Book Thoughts on Friday: 1305 & 1306 The Oracle and the Vampire, Christine Rains

Book Thoughts on Thursday is somewhere for me to share with you some of the books I've been reading and really enjoyed. I'm a day late with this edition due to feeling under the weather this week, so for one week only (I hope!) it's Book Thoughts on Friday!

 

This week:

1305 & 1306: The Oracle and the Vampire, Christine Rains

A friendly warning: Although not intentional, I may give away some aspects of the story that you may not want revealed. I know I hate it when spoilers ruin my experience of a story, so feel free to halt your reading here until you've read it for yourself.
Then you can come back to see if you share my thoughts!

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Having fallen for her gorgeous neighbor might not be so bad if Harriet McKay wasn't in her hideous banshee form every time Kiral saw her. Such is her curse. True, he's a vampire struggling with a drug addiction, but he's a good soul. Yet no one could love a cursed witch, especially one not even her cats respect.

After having a vision of Kiral's death, Harriet makes it her mission to save him. Never before has she attempted to change fate, but so strong is her love. 

Kiral Ozdemir struggles to make it through every day. The craving for blood laced with drugs directs his every thought until he tastes Harriet's potent blood. The magic immediately addicts him, but she disappears. He's desperate to find her, racing blindly out into a city in chaos.

How can Harriet convince Kiral to see past her vile appearance and return her love? If only she can force him to listen to reason coming from a raving crone, perhaps she can save him from the demons hunting him and from himself.

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I was looking forward to reading this installment of The 13th Floor, particularly as Kiral featured in The Marquis and managed to escape from the roof and the sun. I was itching to find out how that happened!

One of my favourite elements in this book is that Harriet and Kiral each have a huge attraction to the other and as a reader I was rooting for them to be happy together, but it seemed like something destined to elude them forever. He is a vampire so can't go out during the day, and at night she turns in to a wailing crone. It certainly doesn't make for an obvious match.

When Harriet first has her vision about Kiral's death, of course we as readers know what happens to him and that he escapes, which makes it interesting to watch her work through the puzzle for herself. Whenever she had doubts about whether or not she could actually save him, when she didn't believe she could make it in time, I was willing her to know that it would all turn out alright and to just keep going.

Of course she did, and had the added roller-coaster of listening to Kiral reveal his feelings for her 'granddaughter' Harriet. On the one hand she was obviously elated to know his feelings, but she had to hold herself back to protect him from whatever was after him.
I was wondering when and how she would reveal herself to him, and thought it worked wonderfully when she changed in front of his eyes as the sun was coming up. This is how I hoped it would happen and wasn't disappointed. It was a truly uplifting scene for me when he finally realised her truth.

Immediately after though when they were both working to release him, even though I knew the outcome I still had my own doubts about whether he would actually make it. It made me wonder if I'd misread something in The Marquis and that he'd actually perished, but I was filled with relief when he made it inside in time.

There's is truly going to be a difficult relationship, with many things out to test them, but I hope they last together. They'll make a good team using her visions to save those they can.

Another great read in the series.

The Oracle and the Vampire is the fifth in The 13th Floor series of novellas, and the author Christine Rains will be on tour in October to celebrate the release of the series as a collection. Make sure you check it out!

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