The Turning (Blood Ties, #1) in Vampires, Weres and Fae!

Oct 25, 2009 Melindeeloo rated it liked it

Shelves: urban-fantasy, vampires

Take a 'turn' into dark fantasy, a horror story with sex, not a romance...

Don't read the Turning with the expectations that this is your typical vampire romance. There is no sweet young thing bringing light to some old undead guy's bleak existence, in fact I don't think that there is a single character in this story that even remotely qualifies as sweet. The Turning spends a great deal of time in the darker shades of gray, in both the characters and the events that are portrayed.

There is a tri Take a 'turn' into dark fantasy, a horror story with sex, not a romance...

Don't read the Turning with the expectations that this is your typical vampire romance. There is no sweet young thing bringing light to some old undead guy's bleak existence, in fact I don't think that there is a single character in this story that even remotely qualifies as sweet. The Turning spends a great deal of time in the darker shades of gray, in both the characters and the events that are portrayed.

There is a triangle between the main characters: 'heroine' Carrie, Cyrus and Nathan. Carrie is accidentally is turned by an evil sadistic old vampire Cyrus who doesn't hang around to show her the ropes. When she starts to suspect what she has become, Carrie searches until she finds a contact offering her information. Barely escaping death at the beginning of this meeting, she ends up in Nathan's care. Nathan is also a vampire but he is hunts the evil members of his own kind and is bound to a strict code. Nathan is haunted by a past that forces him to keep others at an emotional distance, but he is tempted by Carrie. The last player is Cyrus, Carrie's maker, who has shed all traces of his humanity and revels in his bloody power but Cyrus hides a need for love behind his cruelty.

Drawn to Cyrus by the blood bond from sire to fledgling, Carrie make a choice to leave Nathan's protection and enter Cyrus' world - initially, she rationalizes, to save Nathan. But coming from a past where she was never able to find acceptance from her parents, she sees a neediness in Cyrus under all the layers of imperious cruelty that she can relate to. The tie between Cyrus and Carrie binds both ways and he doesn't kill her for challenging him because he needs her as much as she needs him. But even so I found it difficult to think that Carrie could rationalize being in a place where she knew all kinds of evil was being perpetrated.

There are layers to the emotions and the events in the Turning. There is the pull of darkness that lingers as humanity flees. There are scars from the past. The pain of both love sought but not found and of love found and then lost. The author does a good job of exposing both Nathan's and Cyrus' pain, and does even build a sympathy for Cyrus. But Cyrus is just so bad that you really can't root for him, and it was difficult to see how Carrie could have trouble choosing between Cyrus and Nathan.

While not action packed and with no happily ever after at the end, the Turning was interesting and thought provoking enough that I will definitely be reading the sequel.

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