Toni's Review of Blood of Innocence by Tami Dane ***4 Stars***

Be sure to check out the details on how to win your own copy at the end of the review!!

Gifted profiler Sloan Skye joins the hunt for an elusive serial killer--and discovers a breed of criminal few know exists . . .

A cynic by nature, Sloan Skye wasn't thrilled when she was assigned to the FBI's Paranormal Behavioral Analysis Unit. But her doubts are slowly easing, especially when she sees that working on the fringe allows her to use some of her more unconventional tactics. Most of all, Sloan's grateful her career is on track--because her love life, if you can even call it that, is in shambles.

Sloan is searching for a suspect who slays his female victims at night, and bizarrely drains their bodies of blood. Bad enough, but when Sloan learns what the killer is really after, she can barely sleep at night. When the suspect guns for someone very close to Sloan, it's time to throw out the rules and face her deepest fears . . 

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Blood of Innocence is book #2 in the Sloan Skye series.  About week after her first grueling case as an intern, Sloan is thrust into another disturbing case.  Pregnant women are dying of blood loss and their babies are missing.

The Paranormal Behavioral Analysis Unit (PBAU) is brought in for another grisly case.  Women are showing up dead in their beds, drained of all their blood and their babies removed from their bodies.  All done without a drop of blood wasted.  There is no sign of forced entry and most of the time; the fathers are sound asleep right next to them. 

Sloan is also learning about the other side of her family tree.  Since discovering she is part elf and that she has been betrothed to the Prince of the Sluagh’s, she is on a mission to find him a different more suitable wife.  She has a year and she hits the ground running.

If she doesn’t have enough trouble with her so called fiancé, she is also attracting two co-workers and another prince.  What is a girl to do?  Why help her mother plan a wedding to her father, of course.  Sloan’s life just keeps getting crazier and crazier and the only thing she really wants to do is focus on stopping this perp before another mother and baby is lost. 

This story was a slow burn.  Was there heart pounding action?  No.  Was there hot steamy sex?  No.  Or what about the usual paranormal suspects?  Nope not really.  What you do get is a steady story that I personally couldn’t put down.  Blood of Innocence really held on and I found I had to force myself to put it down at 4am.  I just couldn’t find a good stopping point and eventually had to say – ENOUGH!

Another aspect I enjoyed was that this story didn’t give you ordinary vampires.  The usual vampire; has fangs, can’t go out in daylight and is evil.  Ms. Dane’s plot dove deeper.  She is taking the paranormal into folklore.  You are meeting creatures that can be labeled as vampires, but are different creatures all together.  There are no standard paranormals making visits in her novels, no indeedy.  Ms. Dane is making Urban Fantasy all her own and she is owning it.

Ms. Dane also keeps you on the edge of knowing Sloan.  You can feel that Sloan is on the cusps of something remarkable and there are many signs that pop up.  But Sloan still has no idea who or what she really is and neither do you.  I kept expecting and wanting Ms. Dane to slip and tell me.  Well she doesn’t, but I’m not too terribly disappointed, I think a little mystery makes all the more fun.

If you want a unique Urban Fantasy novel that still gives you a touch of paranormal, but with a folklore twist, pick up Blood of Innocence.  It is a really nice change of pace from the norm.  I personally can’t wait to see what she has next in store for Sloan Skye!

Want to know what I thought of the first book - Blood of Eden.  Check it out here!

If you would like to enter to win both books in the series, head on over to Paranormal Addicts to enter.

Thanks for reading!! - Toni