B
Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Urban Fantasy
Blood Price is the first novel in the Blood Books series by Tanya Huff. The concept behind the book was better than the actual execution but it was enjoyable and is guaranteed to be somebody’s catnip. It’s not a romance novel but the first book has a romance thread that I believe intensifies as the series progresses (I’ve only read the first book).
The concept behind this book is pure genius – Henry Fitzroy, the bastard son of Henry VIII, is a vampire who supports himself in modern (1990’s) Toronto by writing romance novels. Vicki Nelson is a former homicide detective who quit her job to become a private investigator when she started losing her eyesight. Henry can’t be out during the day and Vicki can’t see at night, but, as Henry points out, when they team up to solve a series of murders they have all 24 hours covered between them.
As much as I loved the concept, this was a pretty easy book for me to put down. The pacing of the book is slow and it has an unfortunate reliance on stereotypes. Vicki is the only well-rounded character. Her struggles to rebuild a sense of self-confidence and optimism in the face of having developed a disability are realistic and interesting. Other characters might have more development in future books, but in this first installment they are disappointingly flat. Vicki’s on again/off again lover Mike Celluci, is your standard skeptical, hard-bitten cop. Henry is exactly like every other vampire that was running around pop culture in the post-Anne Rice days. I’m pretty sure at least one person in my high school gaming group played a character just like him in Vampire: The Masquerade (it’s a role playing game, and we played it while drinking red Kool-Aid from crystal goblets because we were classy like that). He’s a character type who I remain fond of, but more of a type than a fully realized person. The villian (and this is not a spoiler) is the worst stereotype of a geek possible (says the woman who spent high school drinking Kool-Aid from goblets).
The book isn’t a whodunit. I like a mystery to have some mystery, and in this one the reader knows who the bad guy is right away. Vicki and Henry are trying to solve a series of murders. The author makes an attempt to invest each victim with some humanity, but they appear for such a brief time, and are so clearly this books’ version of redshirts, that the suspense isn’t very emotionally engaging. The most terrifying moment in the book involves the death of a human at the hands of humans – possibly because it feels so much more real, and ugly and tragic, than the other deaths.
What kept this book fun, and what makes me want to read more by Tanya Huff, is that the author’s voice is light and engaging and there’s a great sense of humor in the book. Henry is just like all those post-Anne Rice vampires except for one, simply adorable thing – he’s short. This is a nice twist on the “Vampire as epitome of physical perfection” trope, and a lovely nod to historical accuracy (he’s from the Elizabethan Era, after all). It’s also sweet that Vicki, who is rather tall and who generally prefers tall men, still thinks that he’s cute.
There’s also an attitude that while it’s important not to hurt people, you can follow your bliss without shame or embarrassment whether that includes casual sex, playing D&D (a D&D game makes a particularly well-timed and hilarious appearance), hustling, or writing romance. I thought Henry was fairly amoral and deceptive, but he is careful not to kill his dinner and he even thoughtfully heals any bite wounds with his magic spit. Don’t look so surprised – magic spit is totally a thing in modern vampire lore! It’s like magic mom spit, only instead of being antibacterial (it’s common knowledge that mom spit is antibacterial), vampire spit heals wounds. You would know this if you, like me, spent your youth playing Vampire: The Masquerade. Our characters spent many happy hours licking people in a way that was TOTALLY NOT CODE FOR SEX.
My point is that I enjoyed the fact that characters aren’t shamed for pursuing things that they enjoy as long as it doesn’t cause injury to others. Vicki engages in relatively casual sex frequently, and while her relationship with Mike is portrayed as occasionally confusing, there’s no slut shaming over it. Henry is bisexual which never becomes a plot point or matter for discussion – it’s just one of his characteristics. Considering that this book was written in 1991, that’s pretty progressive. I was hoping for more positivity about romance and more about Henry’s life as a writer, but there isn’t much of either. Henry writes romances of the stereotypical, rapey variety and frankly they look terrible. Still, I like it that he’s not embarrassed about his profession. When Vicki asks why he writes them, he says, “I’m good at it, I make a very good living at it, and most of the time I enjoy it”.
This isn’t a romance, but if you are craving a paranormal suspense series with a hint of romance and good sense of humor, then you will probably enjoy this book. I enjoyed it but didn’t love it, but I liked the author’s voice enough that I’m eager to try some of her work in other sub-genres (she writes pretty much every brand of science fiction and fantasy possible). Full disclosure: Tanya Huff was a guest at Convolution, a convention I attended in September, and I was very excited about meeting her. Do you suppose she ever played Vampire: The Masquerade? Because she clearly has played some D&D!
One last thing: there is a dog in Blood Price. I know some people have to know the fate of the dog, so the following “Does the Dog Die” spoiler is for you:
The dog dies. I know – I’m pissed off too. It’s the saddest death in the book.
