S.K. Reviews Golden Blood

Intriguing Concept Wedged in a Tight Space

Golden Blood by Tim Vee is an imaginative tale with some nice twists. Here’s my problem—This reads more like a synopsis than a novel. Not a lot of character development—mostly telling about the action instead of showing. Limited dialogue. There is no real MC until toward the end. So many opportunities for suspense and creepiness were missed. I noted some editing issues, such as inconsistent names and other things, but then I nitpick the copy on cereal boxes, so don’t pay too much attention to me on this.

I would estimate the word count at around 40k words. That’s not much when you have a story beginning in 1540 and ending in the present day.

And this is a pity because the ideas here are first-rate—we meet one vampire in 1540 and follow his trail of destruction until he sort of by accident creates another vampire in the 1800s. His mistake is that this new vampire is a lady, and she is pissed. In the end, this is a revenge tale, though that bit isn’t developed as nicely as I would have liked.

The world-building here fits nicely with what we know of vampires from Hammer vampire movies and from Buffy and from all the nightmares, with some additional info that I found interesting. The ending is nicely done. I have no problem with the book’s concept, and the author seems competent, but I mourn what could have been.

I think this concept could easily have been developed into a block-buster trilogy—at least three novels of 80k words or better, which would have been epic. Instead, all this info and action and all these characters are crammed into a phone booth where they can barely breathe.

Because of the lack of character development, the erratic and abbreviated plot structure, and those pesky but totally avoidable editing issues, I can only give this book a 3 out of 5.

Having said all that, I do find it to be worth the .99 price tag just for the interesting take on traditional bloodsuckers and some genuinely creepy scenes—among the few that are well-developed. Easy to read in two or maybe three sittings.

If you need a quick dose of vampiric mayhem, give Golden Blood a try.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary ARC as a host of a Goddess Fish Promotions tour. This review is unbiased and voluntary.