BLOOD RIGHTS (House of Comarre #1) by Kristen Painter
Published; September 1st 2011, Orbit Books
Rebellion has a price.
The lacy gold mapped her entire body. A finely wrought filigree of stars, vines, flowers, butterflies, ancient symbols and words ran from her feet, up her legs, over her narrow waist, spanned her chest and finished down her arms to the tips of her fingers.
Born into a life of secrets and service, Chrysabelle’s body bears the telltale marks of a comarré—a special race of humans bred to feed vampire nobility. When her patron is murdered, she becomes the prime suspect, which sends her running into the mortal world…and into the arms of Malkolm, an outcast vampire cursed to kill every being from whom he drinks.
Now, Chrysabelle and Malkolm must work together to stop a plot to merge the mortal and supernatural worlds. If they fail, a chaos unlike anything anyone has ever seen will threaten to reign.
Paranormal fiction. Not my usual ‘go-to’ genre. I’ve dabbled in the past with Paranormal, Horror and even Science Fiction, but that’s as far as my journey goes. Knowing this, [K] gifted me a copy of one her favourite paranormal books (BLOOD RIGHTS) for my birthday and I was intrigued to see what I thought of the genre.
Not going to lie, it took me a little while to fully get into the story. That’s nothing to do with the plot, the characters or even the writing style. I think it was getting my mind into another world, with new beings, sayings, etc. But what Kristen has been able to do is create a realistic world separate to ‘kine’ – filled with supernatural beings, all of which face their own internal politics.
After a few chapters, that was it. I was in. Fully invested in Chrysabelle and Mal’s story and the journey they found themselves on to evade capture from a noble vampire out for their lives. The contrast between Chrysabelle and Mal are night and day. Chrysabelle has been raised Comarre, which in the simplest of terms is a blood servant to the most noble vampires, her blood is pure and comes at a high cost. She is there to serve, but is trained to defend herself if the need arises.
Then we have Mal. A sombre, brooding vampire (I automatically think of Angel from Buffy) who quite literally has to fight his own demons. He lives a pretty solitary life, sharing his time with a shifter and a ghost. Not appreciating the intrusion of Chrysabelle into their lives, Mal begins to change in his behaviours and towards the latter part of the story, I found myself caring about him.
The chemistry between the two is so thick you can carve it with an axe and it’s clear that there is more to come for the pair! Bring on the next instalment!
You can buy BLOOD RIGHTS (House of Comarre #1) from the following booksellers (and many more!);
The P.Turners Book Blog 