Blood Challenge by Eileen Wilks

The Lady’s enemy is once again at work in the world.  Lily, Rule, and everyone else is hoping they can thwart her plans one more time.

Title:  Blood Challenge
Author:  Eileen Wilks
Series: World of the Lupi Book 07
Publish Date:  August 1, 2014 by GraphicAudio.net
Genre:  Urban Fantasy
Source: Purchased

Publisher’s Description: Lily Yu and Rule Turner’s engagement announcement is stirring up ugly passions in the Humans First camp. There’s hate mail. Death threats. Lily’s car is vandalized. But professionally, things are going smoothly…until a lupus in Tennessee goes on a killing spree.

Then Rule’s brother, Benedict, catches a lovely intruder–twice. The first time she’s sneaking around the home of the leader of Humans First. The second time, she sneaks into Nokolai Clanhome with a mysterious potion.

It may not be possible to deal with the rapidly escalating situation the way Lily always has: through the law. Especially when she’s pulled off the case due to an alleged conflict of interest. Lily’s loyalties will be stretched to the breaking point when she discovers that the deaths in Tennessee were only the opening skirmish in an all-out war.

Possible spoilers beyond this point.

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Invested Ivana says…

Okay, let me get my minor complaints out of the way before I talk about what I liked.  First, the actor playing Rule’s voice changed.  I KNOW there are a myriad of good reasons for changing voice actors, and with as good as GraphicAudio is, I’m guessing the situation was something outside their control.  But I STILL hate it.

Second, this is the first GraphicAudio book where I felt like I could tell the story was abridged.  There were just some things that felt incomplete, like the explanation had been cut.  Now, I’m willing to admit this could be psychological, since I just recently realized GA books ARE abridged somewhat.  So take that for what it’s worth.  Thankfully, I also own the ebook so I can go back and figure out if I really DID miss anything.

Aside from those minor gripes, Blood Challenge is another good installment in the series.  We continue to learn more about the Lupi culture, about the characters, and about they world they inhabit.  Again, the world feels real because each book is dealing somewhat with the consequences of what happened in past stories.

I absolutely LOVE Arjenie Fox.  Her character is fantastically fun.  And we get to learn more about Benedict as well.  Though the entire story doesn’t focus on them, their story is a great addition and keeps the romance level up for the romance readers.

***I’m going to get a bit spoilery.***

Readers who get upset with the “Mary Jane” syndrome may start to get annoyed with the series, if they haven’t by now.  Everything seems to happen to Rule and Lily.  Rule has two mantles, now Lilly has one.  The Nokolai now have two Chosen and will soon have two (or three) sets of married couples when married Lupi are unheard of.  No matter where they go in the country, something big and tragic happens to Rule and Lily.

The Mary Jane syndrome doesn’t bother me very much, personally; I like sticking with the same characters over time, and to keep a story interesting, THINGS have to happen to them. I see the characters as the vehicle through which we explore whatever it is we’re exploring in the series. But I know some people find it frustrating.

Overall, I’m really glad I stuck with this series.  I’m enjoying the complexity of the world, the personality of all the characters, and the voice acting of Graphic Audio.  Even if they did have to change an actor. 😉

See my reviews for other books in this series:

• The New Kid (prequel)
• Tempting Danger Book 01
• Originally Human Book 01.5
• Mortal Danger Book 02
• Blood Lines Book 03
• Night Season Book 04
• Mortal Sins Book 05
• Blood Magic Book 06

Other reviews…

• All About Romance
• The Good, The Bad, and The Unread
• Wicked Little Pixie

If you like this book…

…you should try some of the other Graphic Audio titles — maybe the Dante Valentine or Jill Kismet series by Lilith Saintcrow, the Goblin Trilogy by Jim C. Hines, or the Rogue Angel series.