Karen E. Taylor - Blood Ties

[andydecker]

Karen E. Taylor – Blood Ties (Zebra Books, 1995, 347 p.)

BLOOD ROOTS

Hello, it's me again: Deidre Griffin, vampire. When we last met, my lover, Detective Mitch Greer, had finally given in and become one of us. We had moved to London to begin a new life together. Now we're back on the streets of New York – our old feeding grounds – at the request of The Cadre, a secret society of ancient vampires, because another series of shocking murders is taking place. At first, it was believed there was a rogue vampire on the loose. But it turns out this guy isn't just killing humans … he's also killing vampires.

It's hard to believe that a vampire would want to kill one of his own, but sometimes immortality will do that to guy – push him right over the edge. Now it's going to take all my powers – as a vampire and a woman – to stay one jump ahead of this bloodthirsty murderer. And this time around, Mitch and I aren't the hunters … we're also the prey!


This is another of the 90s vampire glut. Karen E. Taylor seemed to have been quite popular, her series The Vampire Legacy spawned 7 books, the first ones were a couple of times reprinted and got even an omnibus. A casual browsing shows that there is a lot of romance, boring vampire couple sex, a lot of soap-opera talking about, you know, being a vampire, some shape-changing, a bit of action and, well, no horror or original idea. Even when browsing you desperately wish that Buffy and her stake would come to town. This is not a horror novel, in this kind of book you could easily exchange the vampire with an Alien from Arcturus. The writing is smooth, no doubt, like in romance novels, those of manly highlanders and strong-willed but passionate young ladys of the Lowlands. This is the Muzak of vampire fiction, compared to this people like Nancy Collins were Punk.