thy blood thy magic...

blood magic.

tessa gratton.

random house (america).

release date: may 24th, 2011

For Nick Pardee and Silla Kennicot, the cemetery is the center of everything.

Nick is a city boy angry at being forced to move back to the nowhere town of Yaleylah, Missouri where he grew up. He can’t help remembering his mom and the blood magic she practiced – memories he’s tried for five years to escape. Silla, though, doesn’t want to forget; her parents’ apparent murder-suicide left her numb and needing answers. When a book of magic spells in her dad’s handwriting appears on her doorstep, she sees her chance to unravel the mystery of their deaths.

Together they plunge into the world of dark magic, but when a hundred-year-old blood witch comes hunting for the bones of Silla’s parents and the spell book, Nick and Silla will have to let go of everything they believe about who they are, the nature of life and death, and the deadly secrets that hide in blood.

 

so people (who shall remain nameless *cough* sonja adele and tye *cough*) scoffed at me when i picked this up. but i stuck to my guns. i knew i wanted this book. i talked about it like A YEAR ago because she just made her book sound SO FREAKING AWESOME.

and it was awesome children. so awesome.

there's blood and sacrifice as your main witchy spell ways, nothing really new there, but i totally bought into it. it wasn't contrite. i didn't feel like gratton just wanted to get the world building or plot over with so she could return to a love story. it felt pretty plausible to me.

in fact the characters kind of just fall into like with each other... and then do something about it. like IMMEDIATELY. it is AMAZING. i didn't have to wait four books for them to figure out how to go on a date. fantastic.

i liked nick and silla. and the secondary characters for that matter. REECE i'm looking at you. you were a particular shade of awesome older brother.

i like that it took me nearly half the book to figure out nick's little endearment (when you read it, you'll know which character and the nickname i'm talking about. HILARIOUS). i like that nick is totally this too cool for school smart ass and he does it in a non-bad boy kind of way.

i like that silla was really grieving. that you saw glimpses of who she was before. how the magic allowed her to feel connected to that before.

i like the mystery and the plot. i like the curve ball three-quarters of the way through.

i like the dialogue.

i like that it is a stand alone book. STAND ALONE. as in NOT AN EFFING SERIES. it made me so happy! (err there is a companion to blood magic, out 2012, but i maintain: STILL NOT A SERIES!)

i like the atmosphere. it felt gothic and creepy and physically uncomfortable (like all gothic horror should). every cut of the blade totally had my fingers tingling and flexing against the book.

i just plain like like like.

if you want something to get lost in that isn't all fluffiness and light, then i'd say you've found your book. it's in a genre, with a cover, that a lot of us have turn from recently. but i'm giving it the uncommon nonsense stamp of approval. so go buy it will ya!

(also just as an aside; i'm totally offended the random house website says 'for fans of stephenie meyer, carrie jones and becca fitzpatrick'... i don't like their books is this still the book for me, random house? is it? why would you mention books that are so mediocre. those books are PARANORMAL ROMANCE and i totally maintain this is not. this is actually an urban fantasy. totally offended.)