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Seeds of Blood
Welcome to Intrepid. Where Halloween brings tourists, turning leaves - and demons. Over two decades of bloody murder, Steven Savonarola carved a sorcerous Demongate into the heart of his own hometown. With less than two weeks to disarm it before Halloween, Detective Church and the IPD are running out of time.
Lucky for them, they have an Myrrh, a hell-raider with over a thousand years’ experience shattering dark magic, and Aidan, a half-demon fire mage with a very personal grudge against evil.
The plan is Find the tainted sites. Purify them. Try not to die.
They’ll need all the help they can get. Steven may be gone, but shadows in the mountains are determined to see the Demongate open - even if they have to slaughter half the city to do it. And when it comes to killing shadows, even hell-raiders don’t know everything.
If they’re going to make it to All Saint’s Day, they’re going to need hot lead, cold mead, and a weapon that’s out of this world.
And a little praying wouldn’t hurt....
Welcome to Intrepid. It's a hell of a Halloween.
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Like A Net of Dawn and Bones, Seeds of Blood covers more of what I wish I could find in urban fantasies on the shelf. Lone heroes holding back the dark makes fun reading, but if society as a whole has to deal with magic and monsters?
There would be laws. There would be training for law enforcement. There would be some interesting discussions on how to properly restrain supernatural suspects. The ACLU would stick their oar in. The politics would be a nightmare....
I suspect our heroes will prefer dealing with the monsters. At least they can shoot the monsters. ...If they can demonstrate it’s self defense. Or in defense of others. Thank god for cameras.
Lucky for them, they have an Myrrh, a hell-raider with over a thousand years’ experience shattering dark magic, and Aidan, a half-demon fire mage with a very personal grudge against evil.
The plan is Find the tainted sites. Purify them. Try not to die.
They’ll need all the help they can get. Steven may be gone, but shadows in the mountains are determined to see the Demongate open - even if they have to slaughter half the city to do it. And when it comes to killing shadows, even hell-raiders don’t know everything.
If they’re going to make it to All Saint’s Day, they’re going to need hot lead, cold mead, and a weapon that’s out of this world.
And a little praying wouldn’t hurt....
Welcome to Intrepid. It's a hell of a Halloween.
--------
Like A Net of Dawn and Bones, Seeds of Blood covers more of what I wish I could find in urban fantasies on the shelf. Lone heroes holding back the dark makes fun reading, but if society as a whole has to deal with magic and monsters?
There would be laws. There would be training for law enforcement. There would be some interesting discussions on how to properly restrain supernatural suspects. The ACLU would stick their oar in. The politics would be a nightmare....
I suspect our heroes will prefer dealing with the monsters. At least they can shoot the monsters. ...If they can demonstrate it’s self defense. Or in defense of others. Thank god for cameras.
- GenresUrban FantasyFantasy
393 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 8, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 29, 2019
Long winded exposition act to establish lore. Fun times for a nerd like me. Action packed second half, though some of the perspectives used felt more distracting than necessary. Gotta love Aidan, he's my favorite.
I enjoyed the multi-religious and multi-cultural perspective, but side eyed every parallelism to racial discourse, because the author did not make clear whether or not they were talking about monsters or were trying to draw parallels to real people. Because it's one thing to give free rein to cops to carry self defense against supernatural, man-eating creatures. It's another thing to seemingly advocate guns against Mexican addicts, black lives, etc. I do *not* like the parallels between vampires and black people that inherently feed on people, or the swift dismissal of Islam with knowledge based on, according to the author's notes, only one source. And not even by someone of that religion.
It's a splash of ice cold water to the image I had of the author, whom I really, really admired.
I enjoyed the multi-religious and multi-cultural perspective, but side eyed every parallelism to racial discourse, because the author did not make clear whether or not they were talking about monsters or were trying to draw parallels to real people. Because it's one thing to give free rein to cops to carry self defense against supernatural, man-eating creatures. It's another thing to seemingly advocate guns against Mexican addicts, black lives, etc. I do *not* like the parallels between vampires and black people that inherently feed on people, or the swift dismissal of Islam with knowledge based on, according to the author's notes, only one source. And not even by someone of that religion.
It's a splash of ice cold water to the image I had of the author, whom I really, really admired.
October 10, 2017
Sequel to A Net of Dawn and Bones. Spoilers ahead for that.
