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Review: The Sweet Scent of Blood by Suzanne McLeod (Spellcrackers.com #1)

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The Sweet Scent of Blood by Suzanne McLeod // VBC ReviewThe Sweet Scent of Blood
(Spellcrackers.com #1)
Suzanne McLeod
Published: Sept. 4, 2008 (Gollancz)
Purchase: Book Depository or Amazon
Review source: copy provided by author in exchange for an honest review

Reviewed by: Jannelle

Rating (out of 5): 4 stars

Genny is a sidhe fae working and living in an alternate version of modern day London. In Genny’s world, the vampires are out of the coffin (so to speak) and are the new world celebrities, with calendar models and fancy nightclubs. For her day job, Genny works at the witch-run spellcrackers.com, an organization that cracks and breaks (quite literally) the spells that are causing harm to the general public (or for whoever is paying).

In The Sweet Scent of Blood, we start to become familiar with this new and gothic world. Through spellcrackers.com, Genny takes a job attempting to discover who killed the human girlfriend of vampire calendar model, Mr. October, who is being framed for her death. Her journey to discovering how and why this girl was killed leads Genny to personal discoveries of her own; and into the hands of sexy and mysterious vampire, Malik al Khan, and the gorgeous satyr her magic is pushing her towards, Finn. I’m not sure if it’s because of her sidhe fae qualities, but Genny is more often than not attracting plenty of male (and some female) attention. It made for an interesting read to see who she was going to fall for. I’ll let you read to find out who but I’m definitely team Malik (you know I can’t say no to vampires, especially the sexy and mysterious kind). Between this fantastic world, some of my favorite mythical beings, and the fast-paced and action-packed plot, I soon fell in love with The Sweet Scent of Blood.

But if I loved this book so much, why am I giving it 4 stars? Well, I just want to be honest here: I loved the world that Suzanne McLeod has created (so much so that I am already 3 books into the series while writing this review); however, the actual world building wasn’t smooth and I felt pretty confused throughout the first half of the novel. Luckily, I’m a seasoned urban fantasy reader and am familiar with the various creatures we usually come across in these types of novels: faeries (not the pretty, glittery kind), vampires, satyrs, and trolls, to name a few. But if it wasn’t for that prior knowledge, I might have been pretty lost here because although these characters’ species may be similar from series to series, their underlying characteristics differ. I’m thinking this is one of those cases where a dictionary of characters would have come in handy.

In The Sweet Scent of Blood, nothing is ever as it seems—even Genny. One of the beauties of this novel is watching Genny’s character develop from someone she thought she was, into who she truly is. If you’re an urban fantasy fan looking for a new series to fall into, Spellcrackers.com is the one for you.

Sexual content: scenes of a sensual nature

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