Customer Reviews

Blood Is Thicker Than Water

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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!"

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.

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.

I am always looking for a good book of the genre. This is one is great..It has alot of action, romance, everything and great characters..I can't believe this is the only book this woman has written. Try this book and then tell your friends. This woman deserves to be more widely known..If you like Laurel K Hamilton and Charlaine Harris you will like this book..

BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER is not your average vampire novel. Ironically, I think it's a romance, because there are several romances happening between different characters. The story follows the lives of several people who pair off into couples and we follow their lives from there. We have the humans, vampires and the thralls (walking undead but rather than gross like zombies, are pretty much normal). Because there are so many active characters, I had a hard time following some of the dialogue, and did a fair share of re-reading paragraphs (or sometimes pages), to understand which character was talking. Add to that, the editing isn't the best.

This all being said, our main heroine is Amy Reilly. Like any unenlightened-human, she has her problems, only mostly hers are on an emotional level. She can't feel anything emotionally or physically; hence she is really into S&M. This all changes one night when she is left for dead in front of the hospital after visiting her favorite club.

Several months later, Amy is positive vampires are real and that someone will come after her. Her paranoia's become reality when one night her roommates Sophia and Diane, visit Victoria's Loft-an exclusive night club, and life as the three human women know it ends. On this same night, Amy is attacked in their apartment, shot and to stay alive she enthralls herself to Lorcan. Suddenly, Amy finds herself outside the "human rules" and in the middle of a vampire feud that started the previous November when she was attacked by a vampire but didn't die (remember, she was dumped at the hospital).

I have to say, I enjoyed BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER regardless of my confusion between characters and the bad editing job. The plot was very well thought out and the vampire history very fascinating to learn about. Vampires come from different families, and therefore they all have different traits and abilities. I found this very believable and it made for an interesting story.

There are some great one-liners in this story. I also really got a hoot out of Paul's perspective on the existence of vampires. There is a lot of interaction between the six main characters that really lets you get to know them as individuals. I think what impressed me the most with this story is how everything ties together at the end of the book. In the beginning of the story you have the lives of six individuals who are pretty much strangers. Yet through the manipulation of one goddess and as the story develops, they all have a connection to each other. I love how the family ties together and I found the title very appropriate: BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER.

If you are looking for something different, look no further! However, this isn't a story for everyone. This story contains a lot of subjects generally glassed over in books - S&M, rape, murder, necessary violence/graphic physical abuse, some of the characters are practicing Wiccan's, etc. That being said, this story still isn't going to be for everyone. Yet at the same time, this isn't what the book is about so you really have to be open minded when reading the story.

I would have to say that if Quentin Tarantino wanted to turn a book into a movie, this would be an excellent choice. If you enjoyed the movie Pulp Fiction, and understand the violence of Reservoir Dogs, you would probably like BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER.

To those that are looking for something different, I defiantly recommend this book. I'm really looking forward to the sequel!

Forget everything you may know about vampires. Hoffman leads the reader on a fantastic journey through the lives of several people, all of whom are being brought together by a "golden woman". The golden woman has an agenda that even urkes the adaptable, handsome, two thousand year old vampire named Larcian, a.k.a. Maxwell Larson.

Presumably the main character, Amy Reilly seems lost and uncomfortable in her own skin. She feels like she does not belong and cannot adapt to society. Armed with her gun, sarcasm, and wit, she constantly battles her own soul (the Blue Thing) and, is my favorite character. Her kick-butt character rivals the infamous Anita Blake. Amy lives in an apartment with her two friends, Darcy and Sophia.

Sophia is Amy's best friend and is battling her own demons, known as her ex-husband Trevor and her inability to find the man of her dreams, literally. She suprises everyone when she is forced to make tough choices, and begins to kick-butt along side Amy, to defeat the bad guys.

Paul is the brother of Amy and is another Reilly. His pregnant wife is Marcia, whom seems fazed by nothing,and does not seem critical of any life choice. Paul on the other hand cannot stand Amy's sexual preference and dangerous tendencies. He is also the person most upset about the realization that vampires do exist, and he relates Max (the vamp) to a "killer whale".

Maxwell Larson is the two thousand year old and, is hiding from other vampires (in general), to escape vamp politics. His thrall or partner/servant is Jacob Reilly. Jacob has a long past (no pun intended) and falls for Sophia (who's past connection is revealed much later in the book).


Keep in mind while reading, that the beginning of the story tells the lives of seperate people and, only then merges them one at a time together. This fact tripped me up when I first tried to read this over a year ago. Last night I decided to give it another go and discovered I had been missing out! I am very happy I finally read it and realized that, like many of you haters, I picked up the book with preconcieved expectations. The author, Hoffman, is very direct that this is book is "pure pulp". So, just let yourself enjoy the book.

I must admit that I was stunned by the description of torture, but I thought it really lent to the real atmophere of horror, suspense, and thrills, that this book contributes. If anyone is seriously turned off by the mention of a threesome, rape or murder, then you clearly have not read much in the way of vampire fiction.

