It's another review I'm copy pasting from my Goodreads. I read the book in September this year, but the Estonian translation. I may use some words or terms that are different from what was in the original story when that happens - since about half of the books I read are translations. Just so you know :)
Here I have both the English and the Estonian cover for you to compare.
Genres: Fantasy / Vampires / Mystery / Romance
Length: 375 pages
My Rating: 2 of 5 stars
Description:
'My name is Genny Taylor. I work for Spellcrackers.com. It’s a great job, pays the rent, lets me do the thing I’m good at – finding magic and cracking it – and the bonus is it’s run by witches, which stops the vamps from taking a bite out of me.
Not that vampires are the big bad any more, not since they launched a slick PR campaign – oh, and they brought the goblins on board. Now the vamps are sought-after celebrities, and Getting Fanged and taking the Gift are the new height of all things cool.
But only if you’re human.
And I’m not.
I’m Sidhe fae.
And I know firsthand just how deadly a vampire can be.’
When Mr October, a sexy calendar pin-up vamp, is accused of murdering his girlfriend, an old debt is called in and Genny is forced to help prove his innocence, risking her job and the protection it offers – and threatening to expose her own dark secrets. Searching for the killer plunges Genny deep into the hidden heart of vampire society. It’s not long before she realises that she and Mr October are both unwitting pawns in a centuries-old power struggle between London’s non-human communities . . . and it’s not just her own neck that’s at stake, but the lives of all London’s supernaturals.
My review:
This must be one of the most confusing books I've ever read.
I bought it because our local bookstore had it on low price. I was not very sure what it was even about, except for vampires. I was curious to know, though, and after it sitting in my reading list for quite some time, I finally got to see for myself. I don't know what I was expecting, but definitely not this.
I wouldn't say the writing was bad, and maybe this story even had some potential. But after the first chapters... I realized things went just way out of hand. The story jumped from one place to another, the characters discussed things which were brought to readers with no back story whatsoever. Again and again I had to wonder: what does this all have to do with everything else? It was like pieces from different plots coming one after another, and even at the end of the book I failed to understand what was the part between couple first and couple last chapters all about. I take it that the protagonist, Genevieve, had some bloody past, but aside from bits from here and there, the author didn't seem to even try to explain things. Perhaps the explanation was planned for next books in series, but still. Everything just seemed to be so off that I don't even know what to think.
I didn't particularly like any of the characters. Teenagers were all cliché swoony over the vampire race - the latter didn't impress me at all; no given description brought the slightest shadow of the thought 'sexy' to mind. Everyone else was simply difficult to connect to. Honestly, I would describe them all as a "bunch of horny dudes".
This is what probably irked me the most - everyone being so damn horny like this is what the world was created for. The supposed-to-be-plot seemed more like a secondary aspect. Even in the fear of being killed all Genny could think about was the passion she felt toward the psycho-vampire. I kind of believe it was the author's plan to concentrate on the passion and sex part (although no actual sex was included). I may be only seventeen, which perhaps some may think is too young to talk on this subject, but I'm gonna say: in this book, the 'sexy' part was simply plain and boring and, frankly, usually idiotic, depending on the situation. It took me too long to finish the book.
I wouldn't want to say I don't recommend it to anyone - after all, everyone has their own opinion - so I'm gonna leave it at that. If you like books for reasons other than the plot, then The Sweet Scent of Blood might just be for you.
Click here to see this review on Goodreads.
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