I recently read a trilogy called The Blood of Eden. It’s written by Julia Kagawa, and each of the series of books are equally enticing.
The series is about a girl named Allison Sekemoto and her trials and experiences both before becoming a vampire and then after, with other things weaving their way in and becoming equally important.
While the first book, The Immortals Rules, starts off very slow, you can easily begin to wonder if in fact: Will this book end up like every other vampire story quite possibly ever created? The answer is no, it just takes a while to get there. However following this, you realise that everything you’ve read on the blurb has already happened within the first part of the story, which is only a number of chapters. Your first thought probably races to: There better be something else coming up and fast. And let me tell you, there is!
After my own personal rocky start with the book, once the jagged phase has been passed, the book becomes easily enjoyable and a page-turner that’s so lethal that if anyone tried to grab the book off you, they’d probably get a paper cut. The plot spirals into situations that seem to get even worse as you go, before eventually getting resolved, but usually with another outcome that pushes into the next plot arc, so there’s always something else at the end of one situation.
The second book, The Eternity Cure, starts off neither slow nor fast. The first book leads off with something immediately followed up in the second, however it can be considered slow the way it starts out. Our main character, Allison (Or Allie) is travelling alone in search of someone, with little interactions until the plot finally opens up, and once it does the story immediately starts rolling. One thing I noted about the second book particularly (and later on, the third book) was that at certain times of the story, the next moves of some characters who are meant to be unpredictable, are rather predictable. Maybe I’ve seen too many action/adventure type films or read too many of the books so that I’ve started to notice what the bad guys do and when, but for a character who is our main antagonist, he, on multiple occasions, is described as insane, and often has other tricks up his sleeve, is predictable at a crucial point in the series. (This is towards the very end of the second book and until around a quarter way through the third. I won’t mention what happens in case anyone would want to go into the story without knowing anything to ruin it beforehand.)
The third and last book, The Forever Song, doesn’t actually start off as slow as the others may. It has a clear plot with one main objective, albeit some smaller ones (which gradually grow in importance) fitting their way in. This final book can also become slightly predictable at points, but not at hugely critical times during the plot.
We have a number of consistent characters in the story, starting with our main, Allison Sekemoto, and then we have those immediately close to her. There’s Kanin, the one vampire who made Allison into a vampire herself, he’s the ‘cryptic’ type of character who you suspect to know everything about a situation. There’s Jackal, (Who, albeit, isn’t introduced until the later part of the first book, but is consistent after that.) who was also turned into a vampire by Kanin, making Allison and himself almost “blood relatives”, and runs an army of humans. There’s also Zeke (Or Ezekiel) Crosse, he’s a human who Allison accidentally finds, and inevitably falls for – but it isn’t bland and boring, the whole: “Oh, it was obvious this was going to happen – it happens in EVERY vampire story!” Well. It is at first, but then the ball gets rolling, and you realise you probably didn’t expect to get this far involved.
My own absolute favourite character in this series would have to be Jackal. While at first, he appears to be a huge antagonist, he eventually winds up on the same side as Allison. His speech is full of sarcasm and taunting and his personality is full of: “Act if you belong, and then you will.” Which, I personally took a shine to. Witty comebacks and a confident stride with a mocking smirk thrown in for good measure is the character trope I seem to like best, it seems. Jackal acts to diffuse tension in some situations, can be stubborn and irritating, and can then decide to go to the opposite end of the spectrum and make certain people understand what they need to do to improve their situations – though still with a mocking tone of voice.
The book series as a whole is an enjoyable one. It is neither too short, nor too long. It has amounts of action and adventure to make any fan of that genre happy, and it has comedy and romance to balance out the fighting. Each character is different and leaves a different impression on all, all the while dealing with situations that seem impossible to fix. Vampire stories may not be for everyone, but for those who enjoy them – I’d recommend you this series. It’s not “Just the same thing as all vampire stories”, and can easily leave a positive and optimistic impression for further stories of the same genre.