Bad Blood by E. O. Chirovici

The Blurb On The Back:

It’s a rainy night in New York, and psychologist James Cobb is giving a talk on the art of recovering lost memories via hypnosis. Afterwards, he’s approached by a stranger; a dying man who, forty years ago, wake up in a Paris hotel room with a murdered woman and no memory at all of what happened.

Now, he needs to know the truth. Intrigued, James begins to unpick the tangled threads of this decades-old mystery. But everyone involved has a different story to tell, and every fact he uncovers has another interpretation. As his interest becomes an obsession, and secrets from his own past start to surface, he begins to suspect that someone has buried the truth deep enough to hide it forever.

BAD BLOOD tells a gripping story of memory, motives, and how little we really know about ourselves.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

E. O. Chirovici’s literary psychological thriller is a smoothly written but thin affair that meditates on the nature of memory and the power of guilt but it’s hamstrung by a pompous main character whose reasons for investigating don’t quite ring true, a central friendship between two equally unpleasant men who I never connected with and an ending that feels like an unearned cheat and which left me unsatisfied.

BAD BLOOD was released in the United Kingdom on 12th July 2018. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams

The Blurb On The Back:

The city of Ebora once glittered with gold. Now its streets are stalked by wolves. Tormalin the Oathless has no taste for waiting to die while the realm of his ancestors falls to pieces – talk about a guilt trip.

When eccentric explorer, Lady Vincenza ‘Vintage’ de Grazon, offers him employment, he sees a way out. Even when they are joined by a fugitive witch with a tendency to set things on fire, the prospect of facing down monsters and retrieving artefacts is preferable to the abomination left behind.

But not everyone is willing to let the empire collapse, and the adventurers are soon drawn into a tangled conspiracy of magic and war.

The Jure’lia are coming, and the Ninth Rain must fall …

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Jen Williams’s fantasy novel (the first in a trilogy) incorporates innovative twists on traditional fantasy elements (including vampires, witchcraft and religious oppression) and neatly incorporates a science fiction element to its antagonists, which I found refreshing. However there are some pacing problems (especially the info dumps), Vintage’s mannerisms were overdone for me and I had quibbles about the ending but would check out the sequel.