A Shade of Blood by Bella Forrest

Published: 8th April 2013
By: Self Published
Source: Purchased

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Back on the beach at Cancun, the same place they were both taken from months ago, Sofia and Ben aren't ready to go home yet. And having missed it for so long, they find themselves trying to soak up as much sun as they can. Having been left with a large quantity of money, they book themselves into the villa they had been staying in previously. After a few days, they feel the time has come to call Ben's parents. When they arrive, they don't tell them where they were and when questioned by the police, they say they just ran away. They say nothing about where Ben got the scars all over his body from his torture at the hands of Claudia, and at Sofia's request, there's no mention of the vampires or The Shade.

Ben has a name and number for the hunters, given to him by a hunter who tried to save him on the island, but ended up being killed herself when they were caught. Knowing that his life will never be the same again, and having the need for vengeance and retribution, he plans to contact them. He tells Sofia that he'll give her some time, but that then, with or without her, he'll be making that call. He needs to take his revenge on the vampires, especially Claudia.

But Sofia can't seem to forget Derek and The Shade, and when Ben wants to become more than friends, something that she herself had wanted for a long time, she finds that she can't give herself wholly to him. Part of her still belongs to Derek.

And without Sofia there, the darkness is overtaking Derek. He's a completely different character than the Derek we met in A Shade of Vampire, and it was interesting seeing this other side to him. But it was also nice to see the effect that Sofia had on him when she returned, to find him in a compromising position with Ashley.

Lucas is not in this book too much, though we do get his POV a couple of times. He's on the run from Derek who will kill him for what he did to Sofia. But if he wasn't obsessed with her before, having tasted her blood, he can't stop thinking about her, and won't rest until she is his.

Things are getting tough in the Shade. Derek is struggling to keep everyone under control and try to keep Sofia happy at the same time. The vampires are not happy that Sofia, a human slave, is being put before them. But Sofia is not happy with the way things are currently done. She wants the humans who live in the Shade to be treated better and not treated like slaves or food which is exactly how the vampires see them. Sofia has learned a lot about how things are run in the Shade and has read it's history, and it doesn't sit well with her. There are going to be tough times ahead, and revelations throughout this books make for what should be a really interesting third book in this series.

I'm also looking forward to learning more about the prophecy made by Cora, the witch, over four hundred years ago, and what it means to Derek and Sofia, and to the Shade. Derek seems to be going to have quite the fight on his hands if he's going to manage to hold onto Sofia.

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