Blood Debt (Blood Series Book 5) by Tanya Huff

Blood Debt, the fifth book in the Blood series, did not have an episode of Blood Ties (the TV show) based directly off of it.

This series seems improve with each book. Too bad there is only one more book after this one.

On the one hand, I was disappointed that so much time was skipped between book four and book five. There was a year that should have been very interesting, and that was just skipped right over, with a few memories here and there of what made the papers to give us teasers of what happened. I want the details of that skipped year.

On the other hand, the events in this book are well done. It was an enjoyable read. The pacing issues are much better in Blood Debt than they were in earlier books. I found myself skimming to get to an interesting part a few times, but it wasn't as bad as previous books.

In Blood Debt, Henry and Tony have moved to Vancouver and Henry is being haunted by a ghost who wants Henry to solve the ghost's murder and get revenge. Henry calls Vicki, and she and Mike travel from Toronto to Vancouver to solve Henry's problem.

A lot gets worked out in this book. Tony has issues. Henry has issues. Vicki has issues. I think Mike may be the only one without issues, though he does have a bit of a smart mouth that could be dangerous around a testy vampire. Good comic relief for us, though.


Book Rating: 8 of 10
Series Rating: 8 of 10





The Blood Series
1. Blood Price
2. Blood Trail
3. Blood Lines
4. Blood Pact
5. Blood Debt
6. Blood Bank




Lifetime still has the episodes up, if you want to watch the TV series, go here. Or, you can follow the links above to buy the DVD's. It is kind of a pain to watch online with the commercials, and having to click between the online "chapters", but it's free.

Blood Pact (Blood Series Book 4) by Tanya Huff

Blood Pact, the fourth book in the Blood series, did not have an episode of Blood Ties (the TV show) based directly off of it. In fact, because of what happens in this book, I don't believe we can have any more books based off of the TV series.

Here is the blurb for this book:

Vicki Nelson has received the call that no daughter ever wants to receive—that her mother has died. Marjory Nelson’s coworkers at the Queen’s University Life Science Department told her that she suffered a heart attack, and that they’d be waiting for Vicki to arrive in Kingston to make the funeral arrangements. But what begins as a personal tragedy turns into the most terrifying case of Vicki’s career, when her mother’s body disappears mysteriously from the funeral home. Someone at the University is determined to learn the secret of life after death…and they’ve decided to make Vicki’s mother part of their horrifying experiments.

This book was better than previous books in this series. The love triangle gets a lot more attention, for one thing, but mostly I think the pacing seemed much better in this book.

I can't really talk about the final couple of chapters in this book without giving away spoilers. I will just say that I had not expected what happens, that what happens is BIG, and I look forward to seeing what comes next in Blood Debt.

Book Rating: 8 of 10
Series Rating: 8 of 10





The Blood Series
1. Blood Price
2. Blood Trail
3. Blood Lines
4. Blood Pact
5. Blood Debt
6. Blood Bank




Lifetime still has the episodes up, if you want to watch the TV series, go here. Or, you can follow the links above to buy the DVD's. It is kind of a pain to watch online with the commercials, and having to click between the online "chapters", but it's free.

Blood Lines (Blood Series Book 3) by Tanya Huff

Blood Lines, the third book in the Blood series, did have an episode of Blood Ties (the TV show) based directly off of it, though the episode was not exactly the same. There were enough differences in how the plot was resolved to make it interesting, though the basic plot was mostly the same. If you saw the TV show with the Egyptian mummy, where Henry dreamed and thought it might mean he was about to end his life, this book follows that plot.

I'm once again seeing the major difference in the books vs the show being how the relationships, the love triangle, is handled in the books vs how it was handled in the TV series. I am enjoying that part of the books better than the TV series. Oddly enough, in contrast I think the TV series made me understand Henry better than the books are, though. That's kind of odd, normally books do better at building and developing characters than a show does.

I did not enjoy Blood Lines as much as I enjoyed the earlier books in the series. It took me longer to get through it because I kept putting it down to do something else. The plot was okay, I think maybe the pacing was off, or something. Perhaps it was that it kept jumping back and forth from person to person. For whatever reason, it just didn't work as well for me. I'm going to give Blood Lines a 6 of 10, but I will keep the series at an 8 of 10 for now.

Book Rating: 6 of 10
Series Rating: 8 of 10

I am going to stop reading the series for a bit, as there are some new releases I want to read, so I will have to return to this series for the final three books at a later date.




