Customer Reviews

Blood Red

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lauren Crow, Deanna Marin and Heidi Weiss head to New Orleans for Heidi's bachelorette party. For fun, the three girls seek out a fortune teller and pressure Lauren to go along. When Lauren looks into the crystal ball and hears the warning, suddenly all the shadows in night-time New Orleans take on a malevolent tone. To make matters worse, a stranger seems to appear wherever she goes. Even when she learns his name, Mark Davidson, can she trust him? She is mysteriously drawn to him despite his strange behavior. Mark Davidson follows women, carrying vampire weapons, claiming to protect them. Does his obsession with Lauren, a look-alike for his murdered fiancee, hide a more dangerous obsession?

Lauren is actually a smart heroine unlike in many thrillers, having common sense, but it is her friends that seem to lead her into trouble. She doesn't want to ruin her friend's bacherlorette party so she goes along with them despite her misgivings and against the advice of the fortune teller. The events surrounding and personalities of Lauren's friends add to the suspense of this novel. Although the back cover blurb intrigued, I enjoyed this book much more than I expected. Don't read it in the dark with a book light unless you want an extra chill. The way Heather Graham writes the images of shadows and darkness mixed with the shadows on the ceiling from my book light in an almost bat-like image over a full moon. Chilling indeed! This book is definitely a suspense/thriller with some romance in addition to the paranormal aspect. The first scene in the prologue is very creepy (lots of blood) but, fortunately for readers a little more faint of heart, the creepiness turns more and more into a suspense-laden read with creepy undertones and some crime violence instead of an all out creepy blood-drenched mayhem.

A couple of aspects of this book make this book a great read. Blood Red is infused with a level of humor, particularly in some of the tools to fight the vampires, that keeps this novel from getting too dark. The thrilling part of this thriller for me is that I always kept wondering who the bad guys really were. I thought I knew and I did at times, but the author always kept me guessing and imagining all sorts of scenarios. Readers with imagination will enjoy the twists and turns.

The book has a youthful tone that made me think of some horror movies. You know how in horror movies the girl always does something stupid that a normal person would never do? In this thriller, Heather Graham writes the heroine quite well. Unlike the stereotypical thriller heroine, readers understand why Lauren left the safety to do things that might endanger her and not just remain a catatonic person, immobile and waiting to be a victim...and I probably would have done what she did as well given her courage.

Warning for readers sensitive to violence: crime violence including decapitated bodies and blood in this thriller.

They say everyone has a twin, but being the twin of deceased Katya could prove fatal for Lauren Crow. All over New Orleans, women are vanishing, and according to a handsome, mysterious stranger, it's because of a vampire who is after Lauren because she appears to be identical to another young woman. As it happens, that woman was also this man, Mark Davidson's, fiancee. He wants to keep Lauren safe, but he can only do so if she is willing to accept the unbelievable, not just that there are vampires, but that there are some who are good. Is he crazy, or can she trust him with not only her life, but those of her friends, and even with a city's fate?

**** Ms. Graham's fans will recognize some character names from prior novels and welcome the chance to see how they are doing now. Lauren is a credible heroine who carries this classic plot off well. Fans of vampire romance should not be disappointed. ****

Amanda Killgore

Lauren Crow is not having a good time.

After accompanying her friends Heidi and Deanna on a trip to New Orleans to celebrate Heidi's upcoming wedding, she receives bad news: her life is in danger.

The giver of this news is Susan, a fortune teller in Jackson Square. She stares into her crystal ball and tells Lauren to leave, to take her friends and go. Something stalks her, something wants her and she is in danger.

As if that weren't bad enough, she is being followed by a man named Mark Davidson. After finding Lauren in a New Orleans bar, he doesn't want to let her out of his sight. She is the spitting image of Katie, his first love, who was killed so many years ago by a murderous vampire.

Mark knows that if he lets Lauren out of his sight for one moment, Stephan will claim Lauren for his just like he did Katie. Lauren, however, is having none of this. She doesn't believe in vampire mumbo jumbo and won't accept the truth.

Until the vampire starts to hunt one of her friends. Suddenly the danger they are all in is very real and Lauren must rely on Mark for help. She must also try to ignore the growing passion that sparks to life between them.

But some things don't always go as planned...

Blood Red manages to breathe new life into the tired genre of vampire fiction and it does it extremely well. Having never read a book by Heather Graham before I wasn't sure what to expect; I didn't know if I was in for a bodice ripper with fangs or a book with fangs with a touch of fire. Thankfully it was the latter.

