[The Blood Journals 02] • The Blood Keeper

Paranormal romance fans who are looking to up the ante will be drawn to this tale of horror, fantasy, and romance. For Mab Prowd, the practice of blood magic is as natural as breathing. It's all she's ever known. Growing up on an isolated farm in Kansas with other practitioners may have kept her from making friends her own age, but it has also given her a sense of purpose—she's connected to the land and protective of the magic. And she is able to practice it proudly and happily out in the open with only the crows as her companions. Mab will do anything to keep the ancient practice alive and guard its secrets. But one morning while she is working out a particularly tricky spell she encounters Will, a local boy who is trying to exorcise some mundane personal demons. He experiences Mab's magic in a way his mind cannot comprehend and is all too happy to end their chance meeting. But secrets that were kept from Mab by the earlier generations of blood magicians have come home to roost. And she and Will are drawn back together, time again by this dangerous force looking to break free from the earth and reclaim its own dark power.

From School Library JournalGr 9 Up-This somewhat ponderous companion to Blood Magic (Random, 2011) only glancingly involves the romantic couple of the first book, but it shares the same blood-sacrifice-without-vampires witchcraft, this time on the Kansas prairie land protected by its leader. Mab, daughter of the villain in the first book, is assuming her duties as Deacon, magical head of the blood witch family, after the death of Arthur, her mentor and surrogate father, who raised her as his "little queen." When Mab creates a magical creature imbued with the hostile spirit of a rose garden she was meant to destroy, the animated mud-man crashes into Will and his two dogs, bringing the two teens into a romance and a battle to win Will's health and freedom from the evil curse that has befallen him. Combed among the strands of a boy-girl dual-point-of-view story is yet a third: the account of Evelyn, a woman who sought blood magic sanctuary and eventually love with Arthur several decades before. Eventually, the significant link between the two women's stories comes into focus. Meanwhile, all manner of romanticized bloodletting, essential to the working of this magic, seems to glorify self-inflicted wounds. That said, the world could still be a rich one for patient readers of supernatural romance who prefer witches who must use blood and the earth, not wands, to work spells, more Wicca than Hogwarts. Characterization mostly works, but the narrative drags a bit until the last quarter. Its bloody spell may still bind readers old and new.-Suzanne Gordon, Peachtree Ridge High School, Suwanee, GAα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

About the AuthorTESSA GRATTON has wanted to be a paleontologist or a wizard since she was seven. She was too impatient to hunt dinosaurs, but is still searching for someone to teach her magic. After traveling the world with her military family, she acquired a BA (and the important parts of an MA) in Gender Studies, and then settled down in Kansas with her partner, her cats, and her mutant dog.