Review: Bound by Her Blood (Bound By Her Blood Series Book 1) by Mara Leigh

Bound by Her Blood by Mara Leigh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Interesting Take on the Vampire Myth

This book can be quite dark in places, however, that is not the overriding emotion I felt whilst reading it. The book is about a young woman who has been abused or neglected her entire life. She was abused from a young age by her step-father and she ran away as a teen, living on the streets for years before finally achieving some happiness at age 22, before being turned into a vampire. Like I said, there’s some darkness.

We are thrown into Selina’s story when she’s been a vampire for around 18 months. She has an atypical introduction into the vampire world and it means that through her we are educated into the supernatural. Selina’s introduction into vampire-hood has not been pleasant and we are thrown directly into that darkness at the start of the story, however, you get out of that ongoing darkness quite quickly.

There is quite a lot thrown at Selina quite quickly, but things then start to take a more steady pace of enlightenment and we start to see more insight into the various characters and the culture of vampires. There are lots of hints about Selina being different from other vampires but we receive no explanation as to why this is believed or in what way she is different, but I’m hoping things will become clearer in the next book.

I enjoyed the book once I got over the initial bombardment of difficult subject matter in the early stages of the book, and I appreciate that is was necessary for context but it nearly put me off as I don’t enjoy overly dark books. I’m glad I stuck with it though because it wasn’t an overwhelming part of the narrative.

The characters are interesting, with Selina being a naive in the ways of vampire abilities and culture, but not in the ways of the world, as she’s lived a hard life. She still has an air of optimism, despite the dangers surrounding her.

I really love Rock (the presumed half giant). He is gentle, strong, loving and kind. I adore his character, which is tortured by past mis-deeds. To make up for his past, he does his best to help others and that is the role he initially takes with Selina, but it quickly deepens into more.

This is a #whychoose novel, so the main characters are not monogamous but are open about their sexuality. In addition there are a few steamy scenes that are written well.

I will definitely be reading the next book in the series to see what happens next.

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