Bloodtype Online

    Aspiring author Gage Healy is finally able to fulfill a lifelong dream.  Once the school year ends, he is able to turn his back on his unsatisfying teaching job and spend an entire summer at his family’s old summer home in Crystal Bay, focusing on nothing but writing.  His wife Beth is a bit unhappy at the prospect of being abandoned for weeks, but Gage needs this time for himself. 

    On the way up to the cabin, Gage stops at a little greasy spoon and decides to make himself get started with a few notes, or at least look the part of a writer in public.  A very attractive young woman catches his eye and he finds that the words just flow right off the page without much effort.  She even helps him escape the clutches of some rough bar troll.  It’s an even luckier break for him when the young woman turns out to be his next-door neighbor up at the lake—until he winds up in bed with her.  Creating unnecessary tension in his marriage by leaving to go write a book is one thing, but adding fuel to the fire by having an affair is completely unacceptable.  Gage feels a lot of guilt, but his writer’s block is gone.  He can write with ease for long stretches at a time.  It’s a frenzy of storytelling—all thanks to his lust for Amanda.   

    Amanda is more than just an object of lust conveniently located next door.  She’s irresistible—insanely so.  If only Gage could see what she does behind closed doors.  There’s a matter of a very old black book containing what appears to be foreign symbols and writing.  She also has a thirst for blood and a homicidal temper.  Gage is not her first conquest and his need to be near her may destroy all that he has… 

    While the characters are intriguing and certainly more than flat representations, I found myself really wanting to know more than what I was being told, particularly in the case of Amanda.  How did her quest for eternal youth turn into such an obsession?  How was she able to track down the means to obtain her goal and what did she sacrifice to get there? What’s her history?  As it stands, she starts to seem like a two dimensional succubus when it’s pretty clear that Ford has so much more in mind when he writes about her. 

    There is a fairly strong sense of place—the lake, summer cabins and steamy weather come to life with vivid descriptions.  Similarly, the psychological confusion and sense of paranoia experienced by Beth, Gage and Amanda are very clear and compelling.  The plot moves at a very fast pace and this is definitely a book that can be picked up and completed in a day or two which is great for people who don’t have a whole lot of time to squeeze in a book, which I didn’t when I started it.  I was just left wishing that the tension created by Amanda wasn’t rushed so much…

Rating - **1/2

- Jennie Milojevic