Cold Blooded: Book 3 in the Jessica McClain series (Jessica McClain, #3) (Jessica McCain)

by Amanda Carlson

The time has now come for female werewolf Jessica McClain to honour the oath she swore to the icy Vampire Queen.

With her mate Rourke at her side, Jessica is confident she'll be able to sail through this job without getting herself killed.

What Jessica doesn't know is that the Queen has her own more dubious plans. But even that will be the least of her worries when the rebel faction of werewolves amasses for a brutal attack.

Life has always been tough for Jessica, but now she's facing an all-out war . . .

• ISBN10: 0748133844
• ISBN13: 9780748133840
• Publish Date: 8 October 2013 (first published 1 January 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Orbit
• Edition: Digital original
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

Cold Blooded is another action packed installment to the series, but I found myself growing increasingly annoyed as the story progressed. We meet Jessica right where Hot Blooded ended. She's realized her friend, Marcy, is missing and her aunt demands help getting her back or risk a war with the witches. After a meeting with the witch's oracle, Jessica is off to New Orleans a bit early hoping to get protection from the vampire queen. Of course, nothing goes as smoothly as she hopes, and she winds up in the dungeon with two ravenous vampires. From there it's a race against the clock as the demons and sorcerers close in on the vampire compound.

I liked Cold Blooded overall, but Jessica's incessant talking is starting to grate on my nerves. She spends a lot of time alone this time as she escapes from the vampire dungeon, so she talks out loud to herself as well as to her wolf. In addition to her story narrative. Essentially, we're told everything she does up to three times. Once she says it aloud, which is really unnecessary since we're already getting her thoughts in her narrative. A second time to her wolf, just to make sure she's in agreement. And then the actual action happens, so we're told that it's now happening. This made it hard for me to stay in the moment, since it disrupted the pacing.

As with the previous book, Cold Blooded provides a lot of new information about the world and Jessica's abilities. We're introduced to a few new supernatural species, as well as some interesting hybrids. There's also a few more bits and pieces about this supposed prophecy that Jessica is the center of, but it's still not clear which version is the real one. Or if both are, and it all depends on the path that Jessica takes. I suspect the latter, since fate is brought up more the once, and how there's no timeline for prophesized events as choices come into play. Either way, I am eager to see how the prophecies play out.

I'm really enjoying this series so far, and Cold Blooded is no exception despite my annoyance at Jessica never shutting up. I do hope this lessens in future books. But I am very excited for Red Blooded, since we'll be taking a trip to the Underworld!

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[Melanie]

Originally posted at Hotlistens.com.

I’m going to try my best to avoid any spoilers for previous books in the Jessica McClain series. I know it is a newer series by a relatively new author. There are still a lot of people may not have read books one and two yet. I highly recommend that you resolve that issue ASAP.

Once again, Amanda knocked it out of the park with Cold Blooded. This book is just as fast paced and action packed as the previous books. We get to spend plenty of time with some the favorite characters we’ve seen in the past, especially a certain cat that had very little time in book two. *smiles*

This book picks up right were book two left off. Jessica has found and rescued Rourke.. (Woohoo!) They finally get their time together, especially some alone. While it isn’t long lasting, it is well worth it. My favorite quote comes from Jessica while at Rourke’s cabin, “We broke the countertop.” This really made me laugh out loud.

Tyler, Danny, Nick, Naomi and Ray are all with Jessica on this adventure. Jessica goes from one piece of chaos to another, it seems neverending for her. She visits the witches, fights demons and sorcerers and stops by to see the vampires, and that is just part of the story.

We learn a lot about Jessica. She is really coming into her powers. We also learn how powerful her blood really is. We also meet several other very powerful beings. We also learn a lot about some the powerful beings we already know. I don’t want to spoil anything, but there is a lot of behind the scenes plotting for power going on. Jessica learns about much of this as she goes and is very good about taking it all in stride. She is also very good at thinking on her feet to come out on top, even against beings way older and more experienced at negotiations than she is.

Worst part about this book, the cliffhanger end. I’m not a fan of cliffhangers, I despise them. The last part of this book is setting up the first adventure into book four. I say first adventure, because if book four is anything like the first three, then there will be more than one adventure for Jessica and the gang.

The narrator does a great job. She started doing the Jessica McClain series with book two. She does just as good as she did with it. I love how she voices Danny. He didn’t have a huge part in this book, but she nails his voice, in my opinion. She also does a great job with the vampire queen.

If you haven’t tried this series, I highly recommend it. It is great for people who like strong female leads, werewolves and a lot of action. If you’ve enjoyed Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews, The Hollows by Kim Harrison , Downside Ghosts by Stacia Kane and Mercy Thompson by Patricia Briggs, then I think you’ll love this book.