Cold Blooded (Jessica McClain, #3) (Jessica McCain)

by Amanda Carlson

[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.