WackyAki's Books: The Good, The Bad, The Horrendous

I've been increasingly dissatisfied with quite a number of vampire books. Especially if there's a female vampire that's the main character.

Somehow, despite the fact that the main character (female) is a vampire, she still has to be rescued by the macho manly vampire.

It's not cool anymore.

Let's talk a bit about vampires.

They're walking corpses, true, but the mythology and legends around them don't necessarily deviate: eternally young, don't love silver, don't sparkle (especially don't sparkle), strong as all get-out, possible sun affliction (the mythology isn't clear on that-- some sources will say they boil and melt, some say that they aren't affected whatsoever). Possibly could be staked or beheaded as a way of killing them, but good luck getting close enough.

That being said, I still don't understand the author's that don't realize the mythology for what it is: male or female vampire makes no difference.

In the end, they can still rip out your throat without a normal person being able to do anything about it.

That being said, let's talk about Bloodshot, by Cherie Priest.

What I enjoyed most about this author and her work with vampires is that the lead character is a female vampire and she kicks total ass.

Cheshire Red is a thief. A damn good one.

In her other role as Raylene Pendle, she's a detective.

Blind vampire Ian Stott contacts Raylene-- he wants her to retrieve some documents from a secure lab about a time when he was captive by a very classified government group and experimented on; he believes the surgeon he's in contact with can find a way to restore his sight with the help of the information.

The problem with retrieving the information is that it won't help Ian.

On the contrary,  it puts a big target mark on Ian and Raylene.

Well, killing the bad guys is a dirty job, but hey, more blood for the vampire, right?

What Raylene uncovers is a cruel and sadistic group of people that were interested in the supernatural side of things. And though the experiment was shut down, those that were involved wanted to resume things immediately.

This book was a refreshing read. There was no doubt that Raylene is a vampire and isn't afraid of anyone really knowing because they're not going to walk away, you know.