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Big fan of Tanya Huff’s here. I believe her “Blood” series was turned into a TV series, which was the inspiration for the spin-off “Smoke” series, which includes Henry the Vampire but is really centred on one of the minor characters from the “Blood” series.
I’m currently waiting for Ms Huff’s latest book (3rd in the Enchantment Emporium series) to appear in my post box. Computer says dispatched a week ago, and it is STILL NOT HERE.
Grrrr.
I remember having a similar reaction to this book, though the review makes me kinda feel like reading it again, just to see what I do and don’t remember. And I would have loved to own a goblet back in my VtM days. I used to play the live action version (like cosplay, but with more rock-paper-sissors) and my group was…less then entirely classy. Every once in a while there would be cunning intrigue, but mostly our vampires seemed to get in an inordinate number of bar fights.
My husband used to run a LARP for VTM many years ago, large enough he and his group needed to rent out halls to use, and he had to use a headset to stay on top of things. He talks about it pretty fondly despite the fact that towards the end it was too much work and no fun for him, as you’d expect running a group of roleplayers big enough to require the use of headsets would be.
… wait, wait, wait…
… you can’t write that review and not tell us what’s up with that Nerf gun she’s holding on the cover.
I absolutely LOVE Tanya Huff. She has great ideas, her writing is fun and banter-y, and most of all she knows how to end a series when the story is done! I will read everything she writes always. She is also totally sex positive (no matter the flavour of sex being had). I think she was one of the first authors who wrote gay and lesbian main characters in mainstream fantasy.
Just the fact that this is set in Toronto makes me want to check it out. Though the guy on the cover looks the same height as the woman.
Tanya Huff’s books are FUN. Sometimes horrible stuff happens, and the plots can be ridiculous, but I’m always happy to read them.
I also have super fond memories of the closed polyandrous relationship in The Fire’s Stone. There might be something along those lines in one of the Quarters books too?
HUGE Tanya Huff fan here, yo!
I remember these, in some ways even more than Laurell K. Hamilton, being my gateway into urban fantasy. I very much like the entire series of all five books.
And there’s a trilogy set in Vancouver that’s a spinoff from these, too–the Smoke books, featuring a queer side character in the Blood books that gets his own storyline. 🙂
@Leah, the cover shown is from the 2006 TV series (which I enjoyed quite a bit, even though I hadn’t read all of the books yet)—I don’t remember a Nerf gun in the book, but it’s been at least as many years since I’ve read it.
Um, so yesterday the immortal Viking hero of my new book that I’m writing for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) confessed to me that he secretly writes cozy mysteries featuring his cat, and I got really excited because I thought it was a totally unique twist on an old familiar Romancing the Stone (=heroine as romance writer) trope.
Then today — less than 24 hours after I have this great revelation — I pop over here like I do every morning and learn about a whole new (old) series in which the paranormal hero writes romances. I am torn between feeling “darn! nothing in the whole F#ing world is original! Gah! I’m so derivative.” and “Wow! That book sounds so cool, hey, I must be on the right track and I thought of it yesterday All By Myself.”
This makes me wonder – what other books have a main character as a genre fiction writer, like Romancing the Stone and this series? Heroes in particular …
Back to NaNoWriMo, and another author and series to add to the TBR – Tanya Huff sounds really cool – but I’m still working through the 99cent bundle for Pamela Clare and the books keep piling up!
This sounds really good to me! I like it when the villain is identified early on and it’s just a matter of finding the evidence and apprehending them. I will definitely get Blood Price.
Thanks for the review.
My cover didn’t have a nerd gun. I write these reviews considerably in advance, so time has passed since I read the book, but for the life of me I can’t remember any nerf gun action. I am baffled. Also, I realize now that I’m living a lie – I said “crystal goblets” assuming you all would know what I meant – I meant plastic wine glasses form the dollar store, y’all. We would have KILLED to have unicorn goblets like the one Sarah posted that I am BTW, totally going to buy for myself because I NEED IT. We were infants. We wouldn’t have known crystal if it fell on our heads. We PRETENDED.
And since I wrote this review, I met Tanya Huff at the convention, and OMG she is so delightful. I was totally hanging out with her and Tanuya Gren talking about cats because I AM LIVING THE DREAM.
Tanya Huff is one of my auto-buy writers and I’m currently anxiously waiting for the third Emporium book to arrive in my mailbox.
I recently also started to re-read her Blood-series. It’s definitely not a romance series but one of the earliest paranormal Urban Fantasy series that I read. I think it has held up the test of time pretty well, despite such fun things like answering machine tag.
One thing I’ve always loved about Tanya Huff was how often she added bisexual of homosexual characters into the mix. She also does it in her fantasy-novels. “The Fire Stone” was one of the first fantasy-novels I read in the 90s that not only had a gay and a male bisexual character in it but they also got their happy end.
