Blood and Magic Blood and Darkness Book 1
Urban/Dark Fantasy
City Owl Press
September 18, 2018
272
Meet Gray. Dhampir. Undead. Cursed.
With supernatural powers and an insatiable need for blood, her existence is cursed.
When Gray awakens from a three-year spell induced coma, she not only discovers her lover as the one responsible, but that he has joined with a dangerous organization known as the Consilium to help them create a new breed of hybrid demons. Humans and Witches are being taken against their will, and fear is growing throughout the covens.
Gray never had a choice—forced to become a monster, the Dhampir. Yet after four hundred years, she still yearns for her humanity, like a long-lost echo from another life. She cannot allow the Consilium to do this to anyone else. With a renewed lust for vengeance, and a target on her back, Gray must use the one thing she swore never to in order to stop them—blood magic.
Armed with a magical pirate ship, an immortal monk, and a flower plucked from the Underworld, Gray will stop at nothing to start a war. Yet in her quest to track down her enemies, she uncovers a dark family secret that threatens to destroy the last shred of humanity she has left.
Review by Madison Davis
Member of the Paranormal Romance Guild Review Team
When I started reading Blood and Magic I ‘met’ Valentina and Gray. Gray just woke up from a three-year coma. She was confused, not knowing what had happened. However, she remembers a few things, one of them Dragos, her former lover – and Valentina’s brother. Gray knows she is a Dhampir, made one without her permission, by the ‘Consilium,’ an organization whose evil leader tries to create an army of Dhampirs, blood lusted, evil, demonic…
Gray plans revenge. To accomplish her mission, she needs to search for the help of witches, for a particular connection with Aldric Bannister and she needs to travel to a magic island on a magic ship. Valentina is her best friends and was by her side for the past four hundred years. Together with Aldric, they search for the magic ship with pirates whose leader is Seven, a strong personality with unknown strength and powers. He takes them to the Island where they’re supported by ‘The Keeper.’
Gray’s task takes her from the Island to the Underworld, to Scotland, to London, back to New Orleans and to the Island again.
During her fight against the ‘Consilium’ Gray discovers dark family secrets and needs to fight Tobias, the leader of the Consilum.
The story is built around Gray, an angry, revenge-seeking Dhampir woman who makes friends during her fight. But the darkness threatens to swallow her entirely. She is lucky with Aldric, her witch connection, who she falls in love with. He keeps her sane, protects her and pulls her back into the light. He stops her when she’s too angry to think and carefully plan. Aldric is jealous of her former boyfriend Dragos, understandable since the latter doesn’t want to see that his relationship with Gray, who he betrayed, is over.
From the moment Gray wakes up her new life after the coma, is a fast-paced, quickly changing adventure. It seems she’s threatened from all sides and there are creatures that don’t want her to reveal the secrets held over such a long time.
The story holds different magical creatures, dhampirs, witches, wolves, demons and more. Next to Aldric Gray and Valentina make other friends, like Lycos, a wolf, and Seven, the leader of the pirates.
With his secrets, an apparently painful past, and the magic he holds, mysterious Seven is my favorite character. Of course, I like Aldric too, even though for my taste his character is a bit flat. But I’m sure other readers will love him.
I like that the story doesn’t end ‘all happy and well’ but leaves plenty of ‘playground’ for a great second book in the series. With Blood And Magic, the author created a solid base for a very entertaining dark fantasy series.