Gifts of the Blood by Vicki Keire

The Basics:

Gifts of the Blood by Vicki Keire

Curiosity Quills

Book One of the Angel's Edge series

Paranormal Romance

Published Nov 19, 2013
Source: Received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Amazon.ca Kobo.com

Why I picked up this book:

Angels, paranormal romance, secrets in that paranormal vein... All this is right up my alley.

Blurb:

A dying brother. A young man with golden planes of light on his back. A blind chess wizard. An insane angelic kidnapper in flamboyant red leather. A town with more secrets than stoplights. A cat that talks to spirits. Waking up with eyes the color of moonlight. 

Before her world tilts towards impossible, Caspia Chastain thinks the only strange thing about her is that she sometimes draws the future. Only her brother Logan, fighting his cancer diagnosis, knows what she can do. When she draws a man surrounded by brilliant light, dark wings, and frightening symbols, she can only hope the vision won’t come true. 

But when a stranger named Ethan appears, determined to protect Caspia and her brother from dangers he won’t explain, she’s not sure what to think. Strangers almost never come to Whitfield. They certainly don’t follow her around, frightening her one moment and treating her like glass the next. And they certainly don’t look exactly like the subject of her most violent drawing. 

My thoughts:

Sinister. This is how I would describe the first two thirds of Gifts of the Blood. Everyone and everything that Caspia comes into contact with seemed sinister to me. There was no joy anywhere, no true friends - I was waiting for everyone to turn into a bogeyman, including her cancer-ridden brother.

Now, while the sinister does start to grate and it made it a bit hard to push through, it was incredibly atmospheric. I think that it will give a lot of texture and dimension to a future re-read of the book, particularly after finishing the other two books in the series and having a complete grasp on all the characters and where they're headed. The pervasiveness of the atmosphere was a little suffocating when I really didn't know who Caspia could trust, and therefore was expecting danger at every turn, but once I know who the good guys really are, I think it'll be less oppressive.

Okay, so the book was a little slow to start, but once it gets some traction, the pace accelerated right through to the last page. The last third of the book was a real whirlwind, and I'm quite looking forward to seeing how things play out in the next book as there should be some serious consequences to decisions made in this first book in the series.

Bottom line:

Give this one a shot without high expectations. It's a slow build, and that does pay off in the final pages, and I'm hoping for more in books 2 and 3!

3.5 stars

For fans of paranormal romance, angels and demons, towns with major secrets