Blood Trinity: Strong heroine, monsters, lots of action

Blood Trinity by Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dianna Love

Evalle is not human, nor is she a full blooded Belador. She is an Alterant and straddles the line between man… err… woman and monster every day of her life. She has maintained a precarious relationship with the Belador tribe over the years, and is employed by them as part of a group that protects humanity from the nasties of the night. Things begin to go wrong for Evalle when she comes under suspicion for a grisly murder that bears the marking of her kind. She must find a way to prove her innocence and protect those she cares about at the same time.

Blood Trinity is fairly well-written, and you can tell that this is not the authors’ first go round at writing a novel. However, some of the transitions between scenes are a little confusing. There are some fundamentals of the world left unexplained, like what exactly is a Belador. The plot moves along quickly, though, and the action is tight and exciting. The tone of the novel leans female and dips into the paranormal romance category a bit. All the men are built like professional athletes and are amazing kissers. Evalle herself is drop dead gorgeous and has bright green eyes. She wears BDU t-shirts, sunglasses and rides a GSX-R motorcycle. She is cool incarnate. It sounds really cheesy, and it kind of is, but this is what we’ve come to expect from this type of urban fantasy. I’m just as guilty as the next UF fan in that I get a kick out of this kind of story, and will often pick one up at the store.

The characters in Blood Trinity are not all that deep. There are a few that show promise, but mostly they all exist to support Evalle. My problem with Evalle is her psychological issues. She was abused as a teenager and has trouble trusting people to such an extent that in inhibits nearly every decision she makes. She also has a severe fear of men, and then is surrounded by them at all times. She freaks out at the slightest touch, yet swaps slobber with most of the leading males in the story. It’s confusing. Evalle is also severely paranoid. I’m not sure what impression the authors wanted to give me from Evalle’s paranoia, but all it did was make her seem kind of dumb. Her leaps of logic in order to make the conspiratory connections were thin at best.

I have never read anything by Sherrilyn Kenyon or Dianna Love, so I came into this series with a clean slate. I’m a pretty big fan of UF and the back cover blurb convinced me this would be a book I liked. The book has a strong heroine, a modern setting, various monsters, and lots of action. All the ingredients that make for a good standard UF novel are here, but that is also its limitation. Blood Trinity doesn’t offer anything that really sets it apart from the field. If you are a fan of the authors or really into urban fantasy, however, then this series opener should be a solid read for you.

I listened to this on Audio CD by Brilliance Audio. It’s narrated by Christina Traiste who does a fine job with all the different characters. Atlanta is the setting, so Ms. Traiste gives most everyone a slight southern accent. The accents were a little distracting at first, but grew on me as the novel progressed. Overall it is another quality production from Brilliance, and if you want to read Blood Trinity, I highly recommend the audio version.