When Blood Calls (ARC review)

When Blood Calls by J.K. Beck

Synopsis:
Sara Constantine is one of the country’s most tenacious prosecuting attorneys—and she’s just secured a well-earned promotion. At first she’s thrilled. Then she finds out her new job involves prosecuting vampires and werewolves. And nothing prepares Sara for the shock she receives when she meets the first defendant she’ll be trying to put away: Lucius Dragos, the sexy stranger with whom she recently shared an explosive night of ecstasy.

When Lucius Dragos kisses the beautiful woman sitting next to him at the bar, he’s only hoping to blend into the crowd and avoid the perceptive gaze of the man he’s following… and planning to kill. But what starts as a simple kiss to secure his cover ignites into a fierce hunger that leads to an all-consuming passion. Charged with murder, Luke knows Sara will do whatever it takes to see him locked away—unless he can convince her that he’s not the monster she thinks he is. And that might mean making the greatest sacrifice a vampire can make.

Review:  
Every now and again you read a book that makes you want to invent a time machine just so you can travel back to the past to get your precious reading time back. Unfortunately, this is one of those books.  It read like a screenplay for a cheesy porn.

The ‘bad romance’ between Sara and Luke was strange.  I guess I can buy that in a matter of a couple of days, a centuries old vampire, Luke, falls in love with a woman he had a one night stand with, but it didn’t really help make his ruthless assassin character believable.  And Sara, an up and coming prosecutor who supposedly lives and breaths the law, was downright laughable with her willingness to throw all her better judgment (and possibly her career) aside to give into the fiery passion only Luke could ignite in her.  

The supporting characters were beyond disturbing, starting with Luke’s child-like ward, Tasha (aka Drucilla 2.0).  Why Luke would want to burden himself with the responsibility of caring for the feeble minded Tasha, regardless of how Tasha reminded him of his human child that he killed when he was first turned, just didn’t make sense.  He kept her around because he felt guilty? Okay.

But just because Tasha plays with dolls and talks with a sing-song voice doesn’t mean that she is completely innocent.  She wants to do naughty things with boys. And Sergius, Luke’s best friend and the vampire Luke trusts to look after Tasha, wants to give in to her, even as he describes that the most alluring thing about her is her child-like wonder.  Sickening, I know, but that’s a vampire for you.

Couple all of that with a human child molester/serial killer who is on the loose, and it is almost too much to stomach. 

I really didn’t care for Beck’s brand of vampire either. They held no appeal, possessed as they were by inner daemons always threatening to come out. And the way this ‘daemon within’ theme was constantly repeated became rather irksome.   

This book just wasn’t for me.  I found the writing too cliche and predictable in most area of the plot line, and in others, grossly over-exaggerated.  This one was almost a DNF for me, but I forced myself to finish it since it was a tour book.  

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Posted at 3:29 pm  •  Labels: 2 stars, 2010, ARC, Book it Forward, Book Review, paranormal romance, Vampires