Blood Heavy: Ascension
Blood Heavy, Book #2
By SLJ Shortt

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Dawn

 Synopsis:

Daniel Jericho is your average teenager. Outgoing, curious, smart, friendly, likes cars, rock music, movies, drinks, smokes, is moody at times, a few parental issues, girl troubles, has supernatural blood, decapitates monsters in his spare time…you know, the usual.

It’s been three months since he found out that vampires, werewolves, ghosts, witches and pretty much every other horrible thing you’ve ever dreamt about are real. That was around about the same time he decided he was going to protect as many people as he could from them.

Backed up by his best friend Goose, his uncle Joe, the vampire vixen sisters, Cass and Claire, the annoyingly mature fourteen year old psychic Rachel and the peaceful super-vamp Sophinia, Jerry is going to school during the day and hunting evil at night all the while desperately searching for answers about his unnatural blood.

When large groups of supernatural creatures that were targeting him start getting massacred without warning, Jerry thinks it’s possible that he may have an ally out there protecting him.

Unbelievably powerful, undeniably intelligent and indescribably beautiful, Aria isn’t just an ally, she’s every teenage guys greatest fantasy. And when she offers Jerry protection and answers to all the questions that have plagued him since this began, he thinks his dreams have come true.

So why is his instinct telling him that this woman is more dangerous than anything any of them have ever seen before? Most preternatural creatures just want to eat people, Aria wants to play and this is a game like no other.

Start playing and start praying.

Let the games begin. (Amazon)

 Review:

This is the second installment in the Blood Heavy Series. I enjoyed it just as much as the first book. It’s not a fluke, SLJ Shortt is a great writer. He’s very talented with written humor which I imagine cannot be easy to convey. That’s the main reason I like the series; they’re clever and funny. How often can a book make you laugh out loud????

Jerry and Goose are back and packing attitude. You name it, they want to kick its ass. They’ve been hunting…..everything – wraiths, strigoi, poltergeists, werewolves. They are exterminators, until they meet Aria. She’s a bad ass demon with a few tricks up her sleeve.

Shortt injects a soundtrack into the story. Music sets the stage for violence and humor, a great combination! There are a lot of funny references to pop culture.

We learn that all supernatural beings originated from demons. Claire and Joe “hook up” and Jerry walks in….awkward. Jerry develops new powers; he can at times predict an enemy’s next move. That comes in handy. The FBI tries to get involved. Jerry and Goose are now on their radar; that can’t be good.

The epic battle with Aria was bad-ass. She’s right about one thing, Jerry will never give up. He will protect his loved ones no matter what he has to sacrifice. Near the end we learn they have been betrayed by one of their own. That was hard to swallow. Losing one of their own was much more difficult because I’ve grown attached to Jerry’s group.

I was hoping to get closer to the mystery of Jerry’s mother, but no such luck. I was wrong about what she might be. A few clues were thrown out but not enough to know for sure. I am dying to know who/what she is and how Jerry fits in. The suspense is killing me!

I got bored with the gun talk; it’s just not my thing. Men will love this book if only to enjoy the boys (Goose and Jerry) and their toys.

Again, this is a fun interesting read. Make sure to give the series a try.