Virna dePaul - Chosen By Blood

Leader of an Otherborn clan, half-breed vampire Knox Devereaux would do anything to find a cure for the anti-vamp vaccine slowly starving his people into extinction. When the FBI contacts him about leading a team of hand-selected Others on a mission to reclaim the stolen antidote, Knox accepts. His new assignment places him in direct contact with Special Agent Felicia Locke, the beautiful human he’s craved since their very first meeting.

Comment: I got this book mostly because in this trilogy there would be were characters, meaning shape shifters. I was very curious to see how that aspect of a paranormal would play out, since shape shifters are my favorite type of paranormal creatures and a world with shape shifters is always one to consider at some point.

This is the story of Knox Devereaux, he's the leader of vampires in a world were vampires and Other creatures are out to the human world but humans have created a vaccine that render their blood unsuitable for vampires, meaning vampires are slowly dying with proper nourishment. Knox wants the cure that was created in a lab and joins a team of six beings to search for it. And part of that team is the human he have loved forever, even though he was married to a vampire and knows he will do so gain in the future...but this time he wants love too. Will he get it?

Well, this story doesn't focus on shape shifters but they are part of the story because the team Knox joins has a werewolf. I was quite glad over this but of course he (Hunt) not being the protagonist didn't played that much into focus. I'm still curious about him despite the fact his story will be the third and I still have one to go before that.

As for this one, all the scenes with the team felt like movie scripts, namely, it had scenes with them distrusting each other, getting to know each other, playing their strengths, getting to trust each other, etc. Not a bad thing but I feel conflicted over it, I don't know if I should feel annoyed it wasn't developed more and that this could turn into a sort of paranormal series focused on the character's mission in which case it wasn't successful, or if I should feel irritated it didn't focus properly on the vampires' cure and the world building, in which case it wasn't a success either.
I'll summarize the issues that should be addressed differently, in my personal opinion:
- the romance sucked, I'll explain after;
- the world building felt very minimalist because it didn't offer anything besides the action center necessary to the story. I don't like this that much because if looks like the world is narrow...a bit more effort would be interesting, I think. Maybe we can see more in the next stories;
- the series is focused on Knox and his love on sights Felicia, but there are other characters that matter. There are clever ways to make them more substantial than what they seem, but I don't think that happened here. Still, the little clues we had were intriguing and I have hopes for more in the next books;
- the pace was OK. The overall plot line about the cure for the vampires and the starting of the plots for the next stories were nicely fit together and the story didn't feel heavy or useless. I liked this sense of always moving forward somehow. But, I still believe it would have been even better if the author could have given more dimension to the whole thing.

The romance sucked to me. Why? Because in the beginning Felicia is known to have kept away from Knox for a long time despite having feelings for him. He pursued her but she never said no for the best reasons, I think! But eventually she gives in and to be honest it was so stupid. How could her reasoning fall so easily after years of god sense? I get it that it helped for the plot purposes, but is someone that weak to be influenced to change a way of thinking that lasted years in such a short time? I know it seem it lasted longer because of all those "no" years, but the reasons were still the same when they got intimate! She still thought the same about him, herself and the whole situation. Well, maybe it's me that wants to stick to some sort of moral conduct but this is something I really must feel is respected in character's behavior. If they are said to be a certain way then I only accept change without good reason. This didn't feel like it. It's hard to explain without giving spoilers, but let's just say if you respect someone and yourself, you wouldn't act against the two. I think.

In the end, good supports and interesting, promising bases, but still a lot to be worked out, in my POV. I gave this a better grade due to the possibilities. Let's see it it matches up in the future.
Grade: 7/10