The Blood Series
1. Blood Price
2. Blood Trail
3. Blood Lines
4. Blood Pact
5. Blood Debt
6. Blood Bank




Lifetime still has the episodes up, if you want to watch the TV series, go here. Or, you can follow the links above to buy the DVD's. It is kind of a pain to watch online with the commercials, and having to click between the online "chapters", but it's free.

Blood Trail (Blood Series Book 2) by Tanya Huff

Blood Trail, the second book in the Blood series, did not have a TV show made directly from it. There was a were-animal TV show that had a few similar elements, but the tone and plot was nothing like the book. So, I did not know "who done it" as I read the book, which probably made it a little more interesting. Although, I kind of guessed who was doing it pretty early on.

The relationships in the books are different than they were in the Blood Ties TV show, which adds a nice change. I like the way the relationships in the books are working out much better than I did the way the love triangle was handled in the show.

I noted in my review of Blood Price that since this series was written in the early nineties, that investigations are handled differently with the technology available today. There is legwork in the books that would only involve an online search in today's world. Blood Trail, more than the other, would have been written different had it been written today, because this crime could have been solved very quickly by an internet search.

Here's the blurb:

When a pack of werewolves is discovered on a London, Ontario, farm, Henry Fitzroy, a Toronto-based vampire and writer of romance novels, calls upon private investigator Vicki Nelson to help him trace the trail of destruction to the killers.

As with the first book, Blood Price, I'm also going to rate Blood Trail an 8 of 10, and for now I'll put the series at an 8 of 10. As with Blood Price, there were some very disconcerting typos. Could they not fix those in between re-publishing them?

Book Rating: 8 of 10
Series Rating: 8 of 10




The Blood Series
1. Blood Price
2. Blood Trail
3. Blood Lines
4. Blood Pact
5. Blood Debt
6. Blood Bank




Lifetime still has the episodes up, if you want to watch the TV series, go here. Or, you can follow the links above to buy the DVD's. It is kind of a pain to watch online with the commercials, and having to click between the online "chapters", but it's free.

Blood Price (Blood Series Book 1) by Tanya Huff

I've been meaning to read the Blood Series by Tanya Huff for years, every since I stumbled across the Blood Ties series on Lifetime Television and enjoyed it so much.

I recently found the omnibus books of this series, with two books per book, and decided it was a good chance to finally read the series.

I enjoyed the first book, Blood Price. The main plot was pretty close to the show's pilot episodes, with enough differences to keep it interesting. Blood Price was written (I believe) in the early 90's, which means Vicki has to do legwork where today she could just turn on the computer and log onto the internet. It means she has to buy a map. It means she doesn't use a cellphone, and that there are actually pay phones around when she needs one. But other than that, the time difference didn't really matter.

I enjoyed reading more of how Vicki felt, and more of how Henry remembers things from his past. They covered it pretty well in the show, but you always get more of it in the book.

Here's the blurb:

It began with blood and death. And Vicki Nelson, PI was at the scene. The victim had been brutally, inhumanly opened up. Messy work. She'd had to cover the corpse with her coat. It had sort of made her feel involved. Now Vicki is caught up in the deadly pursuit of a mass murderer with an inhuman appetite for mayhem and destruction. And her advisor on the case is doing nothing to dampen her growing sense of foreboding. But then, with a being of unspeakable evil stalking the city, only Vicki Nelson would ally herself to Henry Fitzroy, the illegitimate child of Henry VIII and a five-hundred-year-old vampire.

I am amazed that Lifetime still has the episodes up, if you want to watch the TV series, go here. Or, you can follow the links below to buy the DVD's. It is kind of a pain to watch online with the commercials, and having to click between the online "chapters", but it's free. Still, I may consider buying the DVD's, as it would be nice to just lay back, chill out, and watch. I really did enjoy this series.

But, back to the books. What do I rate Blood Price? I think probably an 8 of 10. There were some typos that were pretty blatant, and that pulled me out of the fantasy. Not misspelled words so much as sentences where the author started to say something one way and then said it another but didn't go back and change the beginning of the sentence to fit the end of the sentence. Would it have been a 9 of 10 without the typos? I don't know, maybe, but maybe not. Would it have been a 9 if I hadn't seen the show already? That's actually a bigger possibility. I'm not sure, but I think maybe.

Book Rating: 8 of 10







The Blood Series
1. Blood Price
2. Blood Trail
3. Blood Lines
4. Blood Pact
5. Blood Debt
6. Blood Bank