Book Review: BLOOD AND MAGIC by Ilana Waters

An ancient, ruthless vampire. A gutsy witch hippie. Both walk into a bar.

And all hell breaks loose.

From USA Today bestselling author Ilana Waters:

Bloodseeker Titus isn’t looking for trouble—just a quick meal. But when his path crosses the witch Abigail’s, that plan gets shot to Hades.

Abigail is a member of the Paranormal Investigation Agency (PIA), a secret organization that can spell death to supernaturals. Titus vows to stay as far away from her as possible. But when Abigail suspects a high-ranking PIA member of a monstrous plot, she vows to investigate. For that, she needs Titus’s special skills.

Against his will, Titus is swept into a world of exploding gas mains, lethal bird-shifters, and sadistic vampire minions. The only way out? Uncover the PIA’s murderous secret. Which means going up against the powerful figure at the center of it all. The only problem is, that person will stop at nothing to get what they want.

Even if it means destroying every supernatural in their path.

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I volunteered to review this book as part of a blog tour.

This story moves very fast from the beginning, and it requires a focused mind to keep up. I liked that. Even when the pace slows down, and it didn't happen often, there was a lot of things going on or information to be digested to keep up.

Despite the pace of the story, the plot is not complicated, and the subplots do not overtake nor dominate the main plot line. Given the pace of the main story, the lack of strong subplots was a good thing.

The two main characters' first meeting set off sparks that supported the entire story and their motivations for their actions.

Their interactions sometimes made me laugh, and the author did well to establish the kind of rapport that supported the pace of the story and the high action scenes.

Both Abigail and Titus' characters worked well in the setting and the action scenes. Although both main characters, and several of the other characters, had supernatural abilities, the author didn't use their powers as quick fixes to help get them out of trouble. The scene with the uncontrollable flying metal disc quickly drew the reader into understanding that while magic might be involved in action scenes, it was not going to be an easy answer to every problem the two main characters were going to encounter in the rest of the story.

The underlying tension of romantic interest between the two main characters remained subtle and was not distracting of the main plot, which remains the action, fantasy setting of the book.

Since prequels are invariably written after the first book of a series, the author made sure that were no assumptions needed to be made by the reader based on the progress of books that came before it in real time, and yet after it in the timeline of the story.

Overall a lovely read and the story will fall into the recommended category for readers of both witch and vampire genres. Readers who don't like romance will also enjoy this book.

My rating