Review: Bound by Blood

Bound by Blood by Jourdan Lane

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Peter is a bartender at Rave, a gay night club in an AR Houston where vampires, werewolves and any other kind of paranormal creatures are a quite common thing. Peter's been working there for over ten years, or so it seems, having an on-off fuck-buddy relationship with his fellow bartender Jack, Jack's boyfriend Mike and a number of one-night stands, mostly strangers passing through. One night, though, just another stranger catches Peter's eye and soon Peter can't get the beautiful, mysterious Lucien out of his head anymore. In the beginning, Peter freaks a little over Lucien being a vampire, but the hot sex and the pleasures of being with a vampire soon help him come around. Finally, Lucien's very existence is threatened, and Peter throws all inhibitions overboard as his beloved needs him so desperately.

This book was like a train wreck: twisted, flooded with blood, outright horrible, but unable to look away from. Geez, the bucketfuls of semen and the gallons of blood those characters spill! In Lucien's and Peter's world, sex is the answer to just about everything. We need to talk about this? let's have sex. Your're pissed at me/ someone else/the world in general? Let's have sex, preferably with those you're pissed at, too. We're in mortal danger? Let's have sex first. Oh, and don't forget, if sex doesn't help, there's always the blood, which can answer teh otehr half of the questions.

Don't get me wrong, I liked this book. Although there was so much sex I lost track of who put his what in whose what first, or last, or sometimes in between, those sex scenes were still hot, and a lot of emotion was transported through them. The relationship between Peter and Lucien was very good, and the author even managed to add their respective pets (Caleb and Xander)and exes (Antoine, Christopher and Jack) into the mix and make the way those are all bonded together in love, lust and mating believable. But outside of sex, blood and action, there was quite a lot left to want.
The worldbuilding, for example. Vampires, werewolves, incubi and whatnot are mixed up and thrown together like in a funny shaker. Okay, it's fiction, and its this author's world, but still - lore is lore, and if you're about to break familiar patterns, you better make sure you're really consistent about it.
Another major issue was why Peter was so important to Lucien in the first place. Peter was nothing special, he even came across as a bitchy queen at times. So this Lucien has waited four hundred years and won his position as Master Vampire in a bloody fight, and for what? A quite ordinary Joe who happens to be pretty and who needs to be convinced he loves Lucien in the first place? Well, love isn't partial, I guess. Still, once Peter has been convinced he actually loves Lucien, the relationship is, as I said above, beautiful and deeply empotional.

All in all, a story for those who like lots of (HOT) sex with multiple partners, overwhelming emotions and don't mind inconsistency, lack of logic, convenient solutions and lots and lots of blood.



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