Bo seeks a cure for her vampirism

“New Order”, the second book of the Bo Blackman series, is as fresh and as much fun to read as “Dire Straits” was.

Bo hates being a vampire. The idea of drinking blood revolts her. The fact that she was turned against her will makes her angry. The fact that there was a good reason for turning her just makes her angrier still. Despite being told, many times by many people, that there is no cure for vampirism, she sets off to find one and gets into a great deal of trouble during her search.

I love Bo’s anger, her impulsiveness and her (sometimes stupid) refusal to ask for help or take advice. Most of all, I like her refusal to accept that there is no way out of her situation. True, all of these things make her life more difficult than it needs to be, but they also make her more human. Bo’s humanity, or rather her refusal to abandon her humanity, is the driving force of this book. She may be a vampire but she’s determined to still be herself. Except, some parts of being a vampire (running across the rooftops of tall buildings, having super strength, healing really quickly) are really cool, and, much as she want to break free from the Monserrat vampire family that turned her, the leader of the family attracts her in ways she finds hard to ignore.

Helen Harper, describes her alternative London with deft, confident strokes. She clearly has a larger story arc in mind. Her world building deepens, telling us more about witches, demons and magic, as well as seeing how the vampire families work.

Although Bo is always dashing from place to place, often throwing herself in harms way, the story is not chaotic. The pace is carefully controlled and perfectly timed.

By the end of this book, I found that I now had an ensemble cast that I’m interested in, a volatile main character with bags of potential to entertain and surprise and a well written new world that I’m going to enjoy visiting as often as Helen Harper invites me to.

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2 people found this helpful

The characters

This was another engaging book in the Bo Bkackman series. Some of the characters are a bit far-fetched, but the author is so good, they seem normal haha. Simply love the series.

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Boring

The first book wasn't very good and Bo was shown to be a very bad investigator even though her being an investigator is the main theme of the book. This book started out well but it became boring soon. The biggest problem is we don't know a whole lot about the world. We see everything through Bo's narrow perspective. Bo is stubborn and irritating for the most part and she is still generally fumbling around. She is not intelligent and knowledgeable enough to do what she is supposed to do. All the other characters are two dimensional. Bo and Michael's so-called relationship is blah. Bo gets the human lawyer (Henry something) to extricate her from her vampire family even though we are told in the first book that human laws don't apply to vampires no matter how you twist them. Frankly while we are told that vampire families are very powerful, the feel of the book has been otherwise. Also, why does Henry (the lawyer) show up every time Bo calls for him. There has been no talk about her paying him except one IOU for some info. He has an agenda but our great investigator is wholly unaware and uncaring of it. Oh and the author suddenly throw in ghosts/spirits in the story out of the blue and somehow Bo has always been able to see them and talk to them and obviously it goes no where. By chapter 15 I couldn't take it anymore. I am done with this series.

Narration: Saskia doesn't emote well other than some anger. I only find out Bo is speaking softly when Saskia tells us so in the next sentence, same is when she is supposed to be speaking sarcastically. I had to once again listen at a slightly faster narration speed to not feel totally frustrated.

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