Bound by Blood, PA Lupton
Bound by Blood
by PA Lupton
Reviewed by Megsly
Per the Request of the Author
In the shadows of night in Denver Colorado, a serial killer is hunting women, and FBI agent Brianna Reece is hunting the killer. Unlike any case she’s worked before, Brianna can’t ignore the prickling at the back of her neck when she glimpses the resemblance she shares with the victims. The investigation begins to touch even closer to home when it is revealed that all of the victims were also psychic.
Complicating matters further, Brianna is captivated by the FBI’s prime suspect Nathan Donovan. Though she senses he is hiding something from her, the attraction she feels for him is compelling, and unlike anything she’s ever experienced. Through a chance twist of fate, Nathan learns of Brianna’s ancestry and is forced to divulge secrets to Brianna that will change her life forever.
When she learns that the killer is an evil vampire, and he’s now set his sights on her, Nathan alone holds the key to awakening her dormant powers. Now he must race to teach her how to control her emergent gifts before she becomes the next victim.
Brianna Reece is a take charge kinda lady. She works for the FBI, is pretty much awesome at her job because she has the ability to read the residual emotions lingering in a room after a murder. Really does help her solve the crime, though it has to majorly suck to know how someone was feeling right as they died. While attempting to solve a string of bizarre murders, she finds herself with a new partner that she initially isn’t too fond of. And then, to make matters more confusing, evidence leads her to investigate the handsome and very mysterious Nathan Donovan.
I’m not going to summarize any more than that, simply because the synopsis provided by the author does that quite well. Brianna is a powerful woman, not in the sense of actual tangible power (well, there is that but that’s not what I’m getting at) but in regards to her internal strength, her personal convictions and morals, and her desire to do good in the world. She’s uncompromising, as we learn from her first encounter with her new partner, Morrison.
The plot is highly intriguing, filled with twists and turns that are wholly unique in the realm of vampire literature. The author has no qualms about twisting lore to suit her needs within the context of the novel, and the background on the species and how they interlink with witches is brilliant, in my humble opinion. I truly enjoyed the characters as well, who Lupton built up gradually and with plenty of backstory to justify their actions and decisions. I do wish there had been more backstory on Brianna’s relationship with her father, but otherwise the story she wove about Brianna’s family history, her life, and what had happened in her past was entertaining and not overly complicated.
One of the big issues I did have with the characters though, and the plot, was how quickly Brianna just dove into her relationship with Nathan. There was no preamble to their relationship, it just instantaneously was, which when you’re dealing with a human who has no inkling that she’s really a witch, or that paranormal entities exist, and a vampire…I just think there would be a big more “get to know ya,” time prior to the wham-bam-thank-ya-ma’am! Or I could just be a prude, who knows.
Moving away from characters and plot, there were many issues with grammar and punctuation that really and honestly distracted me from the story over and over again. Call me a stickler for proper punctuation around quotations, but it drives me bonkers when authors don’t use commas as they’re supposed to, or any form of punctuation. Same goes for capitalization of titles and names, which the author didn’t seem to want to do with either agent. She’d have them refer to one another as “agent Reece,” and in my experience you capitalize the title of the person.
Overall, the plot was so much fun and so enjoyable, but I really had a hard time enjoying the book simply due to the lack of adequate editing. I feel that it really detracted from the story which, if the story wasn’t a great story, wouldn’t bother me. But I hate to see a great plot be ruined by over used hyphens and under used commas. So give it a go if you’re not a grammar/punctuation fanatic like myself!
Below is my rating of Bound by Blood by PA Lupton. These are reflective strictly of my opinion on the novels I’ve read and are not necessarily reflective of the other staff members at MVF.
Plot – 8.5
Character Development – 8
Grammar and Punctuation – 4
Paranormal Element – 9
Prose – 5
Total Score – 6.9
Total is derived from the average of all 5 scores.
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