Review Time! Blood Roses by Lindsay J. Pryor

Afternoon bloggers, writers, friends and weirdo’s,

You may recall, a couple of months ago I blogged about the release of Lindsay J. Pryor’s new book, Blood Roses, second novel of the fabulous Blackthorn series. I also promised a review but in true Cinnamon style, I left everyone hanging as usual but in my defence I had a good reason or a half-baked excuse, whichever way you like to look at it. Work was crazy stressful and I also knew I had to put what little time I had into finishing Blood Wars, book three in my Dark Sanctuary series.

But as you know, Blood Wars has reached it’s grand finale very recently and so I can now get back to back-flipping, cartwheeling and body popping around the room in honour of an amazing writer and her wonderful book.

It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of Lindsay and her Blackthorn series. In a world where everyone wants their vampires to sparkle and be, well, just howdy-doody piano playing perfection, the Blackthorn series grabs hold of contemporary vampire portrayal by the balls, rips out its throat and hangs it from the highest building. So let that be a lesson to you all, okay?

There’s no doubt the Blackthorn vampires are sexy, but they’re eternally dark, often cruel and more dangerous than a pit full of angry vipers. You think you’d survive a night in the polluted, sweat-drenched, vampire infested Blackthorn? Leila, Lindsay’s new feisty flame-haired heroine, knows the dangers of Blackthorn only too well and also knows that the likelihood of getting out of there alive is no mean feat, but with her beloved sister Alisha apparently in the clutches of some vamps, Leila has no choice but to venture into the one place she knows she shouldn’t go.

Leila is no ordinary Summerton gal, in fact shes’s not even an ordinary witch, she’s a serryn and that makes her potentially as dangerous to vampires as they are to her, so it’s no wonder that Caleb Dehain isn’t about to let her leave town anytime soon.

Discovered and captured by one very dangerous, dark and most-certainly brooding vampire, Leila soon finds herself embroiled in the midst of Prophecy and in a fight to prove to Caleb that she isn’t the killer he believes her to be. A growing and unwanted attraction to her captor soon means Leila is fighting for so much more than her very precious soul; she’s fighting to keep hold of her heart too and it’s not a battle that she seems likely to win.

One thing that struck me about Blood Roses is that whilst most of the book is set in the confines of Caleb’s lair, rather than restrict the action, this works wonders in building up the hot and heavy sexual tension between our two main protagonists as there really is nowhere for Leila to run to. As the reader, you can almost feel the panic and desperation growing within Leila every minute she is forced to remain in Caleb’s company, not to mention the burning attraction they are both feeling. I could literally feel the hairs on my neck prickling throughout as the fear, panic and tension emanates from each page, until the point where I was almost climbing the walls with them.

Secondly, and what I’m starting to see is one of Lindsay’s great skills as a writer, is that there is nothing predictable about Blood Roses, unlike some contemporary vampire novels where you can guess the plot way before you’ve reached the end. You’re never quite sure who to trust, who to believe in, whether good will out, or whether the characters will force the plot down some dark path. It’s always suspenseful, always exciting and always keeps you guessing right up until the very end and to me, that’s what’s so very special about the Blackthorn series.

There’s always that concern with the second book that it might not match up to the success of the first, but there’s no worries about that with Blood Roses. Lindsay introduces us to new characters, throws us into a new adventure, and gets the reader enthralled in a new story that keeps us just as hooked as Blood Shadows did.

Feisty heroines, dark and sexy anti-heroes and a world we just can’t help getting lost in, Blood Roses has it all. Five out of five!!!