Mercian Trilogy #1: Blood

Title: Mercian Trilogy #1: Blood

Author: K. J. Wingall

Date of Publication: August 28, 2012

Formats Available: Hardcover, Paperback, E-Book

Synopsis: After awakening from hibernation vampire William, the former Earl of Mercia, is determined to discover the truth of his condition. When he feeds from a man named Jex he obtains one of his notebooks, that seems to lead him to a girl he found sleeping in a doorway named Eloise. As they slowly uncover the truths of what happened to him over 500 years ago they quickly discover who they can trust, and who they can't. William's enemies are closing in and the need to discover the man who made him becomes more desperate. With the help of Eloise and her friends Chris and Rachel they race to discover what really happened, before it is too late.

My Review:

Blood actually started off pretty good; I was interested by the plot and was excited to discover more about the characters. However as the novel progressed the more the plot deteriorated. By the end I was unsure of what the novel had really been about, paired with a lackluster finish I found myself fairly disappointed in this novel.

My biggest annoyance was the characters, especially Eloise. Dim and extremely shallow she was one of the most unrealistic characters I have ever read about. As the novel progresses she completely disregards her own safety and blindly follows Will, paired with their horrible "insta-love" I was extremely disappointed with the character interactions.

While the novel had a lot going for it in terms of being creepy there wasn't much else exciting about it. As the plot progressed I became more and more confused as to what was going on and why it was happening. At first a quest to discover Will's maker, numerous deaths, attacks, and added characters left me unsure of what was really happening when the end of the novel arrived.

The ending of the novel fell extremely flat, over in only a few pages the novel seemed to be leading up to a huge revelation that never happened. By the end I couldn't figure out what the characters had discovered or what they hoped to learn in future novels in the trilogy.

While I didn't feel that Blood was a terrible book there is definitely a lot of room for improvement. Hopefully the next in the series makes up for this first novel because I feel that this series has some potential but it's just not there yet.

3/5