Blade Bound (Chicagoland Vampires, #13)

by Chloe Neill

[Berls]

Better late than never, right? I do wish I had read this back when I was reading the rest of the series, so that events and characters would have been more clear for me. But, for the most part, I was able to remember enough to really enjoy this conclusion to Chicagoland Vampires.

For me, it was the characters that I had grown to love that made this final installment great. Especially the Merit - Mallory friendship, which continues to be full of snark, loyalty, love, and chocolate. It didn't take long to remember the other characters and why I loved them, from the Omsbudies and especially grandpa Merit, to Jonah and of course Ethan and the Cadigan house vampires. I feel like everyone I remembered caring about had a bit of time in this book, which I enjoy in a series ending.

The action/plot, came back to me less readily. I didn't really remember the specifics of what happened in the most recent books and since this really built off of that, I definitely was missing some key information. Since I recalled the fuzzy outlines, I was able to follow along well enough, but yeah, if I had just finished the last book I probably would have been that much more into the action/plot of this book.

That being said, even without knowing all the nitty gritty details, you couldn't help but pulled along by first the bachelor(ette) parties and wedding, followed by the new-ish supernatural threat attacking Chicago. The action in this series has always been good and the plot follows a predictable pattern that works. I think the one thing that shocked me was the realization that this book is only a year after book 1! So much happened in just 1 year!

I think it's a satisfying conclusion to the series for sure and I look forward to reading the spin off (what got me to finally finish the series!). I listened to the entire series and I do enjoy Sophie Eastlake's narration (I also could swear she goes by another name, because she sounds just like another narrator I've listened to lately). I'm not sure if she narrates the spin off, but if she does, I won't be disappointed.