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Matters Of The Blood Maria Lima Books

Download As PDF : Matters Of The Blood Maria Lima Books

Matters Of The Blood Maria Lima Books

I truly enjoyed this book. It's different enough that it kept me interested from the beginning.


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Matters Of The Blood Maria Lima Books Reviews

Keira Kelly is a necromancer on hiatus, relaxing and grounding herself in the town where she grew up Rio Seco, Texas. She returns to her old stomping ground just in time to watch her own family pack up and head for Canada, so she's all alone in Rio Seco with her rejected mortician cousin, Marty. Marty had the unfortunate fate of being born a completely and utterly average human being, so his supernatural family disowns him and leaves Keira to watch over him.

When Marty calls Keira one afternoon in a panic, heralding a family emergency, Keira isn't too surprised and expects he's just in need of money, as usual. She isn't in too much of a rush to run to his aid. However, the truth is far more dire than his typical shortage of funds and Marty's murdered corpse is soon discovered, completely drained of blood and left to rot on his own embalming table. Keira is concerned that under her guard, Marty might have managed to involve himself in some questionable dealings that resulted in his death. When she discovers the tell-tale fang marks on her cousin's neck, she realizes the crime involves much more than some thug's revenge.

The investigation that ensues delivers Keira into dangerous territory, so it's a good thing she's immortal. In addition, she's got two suitors to deal with an old flame who's conveniently returned to town as the sheriff, and a dark and handsome acquaintance who'd like to advance their friendship. As she unravels the mystery surrounding her cousin's death, she's also going through "the Change," meaning her body is acclimating itself to the supernatural talents she'll eventually excel at. With all this distraction, finding her cousin's killer is not going to be an easy task.

Nothing is black and white in Maria Lima's world, and each character has a multifaceted past with a great deal of complexity. The depth of her characters helps perpetuate the mystery, as the reader can never quite tell whose secrets are dark enough to land them as the criminal. It's hauntingly realistic for paranormal fiction.

Matters of the Blood is filled with plot twists and artful surprises. Lima builds incredible suspense and allows the reader to savor each revelation. The story is paced well, with fully developed characters and a host of supernatural beings. It's escapism at its best. There are a few chapters at the end, previewing the second book in the series, Blood Bargain, and it appears the next book will have more romance to it. Matters of the Blood focuses mostly on the mystery. Either way, I'll be eagerly awaiting the next release.
I picked up book one (Matters of the Blood) based on good reviews. It showed some potential, so I immediately checked #2 (Blood Bargain) & #3 (Blood Kin) out of my library. I read them together, so I will review them together also.

What worked. Maria Lima has a readable writing style and the overall storyline had potential.

What didn't work for me? Just about everything else. The heroine is a self confessed 'trust fund baby'. Which sounds more interesting than reality. Neither the heroine nor her boyfriend display much personality, rather blah people. Although the heroine brags that she differs from other trust fund brats b/c she has an actual job...we never really see her job. In fact she doesn't even solve the mystery/crisis/situation, just mills around until the situation resolves itself. After reading the first three books in the series, I cannot figure out what the heroine does with all her time. In book two she does a few daytime errands for her nocturnal vampire boyfriend. She has sex with the boyfriend (when he's awake), lunch with the girlfriend, and the reader is left to speculate what she does the rest of the time.

The most interesting characters (about the only interesting characters) in these books are Keira's brother, Tucker, and his vampire boyfriend. Almost without exception, everyone mentioned is into 'serial monogamy'... everyone...(eyeroll), both human and non-humans. I have deep reservations about characters aged in excess of 1,000 years, it's not a plot device I find believable nor desirable (unless the character is insane)... and this series has lots of very old characters. The heroine has a couple ex-boyfriends that are discussed much more often than necessary, they are 'on-stage' more often than the current beau (unfortunately).

Inconsistencies, the most memorable being the heroine coming into these 'awesome' powers. Which quickly becomes a confusing jumble of 'will she', 'won't she', and 'what will she become'? The storyline says one thing, does another, generally inconsistent all around and quickly becomes just another annoyance factor.

And then there's the factual errors (do some authors live in a cave?). The heroine prepares to travel from the Southwest US to Western Canada, and considers which passport to travel on (and leads us to believe she has more than 2 choices). Frankly, I've traveled to Canada several times...and until recently (before these books were written) US citizens didn't require passports to travel into or out of Canada, only valid ID. The author mentions Canadian customs stamping the passport *raspberries* IME a total error, my passport(when used)has never been stamped when crossing that border (either direction).

By book three, I'm awash in factual errors, boring characters milling around smartly, and an unbelievable mix of misunderstandings, missed communications, extended periods of major communications outages *did I mention eyerolls?*, dialogue sets a scene to do one thing then out of the blue the reader discovers something totally different happened, and other annoying plot devices.

I thought book one had interesting potential, despite the flaws already apparent. Book two continued to magnify the flaws, and by book three...I waded through the first third with numerous eyerolls, skimmed the second third, then tossed the unfinished book under my bed to languish with the dust bunnies until it was due to be returned to the library.

If you like bland, name-dropping, party-snob, rich people pretending to live like 'the folks' this could be the series for you. Otherwise, there's much better paranormal fiction available. So glad I didn't actually invest money in this series.
Murder in a small town, strange goings on, changelings, vampires, cooks and crooks. Best of all the heroine is in her late 30's (young for her family) and admittedly doesn't know it all. The secondary characters are interesting and add to the tale. Hope there's more to come.
The plot had potential but the delivery of the story just lacked the action & suspense. This was not a "I can't put the book down" type of book for me. The romantic interest was kind of wimpy for a vampire as well...
I truly enjoyed this book. It's different enough that it kept me interested from the beginning.