Review: A must-read follow-up to The Bloodline War!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 30, 2014
Tracy Tappan's writing reads like that best friend who's a lot of fun and tells questionably inappropriate jokes that make you laugh at completely inappropriate times, like funerals and abductions.The Purest of the Breed, Book Two of The Community Series, picks up where the cliffhanger ending of Book One left off, with the Vrcolac warriors heading out on a mission to attempt to rescue four women from the REAL bad guys.The descriptions of the characters, locales, and scenery within the book are very well done. Tappan provides just the right amount of descriptive detail - enough so that the image in your mind is clear, but not so much that she bogs you down and bores you with unnecessary information. That's a hard balance to find, and one that many authors never quite master.Another strength of Tappan's writing is her ability to stay true to each character's unique voice in a series that has many characters with very different personalities. With so many characters, the easy way out would be to have some of them be flat and static background characters, but Tappan stays true to her characters and lets them breathe and live independently of one another with their own distinct quirks. This also allows the reader to more easily keep the multiple characters straight in his/her own head, since each character is individually memorable.You could, theoretically, read The Purest of the Breed without first reading The Bloodline War, as Tappan covers all the pertinent information about the events of the first book in this one (another challenging task that she accomplished admirably). Her editorial team also deserves a shout-out, as it's very obvious that the author and editors go through these books with a fine-tooth comb before publication to make sure everything's as close to perfect as possible.In a genre that's rife with opportunities for gaping plot holes, Tappan manages to weave explanations into her narrative so everything makes sense with no hiccups to pull you out of the story. She expands on the world-building she began in the first book with more details about the culture and mythology surrounding the Vrcolac race, as well as that of the other non-human races the Vrcolacs associate with (either by choice or by necessity). I loved the historical flashbacks into the early years of Dev's mother, Pettrila in 1877 Romania, and the tragic story of her escape from the vampire hunters. The book ends on another cliffhanger, making me desperate to get the third book in my hot little hands. This series is definitely a must-read.*I received a complimentary e-ARC of this book for review purposes; all opinions remain my own.