It opens with a briefing at the police station. Of banes and other tools against werewolves and vampires and other creatures, and Myrrh gets accused of hate speech. Followed by a lawyer arriving in pursuit of Aidan.
And then by problems with the FBI, a man who appeared in the bank when he wasn't there, dangerous deer, a criminal who, they deduce, is being targeted who needs to be warned, a girl who insists on a nickname because of what happened to her sister, tonics, waterproof paper, a drinking contest, a Halloween party, and much more.
Broadening the character base has made the world-building a little less consistent, with cross-over cosmology elements that aren't quite integrated.
It opens with a briefing at the police station. Of banes and other tools against werewolves and vampires and other creatures, and Myrrh gets accused of hate speech. Followed by a lawyer arriving in pursuit of Aidan.
And then by problems with the FBI, a man who appeared in the bank when he wasn't there, dangerous deer, a criminal who, they deduce, is being targeted who needs to be warned, a girl who insists on a nickname because of what happened to her sister, tonics, waterproof paper, a drinking contest, a Halloween party, and much more.
Broadening the character base has made the world-building a little less consistent, with cross-over cosmology elements that aren't quite integrated.
February 21, 2022
The much-anticipated continuation of A Net of Dawn and Bones did not dissapoint. The story picked up shortly after the previous ending and further expands in the complex magical lore of this magical modern world and introduces several interesting new characters.
My only complaint is that Myrrh at some points utterly fails to identify as a character with a mostly European/African/Mediteranean background. She was supposedly born in Egypt and presumably spend a lot of time in Europe/around the Mediteranean, but she sadly displays a rather condescending and too simplistic view on an area of the world that was, for a long time, her home. Even if she hated it (which is not stated), she displays some views I typically see in Americans (white Americans, to be specific), and which unfortunately come across as quite short-sighted and (in my opinion) unjustly glorifies America. I would expect a 1000+ saint to be more cynical about America's supposed 'greatness' and 'fairness', especially because she probably wouldn't count as a proper 'white' person and it has been implied that she's been on the bad side of the law quite a lot. I would also expect someone who lived through a lot of different cultures (including muslims, it's implied she lived in close proximity with them for an undefined number of years and dealt with them on several occasions) to have a more nuanced view on the Islam. It's a pity since C. Chancy is usually better at researching her character's backgrounds. Luckily this only occured in a couple of paragraphs, and did not diminish my overall enjoyment of the book.
My only complaint is that Myrrh at some points utterly fails to identify as a character with a mostly European/African/Mediteranean background. She was supposedly born in Egypt and presumably spend a lot of time in Europe/around the Mediteranean, but she sadly displays a rather condescending and too simplistic view on an area of the world that was, for a long time, her home. Even if she hated it (which is not stated), she displays some views I typically see in Americans (white Americans, to be specific), and which unfortunately come across as quite short-sighted and (in my opinion) unjustly glorifies America. I would expect a 1000+ saint to be more cynical about America's supposed 'greatness' and 'fairness', especially because she probably wouldn't count as a proper 'white' person and it has been implied that she's been on the bad side of the law quite a lot. I would also expect someone who lived through a lot of different cultures (including muslims, it's implied she lived in close proximity with them for an undefined number of years and dealt with them on several occasions) to have a more nuanced view on the Islam. It's a pity since C. Chancy is usually better at researching her character's backgrounds. Luckily this only occured in a couple of paragraphs, and did not diminish my overall enjoyment of the book.
June 2, 2018
Aidan's murderer is in Hell. Finally. Well hopefully, and y'know for a very long time. But the Demongate that the murderer set up is still ready to blow open on Halloween night. Aidan, Myrrh, and Church have a lot of cleansing to do to keep the rip between Hell and reality close. And evil forces of course don't want that.
There are a lot more characters in this book. And it takes a while to get them all straight. This book was harder to read than the first book. There's a lot to set up and put into place, until the second half of the book where the action really starts coming fast and keeps on going.
So my advice, keep on reading. It'll definitely pick up.
There are a lot more characters in this book. And it takes a while to get them all straight. This book was harder to read than the first book. There's a lot to set up and put into place, until the second half of the book where the action really starts coming fast and keeps on going.
So my advice, keep on reading. It'll definitely pick up.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews