Review – Blood Games (Chicagoland Vampires, Book 10) by Chloe Neill (3.5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: NAL Trade
Release Date: August 5th, 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0451415202
Stand Alone or Series: 10th book in the Chicagoland Vampire series
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

This was a decent book in the Chicagoland Vampires series. The 11th book in this series will be titled, Dark Debt, and is scheduled for a March 2015 release. Right now there are 13 books on contract for this series.

Ethan has challenged Darius for the position as head of the GP. He is anxiously waiting Darius’s reply. Will Darius step down? Or will he challenge Ethan? This is the broader storyline and makes quite a bit of progress in this book.

Meanwhile Merit is called in to consult on a series of bizarre murders that are beginning to look like very interesting and staged serial killings. I felt like this storyline was a bit rushed. It was also the main part of the story in the beginning, then was dropped mid book, and then was picked up again towards the end and quickly concluded.

This was a good book in this series. The pacing was a bit off at points, but this book does a pretty good job with having both a contained storyline and a continuing the broader storyline.

While I do enjoy these characters and I liked that there was progress made in the storyline involving Ethan and the GP, I did think the plot was a bit sloppy. There is a ton of time mid-book spent with Merit angsting about Ethan’s honesty with her and lots of worry over the GP events.

The serial killings were really interesting but these were dealt with a lot in the beginning of the story, forgotten towards the middle of the book, and then quickly resolved at the end. It made for inconsistent pacing and a story that wasn’t as tight as it should have been.

Given the twist at the end of this book I am curious to see what happens next. However, I also feel like this series is getting a bit tired. I am not sure how many books are left but I am beginning to think it would be good to get this series wrapped up in the next book or two, so that it doesn’t get more and more tired.

Overall a decent book in this series, I think fans of the series will enjoy it. I liked that some of the major plot points were resolved and I enjoyed the serial killings Merit investigated. I thought the plot was a bit sloppy and the pacing was a bit off. Storylines are dropped and then suddenly picked up again, there are also portions of the story that are pretty boring and slow. I would still recommend this series to fans of urban fantasy who enjoy reading about investigations and politics.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge