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Title: Death Becomes Her
Series: Kurtherian Gambit #1
Author: Michael Anderle
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 271
Format: Digital Edition
Title: Death Becomes Her
Series: Kurtherian Gambit #1
Author: Michael Anderle
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 271
Format: Digital Edition
Synopsis:
|
Michael, the Father
of All Vampires, is awoken after one of his children is killed. He
sets out to find a replacement but there is only 1 candidate that
fits Michaels very exacting standards. He contacts General Reynolds
to setup the interview.
Bethany Anne
Reynolds, a black ops of black ops agent, has been diagnosed with an
incurable blood disease that will kill her in less than 6months. She
has only told 2 people, neither of them being her father. So when she
is summoned to her father's base, she assumes one of the two spilled
the beans.
Bethany Anne is
recruited by Michael. She is now officially dead and her record of
existence has been closed. However, Bethany Anne was not recruited to
simply be a new child of Michael's, but Michael's own replacement as
he realized that events in the world were moving faster than his 1000
year old brain could handle. New blood was needed (I think I made
that pun all by myself!).
It turns out that
what turned Michael into a sunwalking alpha vampire a millenia ago
was an alien scout sent to change any sentient races it found into
beings capable of fighting an enemy that the aliens, the Kurtherians,
were no longer able to fight. Now with an alien computer in her head,
Michael disappeared and the kickass attitude that has gotten her
through life so far, Bethany Anne must face down all of Michael's
children plus all the residents of the Unknown World (what the
supernaturals refer to themselves as collectively).
The book ends with
Bethany Anne forming a new proto-team of her own and taking down of
Michael's grandchildren who had gotten out of line. But with the
Forsaken, children of Michael who have rejected all his strictures,
life, or death, isn't going to be easy for Bethany Anne.
My
Thoughts:
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My first impression of Bethany Anne (you have NO idea how sick to
death I became of that two name nomeclature by the time this book was
done) was that I hated her guts. She was piss and vinegar with a bad
attitude. Thankfully, once she is made over by the alien machine, and
starts acting like an alpha vampire, it's more palatable. I still
don't particularly care for her, but I stopped actively disliking her
by the end.
There was a lot of setup in this book, what with introducing
vampires, the shape changers and then the whole “alien” thing.
That took this from a “so stereotypical urban fantasy that I want
to gag” to a much wider scope of story that could be, and will be,
told. Also, Bethany Anne didn't have any love interest in this book
at all, so that was nice.
The action scene where she destroys the werewolves and then goes
after the vampire that set them on her was nice and I wish there had
been more of that. But at under 300 pages, Anderle had to really
choose what to include in this and honestly, I think he did a good
job of balancing everything.
This was another book that came across my radar because of PG's
Ramblings. He was dead on about the profanity too, so be
aware of that. It only took me a year to get around to reading this.
So take that into consideration if I ever tell you that your review
has inspired me to read Book X. It'll be a while
* grin *
★★★☆½
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