So, if vampires, witches, political struggles, murder and kick-butt action, laughter and deep characters are your forte, then pick up this book and you will not be disappointed.

Before the reviews of this book is a note from the publisher stating that the book has now been proofread. It's hard to imagine how bad it must have been before, because it is still awful. The author does not know the difference between "to" and "too" and uses them interchangeably. Also "loose" and "lose". She does not know how to use the possessive form correctly and just sticks in apostrophes more or less at random. There is a good deal of stuff like that throughout the book. It made reading it really frustrating and irritating. I wondered why the publisher didn't find a decent proofreader to go through the manuscript. Then I went to the author's web site and learned that she self-published the book. She should have found an English teacher and paid her a hundred bucks to go over her manuscript.

She also did a poor job of transitioning from one character's point of view to another. She has at least six "main characters" and she jumps back and forth from one to the other but it is frequently difficult to tell when this happens so that a lot of going back and rereading is necessary to keep in mind who is doing what.

On the cover she promises hot sex, but doesn't really deliver. The sex scenes were mildly kinky but not very interesting. There WERE however, some really horrible torture scenes which I could have done without.

And now let me mention the amorality. In most of the vampire books I have read, we either have all bad vampires or we have some good vampires and some bad vampires. Good vampires still drink people's blood, but they don't kill them and usually make the experience either a good one or wipe it from the person's memory (or they only drink from willing groupies). In this book we supposedly have good and bad vampires but it turns out that the good vampires still kill people. In one vampire book I read, the good vampire had to kill people when she was first turned, but her mentor took her out hunting for drug dealers, so only bad guys were being killed by the good vampire. In this book the supposedly good vampires usually don't kill people, and they usually wipe their memories after taking a little of their blood. But if the vampire is new or injured, they will keep on bloodsucking until the person is dead, and there is no attempt made to find bad guys for this. They just take the first handy innocent bystander and suck him dry. The unspoken assumption is that the vampire's need to survive is more important than the human's.

Another example: There are three young women who are roommates. Two of them meet up with and are attracted to vampires. One of the vampires is supposedly good; the other bad. When the bad vampire begins to kill Sophie's roommate, she protests to her new boyfriend, but doesn't try to actually do anything about it, but the boyfriend doesn't step in to save the roommate either. Apparently at this point in time it would not be politically wise to upset the bad guys, so he just lets them kill the girl. And the surviving girl, Sophie, just sort of shrugs it off. "Oh well, she was kind of an irritating roommate anyway," is her attitude. Again, the vampire's convenience was more important than the life of a human woman.

I'm supposed to identify with these characters? I don't think so.

The weird thing is that I kept on reading it, which is why I gave it two stars instead of one. I wanted to stop but I couldn't. This is probably the worst book that I ever actually finished. However, I really don't recommend this book. If you want to read vampire books, try Laurell K. Hamilton, Tanya Huff, Charlaine Harris, or Patricia Briggs. You will get much better value for your money.

P.S. The ending of the book makes it clear that it was intended to be the first of a series, and there are many story points which are left hanging for the next book, but don't hold your breath: This book was written ten years ago and that sequel still hasn't been written.

Wow, this book is nothing what I expected! I had heard that it was a `vampire' book, and it is, but it's nothing like the other one's I've read in the past. This will take you on a new adventure, with new twists and turns, and there is so much passion behind the writing it's hard not to get caught up. I started reading this book and couldn't put it down for two days, I had to know what was coming next, and I was held captive.

The Authors description on the back is GREAT it's the whole reason of why I picked it up in the first place. But for those worried about the `warning' don't let that stop you from reading this wonderful work, if you do worry then you are missing out on a book that will keep you begging for more. Trust me, I WANT MORE!! Where's the next book in this series??

Many, many, many sentences had their meaning distorted by leaving out commas, misspelling words (loose when it should be lose, for instance), et cetera. The typesetting is lousy too -- paragraphs don't indent sometimes, there are huge gaps in some lines, et cetera. The writing starts out very amateurish, but gets a little better around the middle. Nobody has to build a relationship; they're all preordained. The vampires are much too easily hurt to live the thousands of years they've supposedly lived. People strain at gnats half the time and swallow camels five minutes later. Amazing. I'd have to rate it better than half the vampire novels out there, but that doesn't say much for the rest of them!

Which is why, in the interest of fairness, I thought I'd let you know MY take on this book. First of all, the writing is terrible. Even the punctuation is terrible. Now, we all know that some writers who lack technical skill can still put out a damn good yarn. Not this one. There is no emotional punch to the story. Character development is flat as the proverbial pancake. Now, at this point I must say I was so distracted by the lack in these areas, I could have missed some plot stuff that MIGHT have been interesting. But I sincerely doubt it. Oh, yeah. The romance in the book? NOT! Here is yet another author who engineers a "Fated Love," in order to avoid the development of relationships. A total waste of money & time. Since I see no potential in this author, I will NOT be troubling to check out subsequent books in the series.