Blood Feud (The Drake Chronicles, #2)

by Alyxandra Harvey

[Leah]

I read the first book in the Drake series 'My Love Lies Bleeding' earlier this year when Alyxandra's British publishers, Bloomsbury, put up the entire book for free to celebrate the release of Blood Feud. Not one to shy away from a free book, I dowloaded it and read it that same night, finishing it within a matter of hours. I really, really, really enjoyed it and I couldn't wait to get my hands on the second 'Drake Chronicles' book Blood Feud.

Blood Feud picks up a week or so after My Love Lies Bleeding ends - after a short Prologue, of which I'll mention more of later - but, crucially, it's told from different viewpoints than that of its predecessor and is a story in itself (although for continuity's sake, you should read My Love Lies Bleeding before Blood Feud). Each Drake novel seems to take one Drake sibling (Solange in MLLB and Logan in this one) along with another person (Lucy in MLLB and Isabeau in BF) and the story is then primarily about them, told by them. I assume that that is how the series will progress, until we get through all the Drake siblings (eight in total - I know Nicholas was a big focus of MLLB but he didn't narrate at all so I'm holding out hope he'll get his own book). At first I wasn't sure if I would like the switch in narrators, after loving Lucy and Solange so much, but it worked really well and I loved getting to know another Drake sibling as well as Isabeau.

A new addition to Blood Feud is the third-person chapters thrown in at sporadic points in the book that tell us of Isabeau's life pre-vampire and during the French revolution, two hundred or so years before the present day in which the book is set. Now I'm not really one for historical fiction but I found Isabeau's backstory incredibly compelling. A little slow, as they sometimes came at pivotal points in the book, but compelling nevertheless and Alyxandra Harvey must have done extensive research to make sure it was all sound. It was a good addition and if the need crops up for it in further books, it's something I'd certainly welcome.

What I think Harvey excells at the most is her characterisation. I loved getting to know everyone in MLLB and although there were a lot of characters, we did get to know the main ones that were central to the book, namely Lucy, Solange and Nicholas and the rest were easy to distinguish after a while. Here our main female character is the feisty Isabeau and I warmed to her immediately. She is completely different to most girl characters with her independence and feistiness and it's great to have such a self-sufficient character, she's one you can cheer for. The Drake sibling this time around is Logan, who dresses as if he's from the century Isabeau left two centuries ago. I liked the fact he dressed as if from a different time period to the rest of the Drake's, it set him apart from the everyone else. On the whole, I liked Logan, he seemed really great and the interaction between himself and Isabeau was great and you could practically see the sparks flying between them!

Blood Feud is only 250 or so pages long, but it packs quite a lot into those pages. I appear to have finally separated all of the different clans and I know the difference between the Hounds, the Helios-Ra, the Hel-Blar and Montmarte and his Hosts, not to forget the Drake's, but that's kind of obvious. Whereas in MLLB, I much preferred Lucy's narration to Solange's, I equally liked Isbeau and Logan's narrations. Isabeau's probably edged it if I had to choose - she's just so feisty! - but Logan's added a great insight into his thoughts on Isabeau, on the Hound clan, etc. If Blood Feud had been double its 250 page length, I would have lapped it up but I think 250 pages is sufficient and creates great anticipation for the next book in the series, which I really can't wait for!