What makes Blood Red so successful is the characters. Lauren is no cardboard cut out heroine. She is tough and stands well on her own two feet. Mark Davidson, vampire hunter, isn't the rough and ready macho man that so many hero's end up being. In short, they aren't caricatures. They feel like living, breathing people.

Graham also manages to throw a new twist on vampire lore that works beautifully. They're still harmed by holy water but Graham has a few new twists up her sleeve. I love when an author take a paranormal element that's already been done to death and makes it his or her own. Graham excels in the paranormal and it never comes off feeling hokey or fake. You will honestly believe, even if for an instant, that vampires exist.

In short, I loved this book. I was hooked from the first page and couldn't stop reading. It's the perfect cure for a case of the blues or to make your summer night red hot. It has something to please everyone: suspense, romance, thrills, and paranormal elements. Graham manages to be deft at juggling all her balls and never drops a single one.

If you haven't fallen under Graham's spell yet, what are you waiting for? Blood Red is an absolute flat out fantastic book and you'll love every bloody moment of it.

To me, this story was boring and predictable. I barely made it through and skipped through a lot of it just to find out how it ended, although I didn't care as much as I could have because the characters were one-dimensional.

Considering the multitude of vampire tales available these days, I wasn't expecting Heather Graham to come up with as entertaining a twist as she did here. Three L. A. gals are having a bachelorette party for one of them in New Orleans and of course in a city filled with fortune tellers, they do have to try one. Of course, the one they pick happens to be a true psychic and the reading for the one member of the party, Lauren, turns nightmarish. Next up, they encounter a charming stranger who is struck by Lauren's resemblence to his murdered former love and fiance. He does appear to be crazed, obsessed with tracking down vampires. Heather Graham does a good job of cloaking him in mystery and keeping all three of the young women in jeopardy up to and including a horrendous climax.Graham introduces us to some entrancing characters including the mysterious Jonas, Susan the fortune teller, police lieutenant Sean Canady, and the formidable Stephan.As usual, Graham has to slow down the plot with erotic scenes that go on for three or four pages, but I must admit that I found this to be a very good book by her. It's targetted at the female romantic suspense crowd, but as a guy, I quite liked it.

The second installment of Heather Graham's vampire series was definitely better than the first, but over all could have been better itself. The characters were likable, but the fact that Mark was a good vampire was rather predictable. (This was confused though, by the fact that Lauren could hear his heart beat as they made love.) The story was more in the vein of failed soap opera Port Charles, as Ms. Graham seemed to make up her own rules for vampires (Holy Water only effects the evil vampires, they only turn to ashes when they are old enough for their bodies to have completely decomposed, and they can walk around during the day.)

Lauren Crow is with her friends and business partners, Heidi and Deanna, vacationing in New Orleans as they celebrate Heidi's impending marriage. Lauren and Deanna are to be bridesmaids to Heidi. The three of them go to a fortune teller, Susan and each has a different type of fortune told. Heidi has tarot cards and turns up a skeleton which she is told means permanent change. Deanna has her palm read but her lifeline also shows change. Lauren goes into the fortune teller's tent to look into a crystal ball but it turns red as she sees a mysterious dark man and the ball is broken! All of this only reinforces Lauren's feelings that the three women are being watched.

Mark Davidson is watching them as he ran into Lauren in a bar and sees her very strong resemblance to her former fiancee. He knows an evil vampire named Stephan is in New Orleans and that Stephan knows Mark is looking for him so if Stephan sees Lauren he will want her to taunt Mark with as Stephan killed Mark's bride-to-be.

Lt. Sean Canady has headless corpses of young women popping up in the river and needs to solve these murders. His knowledge of the dark side of New Orleans will having him talking with Mark and Lauren and her friends as well as getting his own group of knowledgable friends and cops on alert.

This plot has a few twists and turns and lots of danger and excitement! A scary hard-to-put-down read!!

I have loved everything I have read to date from her. This book was no exception. Her eariler books were the best, but this one has an interesting plot and is a good read.

Blood Red is not your typical romance/thriller. It wasn't what I'd normally pick up, but I really enjoyed it. Three women are in New Orleans for a wild batchelorette weekend and find themselves the target of a vampire. The Vampire chases them and almost succeeds in killing them all, except for a tall, dark and handsome vampire chaser. At first the women don't believe his tales of vampires-until they see the evidence with their own eyes. What follows is a battle between good and evil where everyone is not what they seem. This book is a great read

This book was terrible. The Vampire storyline is the reason I got the book. Only to find the Vampirism to be written so terribly dull and predicable. The only so-called humor is when you laugh at the the fact that the author used awful and over done, vampire lines. Very cheesy, and not worth the time to read it.