Written in the Blood

March 16, 2015
British author Jones’s ponderous sequel to 2014’s The String Diaries focuses on heroic Leah Wilde, a hybrid member of a wealthy and powerful dynasty of shape-shifters, the hosszú életek. Since their birth rate is low, Leah must persuade her paranoid line that a new way has been found for hosszú életek to reproduce. While doing so, Leah is pursued by a deranged hosszú életek, as well as by the tolvaj, an evil creature that feeds on the souls of shape-shifters. In a flashback, orphan Izsák Balázs faces the tolvaj during a pogrom of the hosszú életek in Hungary of 1880 that seems to mark the end of the hosszú életek. The story moves forward at a turgid pace as the author hops from subplot to subplot and holds back information that his characters are aware of but the reader is not. Pointillist sensory descriptions nicely evoke the setting, however, and characters are well-drawn gothic types. A rousing finale belies this fantasy thriller’s frustrating middle portion. Agent: Sam Copeland, Rogers, Coleridge & White (U.K.).