Review of Blood Hunter by CM Kennedy

CW’s: blood, gore, violence, mentions of abuse and parental emotional abuse

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My Rating: 3.5

I received a free e-galley in exchange for an honest review

So I actually really liked the beginning of this book. Was it a book with stellar writing, plot and characters? No. Will it win awards? Probably not. But it hit that itch in my brain for paranormal romances, urban fantasy, and 2010s YA-aesthetic nostalgia that I have been trying so hard to recapture. I also loved that it captured those feelings while not being about 17 year-olds; Late college aged and older is far easier for me to connect with/relate to than the teenagers that populate a lot of fantasy and romantasy. I want an addictive book that’s like a drug to my brain, or junk food, without feeling so disconnected all the time.

I think there’s an interesting comparison to Twilight here, and other paranormal stories. There isn’t this element of “I’m attracted to this evil creature” but a more realistic “this thing I saw killed my friend, I am now going to obsess to an unhealthy degree over it, fixate on it, and be unable to stop thinking about”. Juliette has PTSD, she feels phantom pains where her wounds were, she feels brutal survivor’s guilt and can’t stop going through the “what-if’s” over her friend’s murder. When other people move on, she feels angry and defensive of her friend’s memory. Juliette’s pain feels realized and like it should, she’s terrified and vulnerable and trying to make sense of the change in her world view. Yes she has a crazy research board in her closet, yes I think she’s earned that right considering her friend died and she almost did too.

Also Alex’s card being “Vampiric Investigations” absolutely sent me into orbit, that was so funny. I don’t know if it was intentionally funny, but it was. And Juliette actually does the reasonable thing in first off, being incredibly hesitant to trust some random guy, secondly suspicious of his motivations, and third: running multiple searches to figure out who he is.

The book is definitely corny, a little clunky in the writing, but I don’t think it’s necessarily more clunky than other books in the genre. I liked that Alex was actually 24. The lack of a huge age gap was a really nice change up from the usual in the genre, and it didn’t feel too much like the relationship was at all toxic.

Alex’s world had laws that stayed consistent, with a governing system that had consequences for infractions/breaking of the laws it created. And the way both Alex and Juliette interacted with all of that felt realistic and like it made sense. Alex’s character aligns with eventually saying “screw it” to the laws he was worried about, and Juliette’s character was consistently stubborn all the way through.

Plot progressed pretty normally for this genre, again, it was a bit cheesy, but I don’t really expect it not to me when I picked up a book with this premise.

I think the progression of the mystery was okay. I do think it could’ve been paced out a little better, and I will say I didn’t really see the actual killer (or “the Knife Man” which is a bit cheesy in itself) coming. But I didn’t feel especially surprised or have an emotional reaction either. I didn’t quite feel that shock. So I do think there could’ve been improvement for more. But I do think the author did a good job at the end of setting up a mystery for the next book.

There is definitely some to be desired with the Alex/Juliette romance. But I will say that since this is not a standalone, I think that definitely isn’t so bad. Because there are other books to develop that as well. I think the author wrote this book with sequels in mind and she did a really good job of that. And I was really looking forward to their first kiss, and I liked how it was done. It felt organic and cute and sweet for my fanfic-loving-heart.

Overall this was a good junk-food type read.