Drawing Blood by Richard Finney
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| Drawing BloodBy: Richard Finney & Franklin Guerrero Published by: Lono Publishing ISBN: 1938457021 Author’s Website: Format of Review Copy: Paperback Recommendable for people who enjoy: Vampire, Action-Adventure, Thriller |
Synopsis (from Amazon):
With humanity at the edge of self-annihilation…
Vampires, living in the shadows of humans for thousands of years, joins the war to end all wars. Their intervention is motivated by the fear that without their intervention the extermination of their food supply will trigger their extinction as well.
Matt Haynes and Tyra Redmond briefly met in the Green Zone. He was a world weary mercenary. She was working for the State Department trying to rebuild a country.
Years later, when their paths cross again, a war has ravaged the planet and decimated the human population. Both are now prisoners at a “Blood Donation Center,” known as CCC197, where they must endure a daily dehumanizing existence of being kept alive only to serve as a source of blood for their captors.
Matt and Tyra must overcome their clashing personalities if they are to plan and execute an audacious escape to freedom which will include all the inmates of CCC197.
Standing in their way is a security team manned by human traitors working for the Vampires. And of course any attempt to escape from the concentration camp will mean defeating a species that has superior strength, cunning, and intelligence.
And for Matt Haynes, there is an even more compelling complication — one of the vampire commanders of CCC197 is his brother… or was his brother… before he became a member of the undead.
“Drawing Blood” is a heart stopping, paranormal, thriller about the fight for survival, and the struggle to maintain human relationships in a world that has been re-made by the undead.
This is the first of the RELICT BOOK SERIES, each an OPEN ENDED NOVEL depicting the fall of humanity and the attempt by the Vampires to maintain control of their new world order.
The text of “Drawing Blood” is over 47,000 words! But…
ALERT TO ALL INTERESTED READERS: The novel does “end” with “TO BE CONTINUED.” Meaning this is the first book in a series of books.
ANOTHER WARNING: Even if you have read dozens of books about the undead, we bet you will discover “Drawing Blood – Book One of the RELICT Series,” is not your typical Vampire novel
My Thoughts:
I wish this book had a “trailer” because I don’t know if my words are going to give it justice. LOL
The world building is great: post-apocalyptic and run by vampires. When I started this, I kept thinking this story was inspired by the Ethan Hawke movie, DAYBREAKERS. In both stories the vampires have decided to “farm” humans for blood, rather than just kill them outright. That’s about where the comparison ends though, other than the general premise the stories are nothing alike.
In DRAWING BLOOD, the vampires run “Concentration Camps” (yeah, it went there.) for blood donors. There is an interesting vampire/human hierarchy within the camps staff, and donors are basically treated as modern day jailed prisoners.
Character wise, development was minimal, which left a lot of room for ones imagination to build them as they saw fit. Surprisingly, for me anyway, I loved it for this book. I usually like the story given to me. I want to know what the grass smells like, and if the characters wore deodorant that day. None of that is given up here. It let me paint the pictures on my own and I really locked in and connected to them all. Plus, and this has no bearing on my review… There is a character named “Bunny”. ha!
The story was paced well making this a quick “ONE NIGHT” READ.
In Conclusion:
I really enjoyed the story premise, but I hate that its a “cliff hanger”. This installment lacked a full story arc because it cut off before there was any sort of climax to any aspect of the story. I’m definitely looking forward to reading the next book because I want to know what happens next, but I would only recommend this to you if you like “serial” type books.
*This book does contain several typos, but it wasn’t enough to turn me off from the story. {o.O}
Mom Notes:
Contains strong language and violence.