The Secrets of Blood and Bone

July 27, 2015
This awkward sequel to 2014’s The Secrets of Life and Death shares that volume’s strengths and weaknesses. Once again, the sections set in the past are much more compelling than those in the present. Edward Kelley, the real-life assistant to 16th-century necromancer John Dee, has traveled to Venice on a secret assignment, only to be robbed of his possessions almost immediately. He also manages to run afoul of the Inquisition, which suspects him of raising a demon that “feasts on children.” The modern-day plot lines, involving different types of vampires (sanguinary, energy, etc.), come across as dull and derivative; the major characters in those sections, Felix Guichard (an academic who has studied Dee and Kelley) and Jackdaw Hammond (a woman who’s survived an encounter with a sadistic serial killer), just aren’t as well developed as Kelley. Readers not invested in Felix and Jackdaw from the prior book may find themselves tuning out when these characters are in focus. Agent: Jane Willis, United Agents.

August 1, 2015
Alexander hits her stride, adding werewolves to the vampires, witches, and revenants of the series opener (The Secrets of Life and Death, 2014).Parallel protagonists Jackdaw "Jack" Hammond and Edward Kelley are back, along with their various supernatural allies, enemies, suitors, and rivals. Once again the novel unfolds in brief chapters that visit either the present or the 16th century. Those set in the present follow Jack-a revenant trying to keep herself and her family safe from powerful bogeymen out to devour them-and her love interest, Felix, an anthropologist who travels to New Orleans to research vampires in the Santeria tradition. The 16th-century chapters follow Kelley, a sorcerer, on an errand for an English patron to Venice, where he runs into his old nemesis, the vampire Countess Erzsebet Bathory-and the demon who animates her. As in the first book, Alexander places Kelley at the creation of a monster (or in this case, a race of monsters) that Jack must fight centuries later. This time it's a family of werewolves, descendants of Kelley's patron. Alexander is good at spooky atmospheres: her Carnevale scenes and wild werewolf hunts in Italy and England's Lake District should please fans of the genre. Heartfelt but complicated rather than subtle, this novel offers plenty of suspense.

COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.