When Blood Calls: A Shadow Keepers Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

J.K. Beck (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 31, 2010

Attorney Sara Constantine is thrilled with her promotion—until she finds out that she must now prosecute vampires and werewolves. The first defendant she’ll be trying to put away? Lucius Dragos, the sexy stranger with whom she recently shared an explosive night of ecstasy.

When Lucius kisses a beautiful woman sitting next to him at the bar, he’s hoping only to avoid the perceptive gaze of the man he’s planning to kill. But what starts as a simple kiss ignites into an all-consuming passion. Charged with murder, Luke knows that Sara is determined to see him locked away—unless he can convince her that he’s not a monster. And that might mean making the ultimate sacrifice.

Editorial Reviews

Review

 
“A red-hot page-turner!”
—New York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole

About the Author

J. K. Beck spent more than ten years as a litigator in Southern California and central Texas, using her rare free time to indulge her passion for writing. Now she uses her legal background as inspiration for her paranormal romantic suspense series the Shadow Keepers, set in and around a secret judicial system hidden within and mirroring our own. California-born, J. K. Beck lives and writes in Texas, where she hangs out with her husband and daughters and drinks far too much coffee.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; Original edition (August 31, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 044024577X
• ISBN-13: 978-0440245773
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.1 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #442,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly August 30, 2010

By AlexJouJou TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

When Blood Calls is the first in a new trilogy. You can read the plot summary above and I'm not going to rehash.

The Good:
- Great world building. Lots of great creatures that are explained pretty well and intrigue me. The Alliance, PEC, just great Urban Fantasy writing - I WANT to live in that world - hint of danger makes it all the more fun!
- Intricate justice system for the "other" world with its own rules - rock on as this is unique! This is as much legal proceeding as police procedural but neither of these gets very deep. It's the overall way justice is handled (including what Luke does) and the intricacy of the system that gets the marks here - sublime - loved it.
- Nice surprising plot twistiness - bang up job mate!
- The last 85 or so pages carry the weight of the novel. The writing is such that this actually works but I canna tell a lie - it was enough to save the book from my "DNF mediocre pile" to my "wish list the next in the series pile". So bravo - that really doesn't happen too often.
- Although not heavy on action what does exist is suitably gory - thanks for not vampwhimping out on us there Beck
- The lustful scenes do not overwhelm the story. I'm almost willing to give a whole star for that. I like me some hot lustiness BUT in this novel too much would have staked it dead (pun intended)
- Daemon's inside a vampire that really are the vampire but that the vampire controls - hmm now where have I heard that one before....

The Bad:
- Great world building - far too intricate in many places - for the first 1/2 of the book I could barely keep the main characters straight. Nicknames (Lucius = Luke) did not help either. I understand the need for it but be prepared - I almost felt like I had to break out my spreadsheet software to keep everything straight. Just go with the flow mates - don't be overly concerned - as my old history teacher used to say you don't gotta memorize the dates just "understand" the "why's" of what is happening.
- In the end - kind of a "meh" on the romance. There just wasn't enough interaction for most of the book between Luke and Sara to really cement them as a couple in my mind - I mean clearly they were lusting, no doubt. But love? Not until the last 50 pages

The Ugly:
- Some characters just don't ring true. Sara's for one - a young lady trying to make a name for herself is going to risk losing it all for lust? Unlikely. She's pretty level headed and, with her past, the events of the book were even more surprising. Also at least one of the secondary characters does a real about face that I was real sketchy on.
- And come on the powers that be would not KNOW that Sarah and Luke were having some mattress mambo? And this type of conflict of interest is o.k.? Hmmmmm
- Little cheesiness with the names there - Dragos?

I enjoyed it, in spite of some cliche's (BTVS Drusilla is being channeled for one character clearly), more for the urban fantasy world than the paranormal romance. Part of me wishes it had gone more on the UF vein (pun intended--wow two puns one review..aren't I on a roll tonite? HAHA) because I think the dichotomy between Sara and Luke - given thier jobs - would have been fascinating and creates all sorts of possibilities for conflict, resolution, and depth to character. It doesn't seem as if that's the case so more's the bummer. I'll still pick up the next one though because the Alliance plays a big part far as I can see and the structure of this alternate world that runs parallel to ours and is even a part of it in places is really just too good to miss.

34 of 41 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars When blood dissapoints... November 21, 2010

By Gillian Rose

Format:Mass Market Paperback

*Spoiler alert* i guess if I cared that much to write the review Id say that too.

I think what made this book so darn dissapointing is that it is NOTHING like what i had expected. Now I understand that it can be difficult to write something new for vampires but still this was a total let down. Because of the type of reader I am I will often wait til all three books in a three month series are released to read them. Oh how I wished I would not have waited. This book frustrated me more than any romance novel should... And here is why:

Despite trying to suspend or heighten the romance and create a connection between protagoninsts, I really didn't give a damn about either one. Luke/Lucious (a point to be brought up later) was yes a mercenary with a good heart but he murdered his ten year old daughter and that just never sat well. Sara was just so incredibly boring and though she was lauded for her conviction and ambition as a lawyer I didn't see it... at all.

