine, as well as feeling sorry for himself and wondering if he’ll ever find the person who turned him into a vampire so he can exact his revenge. Will finds a homeless person and kills him, drinking his blood, but when he peeks through the homeless person’s notebook and sees his name in it, he becomes intrigued and wonders if destiny brought him to this man. Flipping through it some more, he sees some sketches of this girl who, coincidentally enough, he runs into later in the story. He is sure that somehow, this girl (Eloise) is connected to him, based on the writings/prophecies/notes in the notebook, and that he is approaching his “destiny”, the reason he became a vampire.
So, I think the plot is okay, and the story as whole is okay, but I felt like it was built on a lot of funky coincidences and truthfully, it wasn’t written in the most captivating manner. It’s good writing, but as I was reading, I felt disconnected from the story a lot; I couldn’t fully immerse myself into the world.
I wasn’t a big fan of all the coincidences in the story — which Will handily calls destiny. Will encountered the homeless guy who coincidentally had all these notes about him, and then he coincidentally he meets Eloise, the same girl talked about in the notebook, and Eloise coincidentally knows Chris and Rachel, who have seen Will in 1989 and recognize him and actually remember him, and they coincidentally are really interested in paranormal stuff … it just felt like the story is in danger of crossing over to the deus ex machina side quite often, as it relied on the destiny card quite a bit. I understand that Will’s character has a destiny laid out for him (apparently), but it was not laid out by a god. It was laid out by the villain, who has a use for Will. So I don’t understand how destiny is causing Will to run into all these characters who are so intertwined or related to his story.
The characters were rather mediocre and weren’t very likeable or memorable. Will reminded me greatly of Edward Cullen: vampire, good looks, kind of melancholic, wants to just die and be done with “living”, chivalric, etc. and that immediately made me not like him too much. Eloise struck me as an idiot. She comes from a privileged family, but decided to live on the streets because no one was paying enough attention to her. Chris and Rachel are easily forgettable, as their entire purpose seemed to boil down to being Will and Eloise’s chauffeurs.As for the villains, you don’t really meet them, nor do you get a clear picture as to their goals and motivations. Well, you do meet one villain at the end, but he’s really just the servant of the true villain.
The relationships between characters weren’t logical to me. I didn’t understand why Eloise was happy to disclose her real name to Will, who she’s only known a day, but reveals that she’s been using an alias around Chris and Rachel, who she’s known for much longer and swears are perfectly good people. I also didn’t understand why nobody freaked out or disbelieved the fact that Will was a vampire; everyone seemed to more or less accept it. I understand that Eloise, Chris and Rachel, due to their personalities, want to believe in vampires and other paranormal creatures, but wanting to believe is not quite the same as actually encountering one … and knowing he’s just killed a man yesterday … I feel like these characters aren’t believable in that sense. Most people would be more wary, at the very least, instead of eagerly rolling up their sleeves and offering any help they can to find the vampire’s attacker.
There isn’t very much romance in this book, which I was surprised because a lot of YA paranormal books (especially vampires!) have a romance component in them. It was definitely a welcome change, but what little romance there was in the book happened quite quickly. I am not sure at what point Will and Eloise started liking one another — one second they’re trying to unravel the mystery of Will’s ‘destiny’, the next second, they are locking lips. Nevertheless, the romance is so downplayed and minor in this story that I didn’t really mind the InstaLove.
The story moves pretty slow, and when it ended, it didn’t feel like anything was resolved. As the entire story revolved around Will moping about what his destiny is and all that, it was quite disappointing when the book ended and we still don’t find out what the destiny is. Will does find his attacker, but it was quickly resolved, so fast that if you blink, you would have missed it. I feel like since trilogies and series are a trend in YA, this book decided to follow that path as well, but I honestly feel this story should be a stand-alone book. I’ve said this about a number of YA series now — when you write a series, each individual book still feel conclusive. You can’t just say, “Oh, well, you’ll find the answers in the next book!” The reader shouldn’t finish the first book having discovered nothing. Or barely anything. For example, in the Harry Potter series, each book wraps up that particular books secrets, mysteries and plots, but the overarching plot continues on in the next book (namely, fighting Voldemort). It would be extremely unsatisfying to read The Chamber of Secrets and not find out where the notebook came from, or who Tom Riddle is, until two books later.
Anyway, for all my complaints, this book really was just okay. It’s not horrible, but it could have been a lot better. I think if you are not much of an inquisitive person when reading books, you might enjoy this, but if you are like me and ask a lot of questions, then this may be one better left unread. As a side note, I am also not a fan of this cover. It looks cheaply Photoshop’d, with the gradient text and the blood-splatter brushes. Also, the half-naked guy with abs on the cover is kind of cheesy and strikes me as a romance novel rather than YA. Is that supposed to be Will? I don’t think earls from the 1200s have abs because noble people don’t really do much physical labour back in those days … I don’t know. Just some of my random thoughts.
My Rating: 2/5
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