Chilling Corner for September

Hi all,

This month I am looking at reading books in a series. A friend of mine has just published Book 4 and is looking at ten books before the series is over. I am also writing a series, but I am treading lightly, sorting out things in my mind. I worry a series might drag things out for the reader but then again it depends on how the series is set up. I like continuity but not if it means that each book is a copy of the one before, changing locations but not the actions, or characteristics of the leads. I also prefer stand alone in each book but a continued plot. Yet there is something so special when books continue outside of that first one.

How do you keep anticipation alive, variety alive, freshness alive because without this, the reader just turns pages? Do you make the books stand alone with perhaps a thread to unite them? Or do the main characters indulge us with a new adventure with each new book? When do you come to an end, at what point does the series lay down and farewell us? Interesting questions and of course the answers differ with the individual author, and the appeal of the differing series, will differ with the individual reader.

Though I read all types, I do prefer a series as I said above with a central theme, with different characters in each book but with each book standing alone. But, I love that common thread because it creates a feeling of real life whether this be the character connections (family and/or friendships), or a main event or upheaval in their lives. Incidents in life do not affect one person. There is always a domino effect. My Chilling Corner this month features one of my favourite paranormal authors Lindsay J Pryor and her Blackthorn Series.

“The explosive, action-packed conclusion to the utterly addictive Blackthorn series will leave fans of paranormal romance breathless. Blackthorn is an eight-book series with an overarching plot, so if you’re at the start of your Blackthorn journey, read BLOOD SHADOWS to discover how it all began…”

Not once has the series not delivered excitement, action, romance, a great pace carried by often heart-stopping tension. I have included my review of Blood Shadows Book 1 and my review for Book 8, Blood Broken. There’s not a great deal of difference in my feelings from then to now. As each book has solved a piece of the puzzle it has also taunted with a need to know more.  Even though I was sad to see the end, satisfaction ruled because from inception this series did exactly what the above blurb promised. It left me breathless.

Blood Shadows  Blackthorn Book 1 

Utterly and Deeply Captivating  (March 2013)

This book is a totally entrancing experience, full on, dark, deep, and often brutal the characters lead you on an inevitable journey of love that seeps into your bones the way I would imagine Kane does when he uses his incisors to slice into Caitlin. The use of language is magic from descriptions of the cold, ugly world these creatures are forced to inhabit to the conversation held, and the interactions conducted by the two main characters who lie to each other but worse to themselves.

There is no going back for them and as readers, we are forcefully compelled to feel and be swept up in the drama because this is a writer that knows how to write. She is a vampire master pulling on the blood of our emotions so that we are fascinated and drawn into a sensual haze that ignores reason, and I don’t think I am alone in loving it. The plot is intricate with actions that are horrifying not just for the cold-blooded deeds but because the style and flow of words creates a realism that connects us to what we see happening. What an utterly and deeply captivating book and thank the stars that it is a series because I am impatient to read on.

Blood Broken (Blackthorn Book 8)

Stunning Series and a Superb Ending (May 2019)

Unlike many others I haven’t been in a hurry for this book because I knew it would be the last and it had to be nurtured so that we readers would be satisfied.

Complex and enthralling the world-building has never faltered in giving a us an alternative world we can be relate to. Hunger for power, greed, a sense of superiority that has no regard for the individual may be presented by supernatural beings but the reality is still there for us to view and learn from, and so is love.

Each of the couples have been uniquely captivating and their commitment to the welfare of others beautifully presented by an extremely talented author. Not once has tension been absent from the page, not once has a characters not grabbed our heart and held it with sensuality, and not once has the plot failed in holding our attention whether in this last book or any of the preceding ones.

This has been a stunning series and this final book has given us a superb ending, satisfying to our romantic soul and brutal enough to satisfy our need for justice. 
Absolutely fabulous reading!

Have a read but start at the beginning. It is worth it, I promise.

Till next month

Barb

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