The Sweet Scent of Blood (Spellcrackers.com 1) by Suzanne McLeod

Hello to all,

    I will try to give you some more reviews before the end of this month because i did read a little more but now i still neeed to write and i also have some deadline to meet and i'm getting more stressed each day.  However, i won't give up. So one thing at a time and today i follow up with my discovery of paranormal romance including fae... so far i've read mostly dark urban fantasy because it's look like the most common genre with fae ..( i will read also a YA if i manage to finish it on time^^) this time i found it was a lighter urban fantasy.... i guess it wasn't as dark as my precedent choices yet but  in the end  i can't wait to go back to the series i've started before this one. This one is a good read but not probably not for me.

So if you want fae, vampires and witches here comes The Sweet Scent of Blood first book of the Spellcrakers.com series by Suzanne McLeod.

Publisher: Ace Fantasy

Publication: 2008

ISBN: 0575084286

Genre: urban fantasy, paranormal, romance
Violence: strong
Language: normal
sex: mild
Public: 18+

Source: bought

Short description from goodreads :

 Genevieve Taylor is a sidhe - one of the noble fae - and she's unusual even in a London where celebrity vampires, eccentric goblins and scheming lesser fae mix freely with humanity...

Genny is a rising star at Spellcrackers.com, where she finds the "M" in magic - which can mean anything from mischief to malice to murder. The spellcrackers are run by the Witch Council, whose ancient tenets prohibit any contact with vampires. And that's just fine with Genny, who wants as little to do with the bloodsuckers as possible.

But when a sinfully sexy vamp is accused of killing his lover, an old debt forces Genny to help prove his innocence, risking her job, her safety - and the exposure of her own dark secrets. Genny soon realizes that she and her client are both unwitting pawns in a centuries-old power struggle. And it's not just her own neck at stake but the lives of all of London's supernatural beings.

My opinion:

          Interesting but not captivating enough for me.  I had some difficulty to immersed myself in the story and even after I wasn’t completely in. It’s a less dark book than the other urban fantasy ones I’ve read this month so I though I would appreciate more but in fact it was the opposite.  I don’t like to have so many unanswered questions because yes the murder is solved but there is a lot of unknown….for example who is her father …we know he was a vampire.. an important one but not at the top of the hierarchy either because he was giving her to his master. ..Who is the “prince” she is trying to avoid. Etc etc

 I’m guessing this would be revealed slowly as the series continues but for me it wasn’t enough to catch and keep my interest.  Same, the reaction of Hugh is strange… first he tells her to avoid others faes, but then he confesses he wasn’t fully honest and that some would love to help her… then why didn’t he tell her that when she needed that help. She still needs it so why not directly tell her the ones he knows and trust that could be on her side. Then Finn, I like him but  I’m curious about what he knows and how. Also there are all the questions about Rosa….

I’m not sure I really understood what happened there or the reasons she acted like that…the consequences are evident or plausible but having just the point of view of Malik isn’t enough for me.

The characters are well built, and it was interesting to see a world where the paranormal creatures were under the light, living between the mortals but where a category was more ostracized. The witches have their councils, have jobs, the vampires have special laws that give them the right to take care of their problem… but the fae.. they are suffering from discriminations, in the laws, for the job and the humans seems to be hard bend against them while all the others are tolerated or even loved like a cult.  All while at the same time they are the more vulnerable since they can even use their own powers because the humans decided it was too dangerous….strange. It’s something I liked to see and learn from.

So it’s not a favourite series , not even one I loved to be honest but it was a good read and I want to follow up this series to see if I will love it more as the next books explore and answer the questions I have or not. If you want a book about witches, fae and vampires this is a good shot ^^

Score:  3/5

Disclaimer: All opinions are my own and no compensation was received in exchange for this review

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