In Chosen by Blood, Virna DePaul has created an alternate near future where Otherborn creatures have revealed themselves to humans. The fears and prejudice related to the paranormal races coming out in the open lead to a civil war in the United States. FBI scientists created a vaccine that was meant to protect humans by making their blood not nourishing to vamps. Now the war is over and vamps are trying to survive as weakness and starvation, as well as low fertility rates, threaten to destroy their race.
Knox Devereaux is the leader of one of the vampire clans. He has found his soul mate in Special Agent Felicia Locke. The problem is that he is duty bound to marry another vampire woman in order to ensure the repopulation and hopefully the survival of his race. Felicia is human. He wants Felicia to accept her place at his side, not as his wife but his mistress. Felicia loves Knox, but she is unwilling to share him. She does not feel she could survive being with him knowing he belongs to someone else, and she doesn’t think it will be fair to that other person either. So she stays away from him, until a mission that could possibly mean the survival of the vampire race brings them together. Will they be able to save the vampire race and make their relationship work, or are they just too different to have a future together?
I need to begin this part of the review by stating that I am not a fan of stories where the hero is not completely committed to the heroine. Knox is an honorable vampire and his commitment to his clan is admirable, but this is a romance novel not just a work of fiction. The situation that he places Felicia in wanting her to be with him but without being faithful to her was just not romantic at all, especially when it was obvious that she would be hurt by the arrangement. It was a selfish desire which he expressed and pushed for throughout most of the novel, and made it very difficult for me to like him as a character. Furthermore, the way that Knox lets the Vamp Council dictate his personal life was not very alpha male of him, something even the ghost of his dead wife could not believe he would allow. The fact that Felicia was a strong and capable FBI agent, yet couldn’t resist him when he came near her also bothered me. I sympathized with Felicia but most of the time I just felt like telling her to just move on and leave the vampire to his clan. The book ending was somewhat bittersweet and not all of their issues were resolved but at least Knox gets his chance to redeem himself. We are left unsure of just how happy their future will be. I truly hope that DePaul will choose to remedy that in upcoming volumes of the series, perhaps as a side story.
If we put aside the issues surrounding Knox and Felicia’s relationship, the premise of the novel is actually very good. It is a fast paced story with enough action and intrigue to satisfy most fans of paranormal romantic suspense. The back story of the conflict between the humans and Otherborn, in addition to the politics between the races was interesting. The members of the Red Team, a team of Para-Ops created to deal with the problems having to do with the Otherborn, are fascinating. I was particularly interested in the half were-beast Dex Hunt and the mage Lucy Talbot. I am also intrigued by the possible connection between Wraith and Caleb O’Flare. The next installment, Chosen by Fate, is currently scheduled to come out by the end of 2011 and continues with the adventures of the Red Team. Hopefully we won’t see any more heroes intent on being unfaithful to their leading ladies, no matter how honorable the reason.
Chosen by Blood is a well written paranormal suspense novel with an intricate world and many possible future storylines to look forward to. While I personally did not enjoy the primary relationship found in this book very much, other readers may not have the same problems with it as I did. The novel did provide a solid introduction to what looks to be a promising new series and the story is well worth reading.
~ Denise |
