Blood Demands

Read Time: 2 Minutes

Blood Demands picks up directly after the events of the first book in the Blood & Ancient Scrolls series, continuing Noosh’s journey deeper into the secretive and dangerous world of the Am’r as she continues her transition from ordinary human into something quite different.

As an Am’r-nafsh, half human and half vampire, Noosh is still figuring out what that actually means. What started as a relatively simple job offer of digitising and cataloguing rare historical texts for vampires quickly grows into something much larger.

Meanwhile Sandu, once known as Dracula or Vlad the Impaler, along with his maker Bagamil, are searching for whoever set them up for the events at the end of the first book.

The story moves across quite a wide stretch of the world this time. From Bucharest, where Noosh begins training in bladed combat (because it’s hard for Noosh to go a couple of hours in the vampire world without something violent happening around her), through parts of South America and all the way down to Tierra del Fuego. The journey clips along quickly and often violently as we see more of how the Am’r world operates.

There is a lot more background revealed about the history of the Am’r, including deeper ties to the Dracula legend and the internal political structure of vampire society. New enemies appear, alliances are tested, and it becomes increasingly clear that this hidden world is both seductive and extremely dangerous.

Like the first book, there are plenty of hot vampire sexy times mixed throughout the story, with various pairings and throuplings among the Am’r. The mix of intense violence alongside moments of tenderness gives the whole thing a slightly strange but interesting emotional balance.

Amber Benson once again does an excellent job with the narration. I cannot say for certain whether every non-English word was pronounced perfectly, but it certainly sounded convincing enough while listening. I suspect the reference material mentioned in the introduction might come in handy if I ever wanted to double check some of the words.

So overall, Blood Demands adds satisfyingly to the series, continuing to build the supernatural world of the Am’r. While the series is primarily supernatural fantasy, the manoeuvring between different vampire factions adds an undercurrent of political tension that occasionally gives the story the feel of a subtle supernatural political thriller. It feels like there’s a heap more of Am’r history waiting for Noosh to discover.

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