Book 85, 2022
Pure Blood by Caitlin Kittredge
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I finished reading Pure Blood, by Caitlin Kittredge, at the office yesterday. This is the second book in the "Nocturne City" urban fantasy series, featuring Luna Wilder, homicide detective and werewolf.
After an enforced leave of absence, Luna has returned to her job as a detective just in time to stumble into a magical war between the Blackburn blood witches and the O'Halloran caster witches. Being saddled with a new partner, and an O'Halloran at that, is less than ideal, but Shelby proves her worth to Luna as they navigate the seedy world of drugs and fetish clubs. In the meantime, Luna's personal life is imploding. The were she recognized as her mate, Dmitri, has been forbidden to see her, as she is Insoli, a lone wolf, and his pack blames Luna for the fact that Dmitri was bitten by a daemon. Luna tries to keep her distance from him, but when Shelby is knocked out of commission, it's Dmitri Luna turns to for help in averting an all-out witch war in Nocturne City.
I did not particularly like this story. It was certainly fast-paced, almost too much so. Luna barely had any downtime between running here and there. Usually she was going off half-cocked, which made her come across as rash and foolishly impulsive rather than bold and decisive. It seemed she was always flying by the seat of her pants instead of formulating a plan and having a back-up plan. Also, she was brutally beaten more than once, which was difficult to read and left me cringing. Not helping is that in the two worst instances, the beatings were a prelude to sexual assault, although in both cases it never got that far. No, our intrepid Dmitri came in to save the day both times. That's another thing that I didn't care for. If you're going to write a kick-ass heroine, she should be able to hold her own in a fight and be capable of saving herself and meting out some retribution along the way. I'm not saying our heroine needs to be infallible, but she should certainly be able to take care of herself. World building was not top-notch. I am still unsure if plain ol' humans are aware of witches and werewolves in their midst or not. Maddening.
Favorite lines:
♦ "And here I was just thinking I hadn't seen enough middle-aged men being spanked recently."
♦ Yeah, this was definitely in the top ten of Luna's Worst Nights Ever.
♦ I would have slapped the superior smirk off her face so hard she'd be a Picasso.
♦ Mac looked like a rabid pit bull was chasing him and he'd just realized his shoelaces were untied.
♦ "I don't care if Mary Magdelene and Jesus Christ have returned to earth and are out there in the street doing a cha-cha with Saint Peter."
I have the next book in the series on my shelf, but I don't think I'll read it. Maybe. I enjoy urban fantasy, but the brutality in this one was horrific, and there was no true humor to provide some levity. Luna was snarky, but it always came across as sarcastic rather than witty. Despite my misgivings, I'm giving this four stars. It was exciting and well-written; I simply did not enjoy it.