Blood Whispers My Name

by Anne M. Aspenes

Somewhere in the murky house, a clock was ticking. I remained frozen on the sofa where Adrian had left me and listened to the seconds ticking away, expecting to hear him return any moment. I could hear the hour hand’s jerky movements round the dial. An hour passed, still with no sound of him. My mind began to wander, retracing step by step to that alley where I had consumed a life. I could still taste the boy on my mouth; lifting my hands to my face, unconsciously rubbing the long-gone bloodstains on my chin again, his scent was all over my fingers. It should have made me ache with guilt, but it only filled me with a sort of hunger – a longing deep within my body that felt sexual, almost, warm and personal. I laughed a little.

28-year-old Clara Ayers has been to hell and back. Despite a tough adolescence, she has successfully built a life for herself, with loving friends and a career. Now all she wants is to live life to the fullest.
When she meets handsome and mysterious Adrian, she welcomes the romance with heart wide open. When he offers her immortality, she eagerly accepts.
But if it’s too rosy, it’s too good to be true, and Clara is soon reminded that there is no such thing as happily ever after.

463 pages, Paperback

Published March 26, 2025

Reviews

[Oz · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've been putting off reviewing this - hate to give a negative review as the only one - but it's a book I think of quite often as an example of why authors need a second set of eyes on their book. This is clearly a story that's been being written for a long time, where the inspirations have changed. Part Twilight, part Queen of the Damned, mixing in some high fantasy tropes and some urban fantasy and a lot of romance, in a way that's I think Trying to subvert a lot of that and just winding up not being much of anything at all. The characters have the same realisations over and over, but the narrative isn't aware of them. They drop hints towards something interesting happening lore-wise that never materialises. In trying to present moral greyness, the book winds up somehow reaffirming its Good V. Evil conflict but now in a fascist sort of way where the enemy is largely deformed brown teenagers whom our white protagonists slaughter with minimal effort. Also every character of colour on the protagonists' side is killed. I counted, with increasing desperation.

It isn't helped by being quite ungrounded. This should have been written in the author's native language, and set in... If not her own country, at least one she's visited extensively. The parts in England are only identifiable by working out where we aren't, and the parts in The Rest Of The World are riddled with stereotypes, minus a brief sojourn in Scandinavia. If there weren't typos or English errors on every page (cease is always spelt seize, for example) this bit wouldn't matter too much, but it's all just so unpolished that every issue becomes more noticeable.

(And if the main character spent less time talking about how childish she is while sitting in a hotel room, the brain might latch onto something else).

All this said - I had a good time reading. Not in the way the author wanted, but it became a bit of a thought exercise in how editing could save a first draft. Which is really the main issue here - the book felt like a first draft, not a published novel. Hire editors.