Blood Ties (Language in the Blood Book 2)
By Angela Lockwood
Edited by Penny Hunter
After meeting his maker on the battlefields of the First World War, Cameron Blair has spent almost a century coming to terms with his new vampire identity. Along with a taste for human blood and lapdogs, he has acquired the linguistic skills of his victims and learned to survive in the shady underbellies of … the shady underbellies of Europe’s great cities. The end of Language in the Blood sees Cameron facing a dilemma when blame for one of his kills gets laid at his best friend George’s feet. Cameron discovers a deeply buried vestige of humanity and surrenders to the French authorities – a decision he soon regrets as it becomes clear they don’t have quite the same heroic role for a vampire agent in mind that his own vivid imagination does.
Locked up, his needs denied, misunderstood and plagued by an unhealthy obsession with his friend’s daughter, the bored vampire edges close to insanity. Before long, Cameron starts plotting his escape.
About the author
Angela Lockwood-van der Klauw was born in the Netherlands. She learned her trade as a jeweller and gemmologist at the Vakschool Schoonhoven before moving to Edinburgh as an apprentice jeweller. There she met and later married her husband Adam. Angela ran her own jeweller’s shop in Edinburgh for ten years before she and her husband moved to the south of France in 2011. Like Cameron, Angela prefers the climate there, but often thinks about the town she left behind and its people.
Cameron’s story was born in the spring of 2013, a very wet spring during which Angela found herself climbing the walls, frustrated that she couldn’t go out and have her usual long walks along the seafront. Seeing his wife’s frustration, Adam suggested ‘Why don’t you write a book?’
Angela thought about it for a few days, then switched on her laptop and started writing Language in the Blood. Blood Ties is the second book in the series and Angela has also published a collection of short stories Something Short with her friend, Elspeth Morrison.
Blog: http://languageintheblood.blogspot.fr
Website: http://www.cruftslover.adzl.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CruftsloverAkaCameronBlair
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Funny and entertaining – a vampire version of Raffles the burglar with just a touch of Dexter thrown in the mix
This is one of those books that gets off to a flying start, really drawing you in from the very first page. Our principal character, a Scottish vampire by the name or Cameron, finds himself in the unlikely scenario of having to explain his existence and circumstances to the French police authorities. Right from the start, the book begins to live up to the author’s claim of ‘comedy with bite…’ The central character Cameron Blair has lived for over a century, living off the blood of both humans and animals to survive, much as you might expect of a vampire – but that’s as about as far as any similarity to the traditional image of the evil blood-sucking stereotype goes. What the author has done here is provide the reader with a humorous and satirical exploration of just what else it takes for a vampire to survive through the ages, i.e. earning a living, interacting with humans, sex and romance, and a host of other circumstances and practicalities you wouldn’t normally associate with a vampire; although committing a host of crimes over the course of a century our vampire here also displays some remarkably human tendencies and virtues, some to his advantage, and others to his detriment such as loyalty to a human friend which is what leads to the situation he finds himself at the beginning of the book.
Although this is just the second of the two books the author has written in this vampire series, it reads just as well as a stand-alone book, and not once did I find myself confused at not having read the first book (yet). I also liked the first person point of view, which I must say is not a style of writing I often like in a full-length novel but one which works extremely well in this instance, giving the reader a thorough insight into Cameron’s mind and rather skewed sense of logic and morality; since there is no jumping from one character or location to another the story flows in a mostly linear and easy to follow fashion. Cameron’s ‘inner narrative’ provides just as comprehensive a view of the wider picture as might be achieved had the author chosen to write in the third person, and the way Cameron deals with people is the perfective vehicle for the author’s humour here – referring to his blood-sucking activities as breakfast and feeding, the reference to blood that’s been processed to prevent clotting not tasting as good as fresh blood, his dislike of cat’s blood, and fear of getting rabies when he once drank from a fox are just a few examples of when you just can’t help but laugh. In many ways, Cameron is like a vampire version of E.W. Hornung’s gentleman cat burglar Raffles, sharing the latter’s charm and debonair persona, and yet like the former, doing what he has to do to survive and get by, with possibly just a bit of the amoral serial killer Dexter thrown in the mix.
A very funny and entertaining take on the more traditional vampire genre, and just as the author describes it as ‘comedy with bite,’ I’d say definitely a huge helping of humour with the horror in this one… great book.