Blood Bound by Rachel Vincent

This book found its way onto my TBR at some point last spring. At the time I was rocking back and forth between urban fantasy and historical mystery and this book’s blurb really appealed to me. I found the book itself in one of those 3 for 2 offers at the end of summer. I snapped it up at that time then I did my usual: popped it on my living room bookshelf and promptly forgot about it until I just picked it up at random.

I know this, that and the other about the author’s other books and it left me unsure as to whether she would appeal to my tastes. Then again, the book is published by Mira and they also publish some of my favourite authors so I kept hope!

Information:

Title: Blood Bound

Series: Unbound #1

Author: Rachel Vincent

Publisher: Mira

Target Audience: Adult

Pages: 463

Chapters: 30

PoV: 1^st person

Tense: Past tense

Story: Bound by blood, condemned by fate 

As a bloodtracker, Liv is extremely powerful. And in a world where power is a commodity that can get you killed, Liv's learnt to survive by her own rules. 

Rule number one? Trust no one. 

But when a friend's daughter goes missing, Liv is bound by a potent magical oath. She can't rest until the child is safe. 
And that means trusting her dangerous ex, Cam. 

A sinister prophecy tells that she and Cam will be the death of each other, yet Liv's tired of being a slave to destiny. She's ready to play the forces controlling her world at their own game. 

No matter what the cost.

Thoughts and impressions: Well, I can say with absolute certainty that my worries were completely and utterly unfounded. Within the first few pages, I knew that this was the sort of urban fantasy that would sweep me off my feet. And sweep me off my feet it did! As I said, the first chapter told me that this would be the sort of book that I love but it took a couple more chapters until I was so caught up in the action that there was no way to extricate myself until I’d finished the book.

The synopsis is a little misleading. Everything mentioned in it does take place, yes, but the action is really kick-started by the murder of this same friend’s husband, which precipitates the kidnapping of her child much later on in the story.

Anne, the friend, and Liv have a contract along with two other friends that requires them to help in any way they can if it is asked of them. In the context of the novel, should they refuse to help their body will start to systematically shut down until the heart stops beating. Certainly far from a comfortable way to die.

As Anne specifically asks Liv for help, there’s not much Liv can do other than accept. When Anne expands this request that she work with Cam – the man she’s been avoiding due to a foretelling that they will kill each other – Liv is catapulted into a world of syndicate secrets that she’d done her very best to steer clear of all these years.

I’m not entirely sure that I bought the relationship between Liv and Cam. Obviously the romance was already there so there was no budding relationship. She walked out on him six years ago, though, and six years is a very long time to not move on from a three year relationship. Stukkm their interactions were often intense and leant a very different aspect to the book.

The story is written in the first person and follow’s both Liv and Cam’s PoVs. I would have liked to have seen Cam’s reaction to how things played out in the climax but the story stayed in Liv’s PoV at that point. At first, I transferred this hope to getting this from him in the next book in the series but the sequel is going to follow Kori, another of the four friends contracted to help each other. Then again, maybe Kori’s story will also showcase Cam and Liv a bit just as she featured in theirs. A girl can hope! I’d say that Cam and Liv’s story is far from over, though, so maybe things will come back to them in a future book. I certainly hope so.

Occasionally, the characters were somewhat slow on the uptake. Not too-stupid-to-live slow, but slow nonetheless. I’d find that I had pegged the next reveal as obvious but Liv or Cam (or both) would continue to blunder about in blissful ignorance until the obvious really would not be ignored anymore. When I see things like this, it makes me wonder whether I’m sometimes just as slow when faced with the facts. I’d guess that I probably am but it can still be frustrating in novels when the characters are blind to what’s staring them right in the face. As I said, at least the characters weren’t stupid – just a bit slow at putting two and two together.

The world that Rachel Vincent has dreamt up here is fascinating. There’s no specific era or setting (other than it being in the US) but I’m tempted to imagine it being in the near future somewhere near the East Coast. I don’t know why, that’s just where I situated it in my head.

In this reality, certain people have what are called Skills and these Skills have led to the rise of two crimes bosses in “the City”. It was very mafia-esque in this dog-eat-dog world where allegiances collide quite spectacularly at times. I love the idea that a tattoo on your arm could bind you so tightly to a syndicate that any attempt to go against your boss’s orders would result in your body killing itself. Certainly a very bleak image of life though I have no doubts that this is what organised crime would become in such a world.

I really enjoyed my foray into Liv’s life and I hope that the series will return there in a future book. As it is, I’m looking forward to learning more about Kori later this year.

Style: I’m not entirely sure that Cam and Liv’s voices are very distinct, a pitfall of having multiple first person narrators. This didn’t matter to me as I was reading, though. I was too engrossed to care.

Final verdict: The book exceeded all of my expectations. I loved it! 5 stars

Extra notes: Both bad language and sex present.