Jan 25 2007
REVIEW: Blood of the Damned by Anya Bast
Dear Ms. Bast:
I’ve kind of marked you down as a go to read. When I am looking for a hot but emotionally satisfying story, I generally feel that you will deliver. Alas, this was a misstep. I looked at the copyright on this one and it says January 2006. I can’t help but feel that your writing today is leaps and bounds different than even a year ago.
Blood of the Damned is book 4 of the Embraced series. I’ve not read book 1 through 3 as, well, this blurb appealed to me more. Niccolo is a Vampir who’s speciality is execution. Tired of that life, he allowed himself to be imprisoned and was let out only when needed for a kill job. Jade, a half fae, half human and Priestess of the Morrigan is sent to collect him from prison for the vampire world (the Embraced) are in need of him.
Maybe it was a mistake not to read the three other books in this series because the amount of information that you give about Niccolo and Jade, their motivations, their backstory, other than their desire to screw each other, was virtually non existant. I learned nothing about the Order of the Morrigan – what it did, what it was. I learned nothing about why Niccolo allowed himself to be imprisoned or why he couldn’t have escaped. I didn’t understand the concept of the Embraced or how they lived. How they came into being. What role the Order of the Morrigan had and so on. The world building was devoid of detail.
There were some good parts to the story. The villian wasn’t entirely evil. He had a horrific past and his turn to the dark side was a way for him to obtain control over his life, something he hadn’t had as a victim. All of the characters were victims at some point who had overcome their past to some degree. Jade was a strong female character.
But in the end, Blood of the Damned is a book about sex and virtually nothing more. The numerosity of the sex scenes subsumed any character development that occurred. Jade’s strength of character disappeared in the bedroom where the majority of the story took place. The acts themselves seemed seemed more gratuitous, particularly the late threesome introduced.
The gratuitous sex and the lack of chemistry between the main couple made for an arduous and disappointing read. C-
Best regards,
Jane
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Jan 25, 2007 @ 07:05:46
Jane –
Morning! I read one of these – book one or two in the series, I think – and recognized much of the bits of world building from my years as a White Wolf gamer. If you have a background in their World of Darkness Mythos, especially the now defunct Vampire the Masquerade, Changeling, and Werewolf the Apocalypse, role-playing games, the books make perfect sense. Outside of that, most people are clueless as to the background.
While I’ve never asked Ms. Bast directly, I’m personally of the opinion that she was a gamer and drew much of her world building directly from the White Wolf games. The giveaway for me was the name she gave the vampires to call themselves – one of two names used by White Wolf in their game materials and a portion of the title of a short-run TV show produced in association with them.
~Avaron
Jan 25, 2007 @ 14:52:59
Hi Avaron — Oh, that’s interesting (and a little disturbing, frankly). In fact, I’m not a gamer at all and have never heard of White Wolf.
Jane — I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the book! But thank you for taking the time to review it. :)