BLOOD TIES BOOK TWO: POSSESSION

Author: Jennifer Armintrout ISBN: 0778324184 2/2007 PARANORMAL Publisher: MIRA

My father always said fear was a weakness. Well, that's easy to say when you don't have to worry about vampire slayers or holy water. I hate fear, but undead life goes on. In the two months since I was attacked in the hospital morgue and turned into a vampire, I've killed my evil sire, Cyrus, fallen in love with my new sire, Nathan, and have even gotten used to drinking blood. Just when things are finally returning to normal—as normal as they can be when sunlight can kill you—Nathan becomes possessed. And then he slaughters an innocent human. Now it's my job to find Nathan before the Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement does, because they are just waiting for an excuse to terminate him—and anyone foolish enough to help him. But it gets worse. It turns out that Nathan's been possessed by one of the most powerful and wicked vampires alive—the Soul Eater. And who knows what vile plan he's concocted? With the Soul Eater and my possessed sire on the loose, I have a lot to fear. Including being killed. Again.

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

Jennifer Armintrout just keeps getting better and better, in my opinion. Her second book in the Blood Ties series, POSSESSION, is good.... really good.

We pick up where we left off in Book One: The Turning. Carrie and Nathan have effectively killed Carrie's first sire, Nathan is now her new sire and they are trying to deal with the new life that they have without Cyrus (Carrie's first sire) or Ziggy (Nathan's adopted son). The only problem? Nathan has become possessed and has tried to kill her. He is out there killing innocent people, and now Carrie must try to find him and make sure that the Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement doesn't destroy him. Not an easy thing for a girl to do, but Carrie is all guts and goes after her man with few qualms at all. After everything that she has been through, I figure that she has this in the bag, but Nathan proves to be harder to get to than she originally thought.

With a little help from an old friend, Max—who I sincerely hope gets his own book—Carrie is able to accomplish what no other doctor-turned-vampire might have been able to.

Another little problem? Cyrus is back. As in alive. Risen from the dead. And the crazy group of vampires that have raised him up have got big plans. Things are a little different now because Cyrus is a human. He has absolutely no immortal powers. I really liked seeing this side of Cyrus. In Book One I really thought of him as a monster, and he was, but in POSSESSION (Book Two) we get to see what drove him to become what he was. We also get to see a human side of him as he learns to care for someone again, and he begins to understand exactly what kind of monster he truly was when he was immortal. It gives him substance, and by the end of the book I can't say that I liked him, but I felt sorry for him. He was like a little lost boy trying to find his way in a very scary place.

POSSESSION is a stunning and gripping story that kept me white knuckling the book through each page. I could not put this book down. I simply had to know how it would end. And that is the best part of it all—it didn't. Not really. This book is all set up for a sequel and I absolutely cannot wait for that!

Kristal Gorman