The Turning (Blood Ties, Book 1)
by Jennifer Armintrout
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jennifer ArmintroutEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-06-01
ISBN: 077832298X
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Mira
Book Reviews of The Turning (Blood Ties, Book 1)
Book Review: Violent but awesome!
Summary: 5 Stars
It's a little hard for me to write this review because there is so much going on in this book and I don't know how to write about it without spoiling anything. But I'll give it a try anyway.
The Story-Line:
Carrie Ames is an E.R. doctor. One night a trauma patient with extremely horrible injuries comes in. He dies soon after and Carrie goes down to the morgue to look at him again. What she doesn't know is that he is Cyrus, one of the most feared and brutal vampires even feared and hunted by his own race. He cruelly attacks Carrie and tries to kill her. She makes some weak attempt to defend herself and swallows some of his blood by accident. She soon dies after the vampire's attack.
In Jennifer Armintrouts vampire world the vampire has to swallow some of his victims' blood and the victim has to swallow some of the vampires' blood as well. But the victim doesn't turn immediately. The human has to die first and than the first turn takes place. The complete turn happens when the new vampire drinks blood for the first time
So Cyrus doesn't know he made a new vampire and since Carrie is being "reanimated" in the hospital she hasn't a clue either. But soon or later she can't ignore the signs anymore and that's how she meets Nathan Grant, another vampire. He is the only one that helps Carrie with her transition into the new world. But here's the catch: There is some sort of good vs. evil thing going on in the vampire world. On the one side is the Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement (VVEM). They have three rules:
1. Don't kill any humans
2. Only drink blood from a willing donor
3. Don't turn any vampires
Any vampires that breach those rules are considered bad and a threat to all humans and have to die. Nathan is a member/assassin of the VVEM and since Carrie is a newly turned vampire she has to die. But as if this wouldn't be bad enough already there is also the Blood Tie thing working in Carries disadvantage. The Blood Tie is the connection that the sire (Cyrus) has with his fledgling (Carrie). It binds them to each others emotions and memories and the sire can use the Blood Tie to manipulate and control his fledgling. And since Cyrus is an evil vampire it makes Carrie in the eyes of the VVEM automatically evil as well. So Nathan has two huge reasons to kill Carrie but he gives her a grace period to either join the VVEM or turn to her sire and risk getting killed by Nathan and the VVEM.
While Carrie still tries to make up her mind there is a cute romance starting between her and Nathan (the romance between Carrie and Nathan takes up roughly 40% of the book). But before she can make up her mind she is forced to move in with her sire Cyrus in order to save Nathans life. Did I mention that Cyrus is really evil? Well this book isn't for the faint of heart to begin with but some of the things Cyrus does really made my stomach turn. And what's really sick about it is that he can still manipulate Carrie over the Blood Tie into desiring and somehow liking him. It pretty much reads like an abusive relationship where the abused still claims that she loves her partner despise the things he does to her.
Ok, I will cut this short now since this review turns into its own novel. Carrie is trapped in the war between her sire and the VVEM and has to fight for her life more than once before she gets some sort of Happy End.
My impression:
I LOVED Jennifer Armintrouts attention to detail. She creates a very thought-trough vampire world and that's one reason why I'm so into this book. She pays attention to details that other authors just love to leave out. I.e. one of the things that immediately comes to my head when I read vampire novels is the I.D. thing. Since there is the no aging thing going on vampires need new I.D.'s every couple of years. So how do they get them? It would be too risky to just use fake one's since they can't risk going to jail, right? And if the vampires are from different countries how do they get to the States? Getting a Green Card is not that easy. Ok, I admit I might be a little anal about these things but I was soooo thrilled when Armintrout talked about that and some other "daily life" things in her book.
Another thing that was great about this book was that there was always something happening. The book had constant tension and action going on. I didn't know how to put the book down because I didn't want to leave in the middle of all the action.
I sometimes have the problem that I can't picture in my head what is going on. The descriptions in this book were so great without being overwhelming that it was almost like watching a movie for me.
I know some people will be turned off by the violence of the book. It is hands down the most violent book I've ever read. The gory details are sometimes pretty gross but if you don't have a problem with that this book is soooooo worth reading!
One thing that really annoyed me though is the ending. After all Nathan and Carrie had to go through together there is no real Happy End for them. They are still sort of together but there is no "I love you" scene.
However, this is one Paranormal book in a long while that totally grabbed me. I really hope that the other books in this series are just as good and I will have a new favorite series!
Summary of The Turning (Blood Ties, Book 1)
I'm no coward. I want to make that perfectly clear. But after my life turned into a horror movie, I take fear a lot more seriously now. I finally became Dr. Carrie Ames just eight months ago. Then I was attacked in the hospital morgue by a vampire. Just my luck.So now I'm a vampire, and it turns out I have a blood tie to the monster who sired me. The tie works like an invisible leash and I'm bound to him no matter what I do. And of course he's one of the most evil vampires on earth. With my sire hell-bent on turning me into a soulless killer and his sworn enemy set to exterminate me, things couldn't get much worse -- except I'm attracted to them both.
Drinking blood, living as an immortal demon and being a pawn between two warring vampire factions isn't exactly how I'd imagined my future. But as my father used to say, the only way to conquer fear is to face it. So that's what I'll do. Fangs bared.
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