THE LIGHT OF BLOOD by Jade Christy (THE MONSTER BOTHERER)
Welcome to THE MONSTER BOTHERER!
We are thrilled to welcome back Emma Penman, who exclusively reviews monster romance, and has returned for another week of Monster Bothering. We decided that as all her reviews have a specific aim, we’ll house them all in one handy feature-cage!
Whilst not necessarily bothering many monsters herself, Emma will be letting us know which monster romance books are worth bothering with…
Content warning: These books are usually explicit unless stated otherwise
Vampires can come and play in the sunshine now, thanks to an invention by Cassandra Burke. Scientist, scholar, extremely hot and expert level “not like the other girls”, Cassandra has devoted her life to all things vampy, and when she is invited to study newly discovered vampire texts she’s hopping on the next flight to the ancient city of Nivara.
Meanwhile in vampire society, things are not well. While the American vamps have embraced Cassandra’s “Lumiere” formula, the Europeans, always a stickler for tradition, are not so pleased. Vampires are the night, power, blood, not prancing about with lesser species. While some do take advantage of being able to see the sun and live a “normal” life, anti-Lumiere factions have risen and things are getting violent. While Cassandra works on the old texts, falls in love with Nivara’s regent and attends parties and council meetings, those factions begin to plot and act.
From the start I was thinking this book maybe wasn’t right for me. I couldn’t feel attached to any of the main characters (shout out to my main man Dr Aeternus, my favourite out of them all), the romance between Cassandra and Dominic was just not believable, even if they are soulmates and the spice was lacklustre at best. However, if I look past these, the story is actually pretty interesting. There is enough going on to keep you flipping those pages, the political intrigue is hot enough without the need for bodice ripping. You suspect everyone of being a “traitor” but in all honesty I’m not even sure Cassandra and Dominic are on the “right” side of things, so while I would give this low marks in the romance category, it’s certainly up there with mystery. When the author ends the book on what felt like a fade to black, I immediately went to find the next one. For a book I wasn’t sure of, that was not the reaction I was expecting to have.
As I am a monster romance reviewer, it would be remiss of me to not look into the spicy scenes a bit more and I have to say if this book just skipped over them I would probably have higher praise for The Light of Blood. It wasn’t that they were truly awful or anything, just made me cringe a bit. Steamy enough to make your great aunt Ethel fan herself, but on the whole cheesy and the dialogue a bit too proper, but then again, one of our couple is an ancient vampire and the other a sexy genius who doesn’t have time for men. Since I am neither of these things I cannot possibly comment that this is how things would go down. The romance added nothing to the overall plot, didn’t make you like the characters any more than you already did, and you really wonder if they are soul mates or just two attractive people locked together due to circumstances.
If you enjoy magical girl/vampire/nobility/
