Blood and Magick

Title ~ Blood and Magick
Series ~ Deacon Chalk: Occult Bounty Hunter, #3
Author ~ James R. Tuck
Publisher ~ Kensington
Published ~ 5 March 2013
Genre ~ UF/Paranormal

*Book source ~ Many thanks to Kensington for providing a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

My Rating ~ 4 bites and a nibble out of 5

Deacon Chalk is an Occult Bounty Hunter taking care of the monsters so they don’t eat people. When a trio of witches comes to town and wants the Blood of the Trinity, the special blood belonging to mixed shapeshifter triplets, all hell breaks loose. The triplets should never have been born with a werelion for a dad and a weredog for a mom, but there they are, weirder than all get out and apparently badly wanted by the Wrath of Baphomet, no doubt for nepharious purposes that will be very horrific for humans. It’s up to Deacon and his crew to stop them, but he never suspects the evil selfishness hidden amongst those he trusts.

Once again James R. Tuck starts a book off by burning rubber off the starting line, roaring at high speeds down the stretch and around the curves until crossing the finishing line tires squealing and smoke billowing up as the car does a 360 in a fancy flourishing end. In other words, don’t blink or you might miss some action.

Deacon gets some help from an unexpected quarter in the form of a government agent. Whether it will prove to be a continuous positive help remains to be seen in future books. Personally, I like Agent Heck and hope he sticks around. There is also loss and betrayal in this book. I think Deacon made a mistake when dealing with Larson and I have a feeling that is going to come back and bite him in the ass big time.

One thing that kept this from being a 5 star for me is Deacon himself. He is dead set against magic, calling it all bad yet he doesn’t hesitate to use the magic in himself when the situation calls for it. Everything isn’t always black and white and I’d like to see Deacon realize that or risk being a hypocrite. He admits that not all shapeshifters are bad, so he needs to take that extra step with magic.

The other thing that kept this from being a 5 star is the repetition. It’s easy to see that James R. Tuck is a fan of the Anita Blake series, but I would hate to see Deacon become a one-dimensional character like Anita, have pages and pages of filler about what everyone looks like or what they are wearing, rehash ad nauseum every detail that happened in previous books or have the wheels fall off the plot in the middle of the story. I’m begging Tuck not to fall into the pattern that LKH has fallen into because I already love Deacon. I’m heart-broken over the crappy writing LKH has churned out recently and I certainly don’t want to see the same from Tuck. So far, so good though. I’m still 100% with Deacon and looking forward to seeing what happens next.