Review: Promising start to new shifter series
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 09 16, 2012
My Rating: 3 stars: Liked it, but I had some issues - recommend (B)Blooded is a prequel novella set in a new urban fantasy series by Amanda Carlson. The short story outlines a few days in our heroine's life just after her nineteenth birthday. Jessica is the only female to be born into a shifter wolf clan. To top it off, she's human. The wolves all believe she is the evil female of legend who will bring about the wolves' destruction. Since Jessica's father is the alpha leader of the pack, the threats to her life were kept to a minimum until her eighteenth birthday. But there is a strong contingency of wolves who are willing to die to see Jessica's life ended, so Jessica hopes to hold them off some by picking a fight with a hot-head wolf. When that doesn't work, Jessica begs her father to have her sent away so that the wolves will settle down.I really like the premise of this new series. It's original and holds a lot of potential. I want to find out more about Jessica's history and how she will do out in the world. I hope to learn more about the legend that paints her as a witch - and find out if she is in fact, the Daughter of Evil. The story flowed smoothly and quickly. It was action-packed and a bit bloody.Blooded is a world-building, set-up novella. The shortness of the story gives the reader just a small taste of what is to come, but it felt incomplete to me. I felt that there are a few points in the world-building that were unfinished and left me with questions. For example, we learn how Jessica wants to be sent away so that the wolves can live in peace. What I don't get is if the wolves are all males, don't they have to mate... with human females? So why doesn't Jessica spend time with the other females?I was also confused about why her dad was so concerned about sending her away. His reasoning is that as a human, she will need extraordinary protection. Yet, it's my understanding that the supernatural beings in this world are hidden from humans. So why can't she just live as a human?In my opinion, the novella isn't a complete story and would have worked better condensed into a chapter or two at the start of the upcoming book. With that said, the story that Ms. Carlson begins in Blooded is exhilarating and fascinating, and I cannot wait to read the first full-length book in the series, Full Blooded. Although I have unanswered questions and wished for more information in Blooded, it works for a set-up book--just not so much as a stand alone story.