Blessed Book Review

Blessed by Cynthia Leitich Smith

In this third installment of Smith's vampire series, we are reintroduced to Quincie, restaurant owner, self sufficient, and newly made vampire. With her boyfriend, werewolf Kieran, off to wolfpack camp, Quincie is left to deal with the ramifications of a mass vampire infection on unsuspecting humans. She has only a few weeks to hunt down Bradley (the one responsible for the infection) and figure out how to save the souls of all those unsuspecting soon-to-be-vampires. She is soon joined by Zachary, a fallen guardian angel, a werepossum, a former vampire servant and a current one, along with the new staff of Sanguinis, Austin, TX premier vampire themed restaurant.

The premise of this story may sound ridiculous here, but it is truly one vampire packed story that you can sink your teeth into to. No, all jokes aside, the story is a nice addition to Smith's vampire series, paying beautiful homage to Bram Stoker's Dracula, the plot following THE original vampire story with just enough plot twists to surprise even the most loyal Stoker fa. Smith makes the story her own, crafting the mythology of vampires into something that is both compelling and real. Quincie is a strong character to come back to and I was glad to be in her head once again. I must admit that although I love Zachary, angel extrordinaire, I do miss Miranda.

This is a great story for all those who love vampire books, but cringe at the word Twilight. Although if you're a fan of those books, then I imagine these will thrill to the core. Did I mention I do not love the Twilight series? At all. But clearly by the cover, Candlewick is trying to draw in the Twilight crowd. Rest assured this is a well-written vampire series with twists and turns that will leave the reader begging for more. Good thing there are three of them.