Bloodlust by Michelle Rowen


Nightshade, Book 2

Synopsis: One taste is all it takes…For those who feast on blood, Jillian Conrad is a fatal attraction. After being injected with a serum that made her blood both irresistible and deadly to vampires, she was used as a pawn to assassinate the vampire king. Now, the vampires want her eliminated. Hunted and unable to return to her old life, Jillian desperately seeks to prevent the poison in her veins from killing her. And she must find a way to help her dhampyr protector, Declan, whose exposure to the serum has split his personality into one part uncontrolled desire, and one part stone-cold killer. But an even greater danger is rising. The Amarantos-a secret society of vampires-are seeking the infant daughter of the slain king to complete their quest for true immortality. And if they succeed, no one, living or undead, will escape the darkness.


Our review: After the end of the first book I was really curious to see what the second volume would reveal. Besides being also the last book in the series, I was a little anxious to see how events would end.
 
We thus find our two heroes on the road; Declan tries to manage as best as he can now that he lives his life outside the laboratory. Jillian is at the gates of death after the release of the poison in her organism. She tries to not understand the evolution of the murderous impulses of her friend and does everything to keep him with her for fear that he would go away. I thought she was pretty naive in this volume compared to what is happening to her and him. We know she loves Declan, but she does not care for her own safety. Her judgment is somewhat misleading when it comes to the subject. Of course there will also be the return of Matthias greatly weakened after the end of the first volume and he is determined to have his daughter back whatever the cost. Of course, Declan immediately distrusts him while Jillian will do anything to help him. But there is even more, now Kristoff is about to wake up and shake up the lives of everyone.

I enjoyed this new novel, but it is true that I could not have the patience shown by Jillian over Declan. Even if it’s a character I really like, I liked a lot more Matthias and I really wanted to see something between them. Well, I admit that it’s nice to have for once a heroine determined and safe in her feelings, it’s so rare! Our dhampir now realizes his actual condition and the harm he can do now that no serum can control him and his emotions. The story and plot are in any case very interesting and I was eager to meet Kristoff after hearing so much about him in the first volume. He is quite different from what I imagined and at the same time under his calm exterior, he builds many tactics that we discover in the course of the story. We learn many things from their past and it was interesting to understand what had happened.

This is a good novel and the rhythm is maintained throughout the chapters. I was quite surprised by the revelations at the end of the novel and how the events were resolved. I liked the opening that is left and it is true that I would have loved to explore more stories featuring our three heroes. It was a nice little series that I recommend to anyone who enjoys urban fantasy books.

 

Bloodlust is the second installment and the last book of the Nightshade series. Needless to say that I was eager to read it to finally know what would happen next in this amazing story. After a first book full of action and surprises of all kinds, I was curious to find out what Michelle Rowen had planned for her heroine, Jillian.
So we find Jill and Declan, both on the lam. Two weeks have passed since the poisonous serum was injected into Jill’s neck. After all of the things that happened in the previous book, we might think that our heroine had a brief moment of respite but it is not the case! Her condition worsens and the poison can kill her at any time. Then, she finds Noah, the former Carson’s assistant in a bar and instead of bringing her good news about the poison flowing through her veins, he arrives with… Matthias. Although he is very weak, Matthias is determined to get his daughter back but there is another problem: Kristoff, the former king, is about to be released, which is a very very bad thing. And as if all this was not enough, Jill will also have to deal with Declan who has become a time bomb since his adoptive father administered to him a powerful serum.   
This book is in the same vein as the previous one. With Bloodlust, Michelle Rowen continues to captivate us by providing a thrilling sequel with once again, plenty of action and a multitude of twists and turns. Overall I liked it even though I admit I was a little disappointed by Jillian and Declan. I found them nice in book 1, but here both annoyed me. 
I was not as charmed by Declan as I was in the previous book. On the contrary, his attitude leaves a lot to be desired and frankly at times I wondered what Jill could see in him. The serum that has been injected to him seems to be inefficient because instead of having a Declan totally deprived of his emotions, we end up with Declan more and more unstable and violent. He becomes dangerous for Jill and the others, which creates a lot of tension between him and our heroin. Moreover, speaking of Jill, I must say that her optimism exacerbated left me perplexed. I thought she was doing too much. I didn’t appreciated either the fact that Jill uses Declan’s lack of emotions as an excuse to justify his bad actions. She tends to overlook and forgive him too easily and refuses to consider that he could become a monster which is quite surprising because he is about to explode. 
Well, I do not know. I think that from the beginning, I had a preference for Matthias and the fact of seeing Declan behave like that led me to appreciate the vampire king even more. In fact I was very happy to see this character again! We learn a lot of things about him and his past, but I would have loved him to be more present. He is so fascinating! After all, he does everything he can to help Jill and yet, she is still suspicious towards him. In this volume we also meet Kristoff, who was quite interesting and there is also Noah, already met in book 1 and I must admit that I was extremely pleased to see him too. 
There’s so much revelations in this book, that’s incredible! At no time I have seen them come and I kept wondering how our heroes were going to do to extricate themselves from this situation. I’m still a little disappointed by the choice of the heroine and the way things ended. I would have preferred a different ending than this one, too bad. Although the story didn’t end as I would have liked, it’s very satisfying though and I really enjoyed reading this series. Of course I wish it lasts a little longer, and see all these characters in new adventures but who knows, the end is open, maybe one day Michelle Rowen will go back to this series, as she recently did for Sarah Dearly

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