The author spends alot of time introducing characters (Nick, Luke, Serge, Hasik, Tariq, Caris, Doyle, Severin, Bosch, Martella who were all in repeated scenes to name a few) and names (at which time you never knew which nickname or which of the characters first or last name the author was going to use) and situations (without a hell of a lot of introduction or background). All of which is confusing for a reader just starting out, I mean don't dumb it down but for craps sake calm it down a bit. I spent so much time having to pause and remember just who, what and where was going on, it was ridiculous.

This is not new for vampires, alot of terminonlogy is borrowed from other paranormal romance authors. There is a ton of poorly described trolls, ogres, poltergeists and pretty much all characters in general. It may not matter to some but I could not tell you the color of Sara Constantines hair or eyes. It's just somewhat ambiguous which isn't what I wanted to read.

I DID NOT like the fairly gruesome and slighly more descript scenes about the young girls getting killed.

And as for the sex? It was boring predictable and formulaic... alot of begging by the women and heart tripping creepy sex smiling being done by the men. Alot of obnoxious describing of being bitten as getting a "special kiss" by the vampire which cheezes me out.

So heres what happened; I dropped this book on page 317 of 388 and then skipped book two (When Pleasure Rules) because it was about two people and I hadn't the foggiest who they were with less than 70pgs left in the first book in the series. I began reading book three (when wicked craves) and then just gave up after skipping through a bit of it, just more of the same it felt like.

The final nail in the coffin to this series is it looks like the fourth installation to this series (when passion lies) is about a really HORRIBLE character in the first book named Caris who basically enables a child serial killer/rapist to keep killing... Now surely there is more to be explained about this if I had bothered to read the series but seriously I don't want to read an entire book about someone who had anything to do with that, regardless of the excuses or reasons the author gives for the behavior later.

Okay first of all I read ALOT of romance for a working Mom and I don't want to waste my time on crap. So let me just go ahead and relay the message to those of you out there like me; stick to the Black Dagger brothers and the Breed, hell even Showalters Alien Huntress & Atlantis series have far more interesting and original vampire situations going on. There is just too much and yet at the same time entirely too little going on in these books. I read romance so I can enjoy a few hours with some drama and then a happy ending. I don't want to feel this annoyed to read in my spare time. Second of all my husband is a lawyer and the whole premise that the author wanted to relay her love for the lawyering field through this series is crap. She may mean what she says about her love for that stuff but it is way poorly executed. For someone who is also inundated with the life a lawyer leads the legal side of it all seemed a bit trite in comparison.

Take my advise if you are unsure of these books but are fairly certain there are other titles you know you would like to read out there then just go ahead and read them. Put these in the "sell to Half price books bag" you keep in the corner of your room and I assure you, you won't even miss them.

Cheers- Gilly

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars OK, but not a great read... January 9, 2011

By S. Woods VINE™ VOICE

Format:Mass Market Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

The story in a nutshell: Luke is a vampire that Sara had a one-night affair with and who she now cant get out of her head. Hi-jinx ensues when Sara is promoted to a new position. Luke just happens to be the vampire she's prosecuting.

This book was a start to a new paranormal series. It was an OK start, but I probably won't read the rest of the series. Why? I'm glad you asked.

1) I love paranormals. But this story was a little dark. I'm referring to the child murders in the story. I could have really skipped over the parts where little girls were being murdered and screaming.

2) There's a LOT of characters in this story. It was very hard to remember who was who. I certainly forgot what their purpose was in the story.

3) The heros name was Lucius. At some point in the story, she started calling him Luke. No one bothered to explain that they were the same person, and I spent a few minutes trying to figure out who this new character was.

4) The overall description of characters was a bit cryptic. Actually, it would have been nice to have a vision of what the female character looked like. What color was her hair, anyway? This was a readers initial entry into a new world. It would have been nice to have some clear views of the world, instead, new beings just popped up all over the place. Griffons, ghosts, weres of various animals, vampires and too many more beings to list.

5) Romance novels are fiction, and paranormals take the fiction to an entirely different level. Yet, this story REALLY stretched the imagination. The paranormal team brought in a human (and a newbie) to prosecute a high profile vampire case... ok. But to know that she had been intimate with the defendant, and to STILL allow her to work on the case...simply silly. And later when Luke and Sara's relationship became really intertwined, AND she was allowed to work on the case just really sealed it for me.

It took a minute for me to figure out why this story didn't click with me. It's because the plot is silly, long, and boring. It wasn't a great read for me, and I probably won't read the rest of the series.