Blood Is Thicker Than Water [Paperback]

Wynette A. Hoffman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2002

Blood Is Thicker Than Water The Reilly Vampire Chronicles - Book One Romance, laughter and gunplay result when siblings, Amy and Paul Reilly, discover that vampires are real and you can haunt your ancient relatives. Add a meddling goddess, witchcraft, and a vampire feud and you have a fast-paced fun read with lots of sex, violence and family loyalty.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

New and improved. Now with proofreading. We've corrected the errors in the earlier copies. This does not change the ISBN.

Reader Advisory
This book contains the following elements which may be considered unsuitable by some readers and literary purists: violence, graphic sex, erotic blood sucking, foul language, gore, angst, questions of morality, reincarnation, guns, S&M, family loyalty, pop culture references, the promotion of anarchy, metaphors, wiccans, druids, ancient Celtic goddesses, undead politics & etiquette, thralls, snappy banter and witty retorts, pregnancy & childbirth, bisexuality, talking dogs, car wrecks, torture, romance, sibling rivalry, psychic powers & scenery, and true love. And though promoted as a vampire novel, it may or may not contain vampires within the parameters of any one person's definition of the undead and/or blood sucking leeches.

Pure pulp, read at your own risk

From the Author

I wanted to do a vampire novel that was a little more Tarantino and Ritchie and not the usual Scorcese or Coppola-esque take on blood suckers, as in drama-heavy, angst-ridden and pretty. I like fun and violence and I think we've all read enough serious stories about whether or not vampires are evil or have sex. I was also interested in the relationships between thralls, which some people call ghouls, and vampires.

I really enjoyed writing this novel and I hope you will enjoy reading it.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Alien Perspective (October 31, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0972109803
• ISBN-13: 978-0972109802
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,763,453 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very surprised, excellent story! Could not put it down!, September 30, 2003

By 

P. Daverso "thewhiterose99" (PA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood Is Thicker Than Water (Paperback)

I am in the process of reading the last page of this book, and I was surprised how much I liked it. I have read the southern vampire series, all the Anita Blake books, Anne Rice, Tanya Huff and many lesser-known authors. I have been reading vampire novels for 19 years, and I have rarely found books that pique my interest as much as this book. And the LENGTH of the book is a definite plus. I love long books that keep up the action and the suspense. It can be hard to pull off. (See Anne Rice's The Witching hour as a long book that was painful to read!)

The characters are fun. The story is entertaining! I wish the cover art could have been better. All in all, I am hoping she writes the second book fast so I can read the continuing adventures of the Reilly family.

I think this story has been swimming inside the head of Wynette for a very long time, and the characters show this depth very well. As another reviewer stated, "Move over Anita!"

41 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not bad at all, but it has a few flaws., July 11, 2003

By 

R. Kelly Wagner "[e-mail]" (MD, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Blood Is Thicker Than Water (Paperback)

This is not your average vampire book. It definitely has some plot elements that are unique to this author. It was quite enjoyable; what kept me from giving it five stars is the lack of proofreading and copy-editing.

Let's see, BunRab's usual analysis of vampire books:
Is it part of a series? It claims to be the first one in a series; the back page says that Book Two is "coming soon."
What's the author's main genre? I haven't read anything else by this author; she doesn't, as far as I know, write any other types of fantasy or science fiction, nor murder mysteries, nor in the romance genres. This book has some romance features in it, but is definitely not a romance per se.
Vampire powers: Does daylight kill these vampires? Direct sunlight does; indirect (e.g., being awake but inside during the day) doesn't. Do the vampires have any supernatural powers? The usual ones of supernatural strength, and being able to make people not see them. Also, telepathy occurs in most of them. In addition, they have the power to create "thralls," humans who have tasted some of their blood and are therefore longer-lived and faster-healing than other humans. Oh, and they can also enthrall dogs!
Do the vampires need to drink blood? Does it have to be human? Yes, and yes. Most lines of vampires exist only on blood, and need to feed every day, therefore; the line of vampires, or clan or family, whatever you want to call it, that are our main characters are unusual in that they can still eat regular food, and can get up to 2/3 of their sustenance from regular food, needing only about 1/3 of their intake to be blood.
Does drinking the blood have to do with sex? Are vampires a metaphor for humanity's sexual fears? Yes, and no. Drinking blood can involve sex, and apparently is better for the vampires if it does, but they can feed without it, and can leave the humans not remembering that they were fed on. Vampires actually have personalities of their own, and are not merely dark, brooding and evil- although some other families than our heroes' do seem to specialize in evil and death, it isn't a requirement for being a vampire.
The book is not deadly serious (pardon the pun) but has several touches of humor. There are sibling squabbles and long-standing family jokes, there are amusing moments in the Pagan shop that Paul and Marcie run; even a few of the vampires and thralls have senses of humor. The tone is not entirely different from Laurell Hamilton's earlier books, before they turned entirely to sex. There are serious and deadly moments, but also light-hearted ones.

Now, if only someone would run off a second edition, in which the lack of commas in many places got fixed, while some of the run-on sentences with too many commas got turned into separate sentences, or at least had a few semi-colons added, and if the occasional use of "hadn't of" were fixed, and the kind of word substitutions that spell-check doesn't catch (too for to, it's for its, and so forth) were corrected by a human proofreader (or a vampire one, for that matter- just not a computer one!) I would be even more satisfied with the book.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I didn't expect to like it this much, April 16, 2003

By 

Moe811 (New York USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Blood Is Thicker Than Water (Paperback)

Amy Reilly is definitely a wild child, after a night at an S & M club gone really bad, she nearly dies, she takes a good look at her life and sees a need for a change. She is a bit agoraphobic with good reason. She doesn't know whether the vampire that attacked her at the club realizes that she is still alive, and she intends to stay that way. Her two roommates out at a club run into her attackers and another vampire and his thrall and the secret is out. Amy's life definitely takes a new turn when she is "saved" by Lorcan the vampire. The new vampire's thrall seems very familiar to Amy and she doesn't know why. The subplots of Amy's brother Paul and his pregnant wife Marcie, and Jake the thrall and Amy's best friend Sophie are equally interesting. I can't wait to find out more about the "faerie godmother" who reappears throughout the novel. An unexpectedly good read.

After reading the advisory on the back of this book and the first chapter, I wasn't sure whether I was going to like this novel. I was wrong. In spite of some objectionable ideas, the book was hard to put down. The characters are particularly well drawn and the action never stops, I will definitely look for the sequel.