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Blood Hunt: The Legend

J. Gilbert

Published 2006         165 pages

Synopsis

Brianna Eaton is a creature of legend.  She is a vampire/witch hybrid - the offspring of a vampire father and witch mother.  The legend states that the child of a vampire and a witch has blood that can give vampires the power to walk in the sun.  It also states that the same child will become a blood-beast with an insatiable appetite when it comes into its full power.

There are many, both vampires and witches, who would rather see the child of legend dead than risk it turning into an unstoppable monster.  Brianna has known this all her life and she has carefully guarded the secret of her heritage.  She has had to in order to protect her own and the life of her mother, who defied coven rules to have a child with her vampire lover.

Brianna works as a hospital nurse and when her best friend Megan and Megan’s son Jason are brought in after a traffic accident she understands better than anyone that Jason’s prognosis is fatal.  Megan has been Bri’s best friend since childhood and she has seen Brianna heal rapidly from injuries that should have taken days to heal.  She begs Brianna to use her power to save Jason.

The only way Brianna can save Jason is by giving him some of her blood.  She anonymously donates some blood to Jason, little realising the tragic course of events that this act sets in place.

When Jason makes a miraculous recovery it is impossible to keep it secret.  The army send in a team of experts to investigate and they cruelly isolate Jason and start to perform experiments on him. 

The vampires realise that the witch/vampire hybrid child of legend exists and a rogue vampire wanting to start his own master race of day walking vampires starts to hunt for Brianna, torturing and killing whoever necessary in order to find out her whereabouts.

Brianna’s father assigns his oldest friend and strongest warrior to protect her.  Logan is an ancient vampire and although he is sworn to protect Brianna, he hates witches and he will have no hesitation in killing her himself if she turns into the monster of legend.  Logan and Brianna have to work together in order to rescue Jason from the army and destroy the rogue vampire.  Logan soon finds he is attracted to her and unable to resist seducing her - but who is seducing who? 

The Review

Blood Hunt: The Legend is an entertaining and engaging read.  At 165 pages the book is a little on the short side but the author has managed to get a lot of ideas into the story and make good use of every one of the 165 pages.

The vampires in The Legend are all of what I would call the “classic” type.  They are immortal, immensely strong, have the ability to use mind control on humans and can shapeshift or turn into mist at will.  They have the classic vulnerabilities too - such as sunlight, holy objects, beheading and staking with whitethorn wood stakes.  They can be either good or evil depending on their personal preference although evil or rogue vampires who go around indiscriminately killing humans are soon be hunted down and destroyed by vampire warriors.

The Legend is written with more emphasis on the romance elements of the story and less emphasis on the vampiric elements.  The witchcraft in the story isn’t explained at all, it just happens when a witch says a few words that rhyme.  As a romance the story works just fine, but as a paranormal romance I think that a little more explanation of the fantasy elements in the story would have made it easier for the reader to suspend their disbelief. 

The Legend has plenty of fast paced action plus interesting characters and ideas in it to keep the pages turning.  However there are a couple of apparent holes in the plot.  For example, if you are a vampire with the power of mind control wouldn’t it be easier to just do your vampire mojo on the Army investigators and convince them that they should let the boy go?  (After all, the whole “These are not the droids you’re looking for,” trick worked well for Alec Guinness in Star Wars!) 

The story was left a little open ended so there may be plans to develop some of the characters and ideas in future books.  I think that if you like your vampire romances to more about the romance and less about the dark fantasy you would enjoy reading this book. 

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