Blood Games by Chloe Neill (UK edition)

Title: Blood Games (A Chicagoland Vampires Novel, 10)
Author: Chloe Neill
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Gollancz Fiction (7th August 2014)
Blurb:

While Merit didn’t choose to become a vampire or Sentinel of Cadogan House, she vowed to fight for her House and its Master, and she’s managed to forge strong alliances with powerful supernaturals across Chicago. But even though Merit has had wild adventures, this may be her deadliest yet . . .

A killer is stalking Chicago, preying on humans and leaving his victims with magical souvenirs. The CPD hadn’t been able to track the assailant, and as the body count rises, the city is running out of options. Vampires and humans aren’t on great terms, but murder makes for strange bedfellows. Can Merit find the killer before she becomes a target?

Rating: *** (3 stars)
Review:

BLOOD GAMES is the tenth book in Chloe Neill’s Chicagoland Vampires series. Things have settled down a bit after the events of WILD THINGS (review), and vampires are once again seen as something cool by some humans. Someone is murdering people in a way that suggests there is a supernatural connection, and Merit finds herself investigating. Meanwhile, things are afoot in the vampire world.

BLOOD GAMES is a good addition to the Chicagoland Vampires series as it sees the continuation of the vampire politics that have been occurring in recent novels in the series. Neill also adds a murder mystery for Merit to investigate, which adds to the tension of the book. The overall plot of the book was a bit choppy and change-y; although the murder mystery tied the whole book together, the vampire politics provided several different threads which seemed to jump about as if Neill wasn’t quite sure which track she wanted to take the book down.

That being said, as always I enjoyed having Merit as the book’s narrator. I also enjoyed the way Neill treated the romance aspect of the book. The return of familiar faces was brilliant – I loved the scenes with Merit and Mallory, their friendship is one of the things I really enjoy about this series.

Neill wrapped the mystery aspect of the book up well, and I really enjoyed watching that particular plot fall into place. Having said that, the ending of the book left me feeling that this book was pretty much written to set up the next book in the series. I’m not totally sure how I feel as a reader about that. On the one hand, I’m glad Neill is laying groundwork for things to come in the series. But, on the other, I would have liked this book to have felt a little more solid and as if it had a more equal weight in the series. I did enjoy reading the book and finding out what was going on with Merit and Ethan, and I do think the book adds to the series. I await the eleventh book with interest.