Review: Blood Bites: Three Vampire Tales by C.J. Pinard, Kristen Middleton & L.R. Potter

Print Length: 171 pages

Publisher: Dark Shadows Publishing (October 14, 2013)

From Goodreads.com: Three vampire tales by three talented female authors! 

~Wicked~ 
When eighteen-year-old Emily wakes up to find herself being held captive in a barn with four other women and tries to escape, she finds herself being hunted by a dark presence through the deep woods of Montana. 

~Violent~ 
College sophomore Evan Grant doesn’t realize what he’s getting into when he asks the beautiful redhead, Karina Walsh out on a simple date. The date ends well but the night does not. A frightening encounter with an otherworldly creature leaves him nowhere to go but to Karina and her family for help. But will they help him… or destroy him for knowing too much of a world he never should have seen? 

~The Blood Pool~ 
When vicious killings of humans begin to show up in a small town, Alec Kilton – Chief Enforcer of the Nave, the ruling authority of vampires, is sent to investigate it and stop it. During the course of his investigation, he comes across a deadly game enacted by four young – and untrained – vampires. They call their game, the Blood Pool. In this game, they select a female human’s name from a hat, and then each of the four have an opportunity to woo her. Whoever wins, gets to enjoy her before the other three come and destroy her. 

While out on his mission, Alec meets a stunning redhead, Molly O’Connell, who he finds irresistible on so many levels. During the course of their game, Molly’s name is deposited into the hat and selected to become their next target in the Blood Pool. Will Alec be able to understand their game in time to save his lovely redhead? Or will those who invented the game destroy her first? 

Some stories contain adult language and adult situations. Appropriate for readers 17 and older.

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 My Rating: 3 stars out of 5

After some of the heavily detailed books I have been reading, I was looking forward to a collection of short stories. The fact that they were all vampire themed was just an added bonus. 

However, for the most part, I would have been better spending my time cleaning my house, or doing laundry... or basically anything other than wasting my time with this (with the exception of The Blood Pool, but we'll get to that in a minute). 

The first two books left much to be desired. They moved so quickly (even for a short story), that I couldn't care less about the characters of their plights. The concepts were solid enough that each of these stories could have been turned into a full length novel and probably been well done at that, but these stories as they stand are dreadful. Aside from the characters being one-dimensional, the stories were so drawn out that by the time they really started getting interesting, or a twist was revealed, BOOM the book was OVER. I will say that each of these stories did have a unique twist that I found interesting, I just wish there would have been more for me to review. 

The last novel in the collection, The Blood Pool, was not only my favorite, but was in my opinion the most well done of the three. There was character dimension, there was loss, there was love, there was drama & suspense. It had everything that I desperately wish the other two had contained. The two main characters each had suffered the loss of someone they loved, and despite their different circumstances, they were still able to come together and overcome the odds. I also enjoyed the twists contained in this story, it wasn't something I expected, and that made it all the more enjoyable to me. I would read more by this author if not from the other two. 

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Three Vampire Tales is available from Amazon.com