Demon's Blood
by Shari Sakurai
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Immortal blood is precious and Kokawa Taku’s makes him especially unique.
After vampire hunters force them to flee Tokyo, Taku and his lover, Thane, try to make a new life for themselves in England. But three months later Thane is still tormented by nightmares of the fire that almost cost them their lives. This leads to carelessness and the discovery of one of his victims.
When faced with threats from all sides Taku tries his best to protect them although his actions are met with disapproval and anger from Thane. Unknown to his lover, Taku is also struggling to keep hidden the truth of what really happened three months ago.
However, it is only a matter of time before Taku’s past and bloodline catches up with him.
After vampire hunters force them to flee Tokyo, Taku and his lover, Thane, try to make a new life for themselves in England. But three months later Thane is still tormented by nightmares of the fire that almost cost them their lives. This leads to carelessness and the discovery of one of his victims.
When faced with threats from all sides Taku tries his best to protect them although his actions are met with disapproval and anger from Thane. Unknown to his lover, Taku is also struggling to keep hidden the truth of what really happened three months ago.
However, it is only a matter of time before Taku’s past and bloodline catches up with him.
REVIEW:
The plot of Demon's Blood is a five-wing, as soon as the memories were returned and things started coming together the story rollercoastered the last 40% to an terrific end.
Why then did I give this terrific plot a three-wing review? To be fair, it's more like a 3.5, but it boils down to preference and a few things that would have made me in normal circumstances put the book down without having ever reached the big reveal ending plot twists.
The book is about two male vampires that love each other, are hunted for a mysterious reason that is revealed later in the story, GREAT PLOT TWIST, and I love the take on vampires. Absolutely intrigued with the Japanese culture references, and lore. I am a big sucker for Japanese culture, I was that nerd that watched anime... ALL the time in high school. I even tried to learn Japanese, but failed miserably because no one will speak it with me, so learning vocabulary is difficult. I'm also a fan of the male on male relationship between Taku and Thane, because yup, I totally read lots of YAOI manga.
This story has all sorts of wonderful things in it that make this story an A+ in my book. So why Stevie, why did you mark it down if you sing such high praises?
I was severely put off with how often the frequency of the word lover was used in this book. It bugged me so much, to the extent that after a while every time the word was used, I had to put down the book and groan. This feature alone is a personal pet peeve that made reading this book take a lot longer than it should have. I ended up picking up another book from my waitlist to read, finished it, then forced myself to continue reading this book, because the writing is so good in this book, that I felt like I was doing it disservice by giving up on it. So, close to giving this book a DNF solely because of the overuse of the word lover. It just came across as fake every time it was said, and ended up diminishing the seriously sweet relationship that Taku and Thane had.
Enough about that particular quandary, then came the second reason I marked it down, pacing. This too is a personal preference, which is why I say that for some people this book is FIVE WING material through and through, but for me even when I pushed past the LOVER pet peeve, I was close to putting the book down before the fun plot happenings. The pacing was just too slow for me in the beginning. There were so many things that could have been cut or reduced, or re imagined to get us to the meat of the story.
Why are you hating on the pacing so much if the story is so good? Okay, let me explain this one. Vampires... it's been done all over the place, and when the setup of a story is basically like you're reading a normal, non-re-imagined vampire story, you aren't expecting anything exciting or different to happen. So you stick around because you're intrigued with the relationship of the two male vampires, but really, the tit-for-tat play between detectives, hunters, and vampires was too basic and made the pacing seem to slow too me. Too slow for the reveal that the vampires are a new imagining of an origin story.
So, please DO read this story, because you may not have the same hangups as I did. And because if you do have the same hangups that I did, just skip to chapter sixteen after getting to know the characters in the beginning a bit, and you can still understand what's going on and get to the meat of why the story is different. You will miss a few moments that enhance the betrayal part of the story, but overall wouldn't miss too much in my opinion. But don't skip it if the pacing seems right for you, it's really just my personal opinion, that if I were reading without this having been submitted to my blog I would have stopped reading at 20%, and the last 40% of the book is SOOO good.
Best thing is that the book is available on KU, Kindle Unlimited, which is where I read it from. Yes this book was given to me by the author for an honest review, but I read it through Unlimited to give them their royalties. If you like vampires, Japanese culture, yaoi, LGBT, and a new origin story then this is a great read!
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Shari Sakurai is a British author of paranormal, horror, science fiction and fantasy novels that almost always feature a LGBT protagonist and/or antagonist. She has always loved to write and it is her escape from the sometimes stressful modern life!
Aside from writing, Shari enjoys reading, watching movies, listening to (loud!) music, going to rock concerts and learning more about other societies and cultures. Japanese culture is of particular interest to her and she often incorporates Japanese themes and influences into her work.
Shari loves a challenge and has taken part and won the National Novel Writing Month challenge for ten years!
Sign up for the newsletter to get a monthly smattering of the posts on this website, and potential giveaways... shhh... I see a giveaway in your future. Don't forget to put that email in the sidebar pronto!
Aside from writing, Shari enjoys reading, watching movies, listening to (loud!) music, going to rock concerts and learning more about other societies and cultures. Japanese culture is of particular interest to her and she often incorporates Japanese themes and influences into her work.
Shari loves a challenge and has taken part and won the National Novel Writing Month challenge for ten years!
Sign up for the newsletter to get a monthly smattering of the posts on this website, and potential giveaways... shhh... I see a giveaway in your future. Don't forget to put that email in the sidebar pronto!
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