Blood Will Tell  - Samantha Young

Originally reviewed at Witchmag's Boekenplank

 

I have to hand it to Samantha Young. Again and again she manages to write the most captivating beginnings. It’s easy to get taken and be warned, her stories won’t let you go till you’ve read it all. In this book too there’s a very griping start. With a very creepy memory that made me think of horror movies. And since I’m a scared-y-cat, it left a very deep and horrifying image for the rest of the night. The rest of this story also felt “dark” to me. I just can’t explain it any other way. There were no warm feelings ( or at least a lot of them) or bunnies and the like, only evil beings.

 

And that I had a bit of a problem with. This is the first time I’ve read a book were the main character is from a race that’s evil to the bone. The Blessed don’t seem to be capable of showing human emotions and they suck the life out of other people. And I had to bond with them? That was a bit hard to process, since me liking a character is based on how he or she behaves. Evil masterminds and such won’t receive much warmth from me. A character should have at least the ability to see what he or she does wrong and try to chance for the better. Otherwise they’ll fall in the “evil masterminds” category. This book however, twisted my conception with Stellen. The best big brother out there. And an evil being. I had a hard time coping with it and in turn this made the story feel even darker and more twisted. Which, to be honest, isn’t really my kind of thing, I prefer more “fluffy” stories.

 

Surprisingly, there was no romance in this story. Not that I felt the book was less because of this, but I just noticed it. Eden has enough to cope with without the whole falling in love thing and kissing would be deadly for the other party! I think Samantha Young reserved it for the next book and look forward to it ^^

 

The ending was a bit sudden. I know I could have seen it coming with the big showdown and such, but normally you can feel when a writer finishes a story. The pace gradually slows down, things get solved (or not). Anyway, I can usually feel it (or see it when I see how many pages are left ). Not with this one. I still felt I was in the middle of the story, that this book wasn’t finished, there was no mellowing down of the pace. I wasn’t prepared for this story to end and therefore it was so sudden it didn’t satisfy me. I was left with too many questions and loose ends to really feel that this was the end (and yes I know this is a series, but even then there’s usually some kind of ending).

 

Conclusion

3 HEARTS. It’s a great book to read, but a bit too dark and twisted for me. With all the evil beings who can be good, but are still evil. That was a bit hard to understand. Surprisingly, there’s no romance, but it didn’t feel like there had to be. There’s enough other stuff to worry about. The ending felt a little too sudden and wasn’t satisfying.

Source: http://witchmagsboekenplank.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/review-blood-will-tell-by-samantha-young