[Review] Blood Rights by Kristen Painter

Title: Blood Rights
Series:  House of Comarré
Author:  Kristen Painter
Genre:  adult, vampires, fantasy
Format:  Paperback, 418 pages
Publication Date:  October1, 2011
Published By:  Orbit
Source:  Received from publisher for review.

Synopsis from Goodreads

The lacy gold mapped her entire body. A finely-wrought filigree of stars, vines, flowers, butterflies, ancient symbols and words ran from her feet, up her legs, over her narrow waist, spanned her chest and finished down her arms to the tips of her fingers.

Born into a life of secrets and service, Chrysabelle’s body bears the telltale marks of a comarré—a special race of humans bred to feed vampire nobility. When her patron is murdered, she becomes the prime suspect, which sends her running into the mortal world…and into the arms of Malkolm, an outcast vampire cursed to kill every being from whom he drinks.

Now Chrysabelle and Malkolm must work together to stop a plot to merge the mortal and supernatural worlds. If they fail, a chaos unlike anything anyone has ever seen will threaten to reign.

My Thoughts

I have been waiting quite some time to find a "good" vampire story again, and Kristen Painter finally wrote that story for me. I wish I had of taken better notes during the reading process, but I honestly went in with lowered expectations due to the amount of unlikeable vampire writing on the market currently (It's almost as bad as the angel writing!), and by the time I realized how amazing this book was, I was too busy devouring it to write any notes down...

I think one of the main reasons I really enjoyed this book was because it reminded me quite a bit of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series (Which I also absolutely adore!). We have the politics, intrigue, magic, a group of humans that are sold to the highest bidder and marked with a type of tattoo. It's fabulous!

The characters are fantastic and have minds and voices of their own. Chrysabelle, a special breed of human bred specifically to feed the vampire nobility, Malkolm the outcast vampire noble who has been cursed and is therefore trapped within his own misery, as well as the "aunt" who was able to escape the comarré life (at a very hefty cost), the ever-haunting ghost, and the cursed were-kitty. These intriguing characters make up a very intriguing cast that is likely to entertain even the most snobbish vampire reader.

I also have to give kudos to Kristen Painter's world building. It is strong, and vivid, beautiful and disturbing, and so realistic it's hard to imagine it's not real.

I recommend everyone give this book a read, even if you feel like you might be burnt out on vampire novels. I don't think you'll ever regret it!

Now on to book two, Flesh and Blood.

My rating?