Bleeding Hearts

I have always wondered how people can believe in some things but not others. If you have a world that has vampires roaming at night, what makes bloodsuckers so great that they get to be the only things that bump in the night? Ry Herman already introduced us to the idea of vampires, witches and a glimpse of werewolves in the excellent Love Bites, but in the sequel, Bleeding Hearts, the reader discovers that were there are vampires there is also, quite rightly, a load more messed up stuff to discover. 

It took a while for Angela and Chloe to find one another. They both just came out of violent relationships and Angela happens to be a vampire. It also appears that Chloe has discovered her dormant witch powers. If they can overcome these differences, they should be able to overcome anything, except for Angela’s thirst for blood. If they don’t find some sort of cure within a year, they have decided to split. Easier said than done when the cure means contacting ancient ones and walking the plain between the living and the dead.  

Love Bites was a lovely romantic tale about two people finding one another, they just happened to be supernatural. It told a very human story and treated the witchcraft and vampirism in its stride. Rather than just continue in the exact same vein Herman has naturally moved the story onwards. If these two really want to be together they are going to have to tackle the supernatural and that means learning more about it and each other. 

Chloe is a novice witch, but even if Angela has been at it for a while longer, in vampire terms she is also very much a novice. They have no idea how to save their relationship so they must research. The core relationship between the two remains the most important part of book and it is their love that drives them on to increasingly desperate measures. Their experiments open their world, and the reader’s, to a wider supernatural world where Greek myths are based in some truth.  

Hearts feels like a much larger novel than the first. The stakes are higher. You would think that this would alter the cosiness that made up large parts of the first book, but Herman is able to retain the wry sense of humour and mutual attraction between the two protagonists. The book is told from the perspective of three characters; Angela, Chloe and a mysterious woman who we first meet during an Earthquake in San Fransisco.   

During parts of the book the three are separated and are undertaking their own adventures. Herman proves that thrills are also a forte as you leap from one tale to another clambering to discover what will happen next. There is even a fight scene told from several perspectives that gets very exciting. 

I love that fact that Herman has taken the strong elements of Love Bites and decided not to recreate them, but to evolve them. These are the same characters with the same strong bond, but the world around them has become a lot larger. The potential for the series is now as vast as Herman’s imagination as there is limitless potential. If Angela and Chole walk into the night after this book, fans will be satisfied, but you can also imagine a lot more tales.