Saturday, February 12, 2011

Review: The Sweet Scent of Blood (Spellcrackers.com #1) by Suzanne McLeod

Synopsis (via Goodreads):
Genevieve Taylor is a sidhe - one of the noble fae - and she's unusual even in a London where celebrity vampires, eccentric goblins and scheming lesser fae mix freely with humanity...

Genny is a rising star at Spellcrackers.com, where she finds the "M" in magic - which can mean anything from mischief to malice to murder. The spellcrackers are run by the Witch Council, whose ancient tenets prohibit any contact with vampires. And that's just fine with Genny, who wants as little to do with the bloodsuckers as possible.

But when a sinfully sexy vamp is accused of killing his lover, an old debt forces Genny to help prove his innocence, risking her job, her safety - and the exposure of her own dark secrets. Genny soon realizes that she and her client are both unwitting pawns in a centuries-old power struggle. And it's not just her own neck at stake but the lives of all of London's supernatural beings.
My Thoughts: Okay, my first thought with this book was that I LOVE that the cover model has the eyes and hair that I envisioned as Genny was being described.  That is just too awesome.  My second thought was: HOLY SMOKES!  This book has a lot of stuff going on in it!  One could even argue that at times there was too much going on and I find that I can't disagree with that.  Yet, I still enjoyed it and I absolutely loved the worldbuilding.

I was hooked on the story within a couple of pages.  It's dark, vibrant, scary and seductive all at one.  The parts that started to get crowded all had to do with Genny's backstory.  Her past was unrolled in fits and starts to the point that when things would happen I'd have to backtrack to see if I missed something.  The main sticky points for me: Genny's parentage and the alter-vamp scenes.  I really couldn't figure out what was going on until pretty deep into those scenes.  It was like being dumped into the middle of a dream and having no idea how you got there or what was coming next.

The world created here was interesting and multi-layered.  The biggest issue I had was in keeping up with the different characters, many of whom didn't have names just colorful descriptions- Mr. June, Red Poet, Corset Girl.  Admittedly, when Genny first runs across them in the course of her investigation she doesn't know who they are and uses what they're wearing to identify them.  While that makes sense, it added a layer of OMG! Who's she talking about now?!?! for me.

Honestly, the book was fun and cool and there are so many threads that can be unraveled for later books that it makes my head spin.  I loved the sexy vamp Malik and the devilish satyr Finn and I can't wait to see how they mess with Genny's life.

More books by Suzanne McLeod

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1 comment:

  1. I read this one last year and enjoyed it as well although I didn't ever get around to reviewing it. I hate that! I did agree with you on it being confusing at a few different points but I'm really looking forward to continuing on with this series. Great review!

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