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The Sweet Scent Of Blood (2008)

by Suzanne McLeod(Favorite Author)

3.64 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0575084286 (ISBN13: 9780575084285)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Gollancz

series

Spellcrackers.com

review 1: I've got a lot to say about this book. To start with, I was thrilled to learn that not only was it set in London (woohoo!) but was also written by an English author. After suffering through the nightmare that was Street Magic, with all of it's utterly ridiculous and cringeworthy Cockney slang, (quite obviously written by an American author who has either never been to London or went there when Sid Vicious was kicking around), it was great to read the first chapter of this and see that it was normal. Then I read on and realised that although the writing itself was ok, the plot, the characters and pretty much every other aspect of the book was awful. A lot of it doesn't make sense at all, and I say that even after having finished the book. I kept waiting for an explanation b... moreut none were forthcoming. There was awkward cliche after awkward cliche and what really killed the whole thing for me was the main character having to put on a corset at one point. A goth corset and skirt. There was no reason for it, it just happened. One minute she's in a dilemma, the next she's like "ok cool, I'll put this corset and skirt on. Of course there are no other clothes around." Another cliche was that she was kind of all over one of the vampires. It wasn't really explained but one minute she was like "I don't know who he is and I think he wants to kill me" and the next moment she's (SPOILER) making out with him. Again, no explanation given. One of the best examples of the awful writing has to be the (spoiler) fight scene at the police station. I genuinely doesn't make sense. I don't mean in some mysterious, we are yet to discover kind of way, but the writing does not make sense. It's absolutely horrific and I feel like the editor must have literally just skipped that whole part in despair. To summarise; it was bad. It was really, really bad. The worst part was that if someone else had outlined a plot and some characters for this author then edited it after, she could probably write a fairly decent book. But overall, it was just painful to read. It felt like she got very lost along the way in this one and maybe decided to take out key bits of information that the reader NEEDED to know, in order to make it a bit more ~~~mysterious~~~. It didn't work. Would I recommend this? God no. There are millions of urban fantasy books out there that are a thousand times better than this.
review 2: In the first book in her spellcrackers.com series Suzanne McLeod introduces the readers to Genny who has the ability to find magic and dismantle it but unable to create it herself:Genny Taylor works for a witch company spellcrackers.com, which is great as it means that the Vampires leave her alone, but that is all about to change. A famous calender vampire model is accused of killing his human girlfriend it seems that everyone is out for blood on this one and they all seem to want Genny's. After an old debt is called in Genny is forced to try and insert herself into the investigation to determine if there was more to the killing than just a draining of blood. Many are convinced that there was magic involved and this could send out a war between the witches and the vampires. Genny is in the middle of it all, trying to stay alive, trying to keep her past hidden and most of all trying to protect the people that she cares about, and lets just say she's not going to succeed on all fronts something has to give.This book was just okay for me, there were some things that I could not get past and at times I found the book too slow for me and at times the story was convoluted. It seems to go this way then that way and then some how we ended up over here, I just couldn't figure out where McLeod was trying to take things. I didn't understand what the old debt that Declan had over Genny, it seemed to me that she had helped him out more than him helping her. I don't know maybe I missed something as I was reading. Overall, think she had too many ideas that she tried to test out in this book. An additional part of the confusion was due to the amount of characters that McLeod decided to introduce and they all have their part to play so you need to keep straight who is who as you try to figure out who is Genny's ally and who is not. For awhile I thought The Earl and the French Vampire were the same, just so you know they are not lol.I liked the main character Genny as her background, heritage and powers were very interesting and it makes me want to learn more. Genny's mother was Fae and her father was Human but he was a vampire when she was born. This makes me think that somehow during the process of his change into a Vampire he was able to sire a child. Though this aspect is never fully explained, it makes sense with the apparent blood lust that Genny has at certain points in the book as well as the very cool magic spell that she has had attached to her body. I have yet to read a book where a Fae could not use magic but could dismantle magic, so I like that McLeod was able to put a new take on magic. I hope we get to read more about how unique that Genny is and more about the Prince who is hunting her.Genny is pretty guy crazy in this book and I believe that this is mainly linked to the uniqueness of her blood. It did get annoying at times that everyone seemed to want her both men and women and for me this just took away from the already convoluted plot.This book was an okay start to a series but it didn't Wow me like I wanted it to. I think if you like the main character you will like this book and want to continue on as the overall plot never really seems to come through, as there are so many subplots and too many characters to get to know in one book. I think I will read the next book in the series as I do find everything about Genny interesting but I'm not rushing out to buy it.Enjoy!!! less

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