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Despite the abuse she suffered at the hands of her vampire “family”, Lissa is quickly pressed back into service – her skills needed by Homeland security Agent, Tony to defend a series of politicians.

It’s soon clear that the terrorists threatening their lives are not conventional humans and more of Saxom’s

But Lissa is still being used as a tool – and is learning harsh lessons on betrayal from several angles.

Whatever potential this book has, though, is utterly shadowed by most of the men in Lissa’s life. They are terrible terrible people who all need eviscerating at her earliest convenience

I simply cannot understand Lissa’s relationship with any of the men around her, I just cannot. I cannot understand how she tolerates it, or regards any of these men with anything but contempt. Not one of the main male characters shows her even a crumb of respect, not one tiny iota of it. She is a tool to some, a sex object to others, but ultimately a thing to use as they will. They just dress it up in endearing, and often patronising, words.

This book opens with her being driven to suicide by her treatment in the last book – after being kept in the dark she acts how she thinks is best, ends up saving people and is then brutally beaten, stripped and humiliated for her disobedience. I said in my review of the last book that whether this book was a trainwreck or not would depend on how she reacts after she is saved from her attempted suicide in the last book

All aboard the next train to wrecksvile!

Yes, she spends a long time healing and a much much much shorter time nursing any kind of grudge against her tormentors. She quickly focuses most of her ire on one vampire (who is conveniently revealed to be a bad guy in the b plot) and pretty much absolves everyone else after a few snipping remarks. Just to make it extra galling, the vampires put her angry reaction down to her being a woman (because weak and feeble woman can’t take her beatings like a man!) and her being traumatised by an abusive childhood – and yes, it would definitely be triggering to her – but there doesn’t need to be a special REASON why Lissa objects to being used as a weapon then beaten because she isn’t slavishly obedient. She has enough reason! Her outrage is not due to her fragility because of her gender or her childhood. Her outrage is justified and self-explanatory! This ends up casting their actions as “reasonable” and their failure only in not taking into account her extra specially delicate she is.

So Merril continues to be looked upon as the doting, kindly father figure (Lissa has a brief moment of excellence when she calls him out for treating her like a child and a weapon- insisting that she can’t possibly be both and how his use of her as a tool blatantly put the lie to his paternalistic affection). And Gavin is her loving spouse despite, quite literally, the only thing he does in this book is call her and scream at her for daring to put herself in danger (her wilful danger-seeking would be following the orders of people she has been told to obey – after just being beaten for disobedience) until she’s near tears.

She also spends much of the rest of the book being given to Tony to use as his personal vampire agent to personally bodyguard various politicians. I have no idea why they need vampire bodyguards, why they are being targeted by the supernatural or anything else. No-one bothers to explain this to Lissa, she’s just around to fight and do as she’s told; so when the big-bad-hinted-meta-plot arises we’re still unsure as to exactly WHY this is happening. Why has the big bad suddenly decided to appear and be involved in human politics? Did Tony know or was it just a convenient coincidence? I have idea.

To make matters worse, not only is Lissa an abused tool (and Tony certainly joins in on that, moving her while she’s asleep, revealing her secrets to other agents without even thinking about consulting her first – which in turn endangers her and all vampirekind because Tony is so cavalier with her secrets), but Tony constantly hits on her, tries to kiss her and tries to get her to sleep with him despite her repeatedly telling him to stop.

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This is one series that I have been reading as a treat for myself. I found the series almost by accident when Amazon was giving away the first one for free. And I couldn’t resist picking up the rest.

BLOOD SENSE is actually the third book in this enjoyable series and I do have to say that the Ms. Suttle’s writing skills tend to improve ever book. The pacing was right on and well I couldn’t set the book aside until the very last word. The characters are ones that grow on you and become as old friends.

I did find a couple content errors in the book however they didn’t detract from my enjoyment in the least. Also this series is more like a serial. To get the most of the stories, you have to read the books in order. I did mark the book down slightly for this fact as I really do feel that each book in a series should stand on its own merit.

I do recommend BLOOD SENSE to any readers that enjoy vampires and urban fantasy. There are no explicit sex scenes in this book so it is suitable for all adult readers.

I rate this book a 3.9.

***I purchased this book thru Amazon. ( )