@Anna Richland Mercedes Lackey wrote a trilogy in the 90s that would be classified as urban fantasy today. The heroine is a witch who supports herself writing romances, and is grumpy that her editor wants standard bodice rippers and she wants to do more interesting things with them. Also involves vampires demons, &ect. The Diana Tregarde books (Burning Water, Children of the Night, & Jinx High).
Alix @ #13: Yeah, I always loved how Huff had her queer characters just right there in the story, and with minimal drama about their being queer. <3
I too have fond memories of VTM. This post makes me nostalgic for red kool-aid. Though we drank ours in the Official White Wolf licensed VTM glassware, because we were the coolest. 😉 I think I still have them packed away somewhere.
I wonder if the books are cheesy like the TV show was (“Blood Ties” which aired on Lifetime in America). I LOVED that show as was so disappointed when it got cancelled!
Demi @ #17: There’s a certain level of cheese in the books, yes, but in some ways not as blatantly as some of the stuff in the show. Some of the plotlines in the show aren’t in the books at all.
Oh, catnip, my catnip. I loved the entire series, it worked on every level for me, not the least of which was a vampire who writes romance novels. The characters genuinely seemed to care about each other, iirc, and Ms. Huff’s open-mindedness was quite refreshing back then. I have them all in paperback and it’s time to take them digital.
Around the same time, I discovered Wen Spencer’s Ukiah Oregon books and succumbed to book love for them, too. Which led to the Tinker stories and beyond.
We’re talking gateway
drugsbooks here, people.So since my earlier post I called my Best Book Friend – she’s also my beta reader, and I swear she reads a book a day (no kids, a job she leaves behind at work, no internet … she reads a lot). And I said “I heard about this author named Tanya Huff and think you’ll–
“What???!!! She has a new book! Tell me she has a new book! I love her books!”
So yeah, I’m really late to this party. And I couldn’t even score points with my beta reader by giving her a new-to-her recommendation.
And I think I read Children of the Night/Mercedes Lackey … must go look at the cover to see if it rings a bell. (Actually must go retrieve children but I can dream about books.)
I really enjoy Huff’s books. They can be a little silly, but overall they’re so enjoyable I just don’t care. My favorite series of her is the Keeper’s Chronicles, which I think was just reviewed here(?), which is a really good time. A woman moves into a B&B and has to deal with all the supernatural stuff inside (it’s on top of a hellmouth or rift or somesuch, and her job is a ‘keeper’ of that kind of location).
I really enjoyed this book when I read it back in 2010 … but then a minor point in book #2 became a full-blown WTF? for me by book #3 and I couldn’t get past it. Henry starts a sexual relationship with a teenager that Vicki has known since he was 15 and living on the streets – essentially, Vicki and this guy Tony both enter into a relationship with Henry and everybody is totally cool with it. But it frustrated me – that Tony/Henry weren’t set up as the more central HEA, that Vicki is portrayed as a maternal figure for Tony but is encouraging of his relationship with Henry and worst of all that Tanya Huff doesn’t address all these questions I had as a reader. She wrote throw-away scenes and lines that alluded to the triangle, but that was it.
LOVE Tanya Huff, especially the Blood series (one of the first “Urban Fantasy” series), the Four Quarter series (pretty much straight-up fantasy), and her space marine series, Valor Confederation. From what I picked up over the years, she is gay, so it’s not too surprising that she has always included gay and bisexual characters and that’s always been treated as no big deal, even early on.
Danielle @22 Warning for spoilers for both the blood and the smoke books.
I though Blood Debt (the last book in the series) did a really good job of showing why Tony and Henry weren’t set up as a HEA, that book really emphasised the inequality of the relationship (economically, socially and even personality-wise) and just how that affected the power balance between the two of them.
I thought blood debt did a really nice job of showing the end of a romantic relationship where the two parties genuinely did stay friends.
A good chunk of the smoke books were about Tony doing the kind of growing up that he had never had a chance to do (and finding love along the way while staying friends with Henry).
HUGE Tanya Huff fan. Read her series, watched her series and fell in LOVE with Kyle Schmid. (The young actor who played Henry Fitzroy)
Adorable, but um, very, young.
You’ll love her series, but keep in the back of your head as you read, this is not necessarily a “romantic” series.
Yeah, the Smoke trilogy is a decent followup on the fate of Tony. And there’s a bit of Henry mileage showing up in there too as I recall. I need to finish those up.
I remember being all “well OF COURSE” when I found out Huff is herself queer. You’d think I’d have clued in on that faster. ;D I found her first via her Quarters books, which are indeed lovely little fantasy novels. I am proud to call her an influence on my own writing work!
Anna Richland@10
Lynsay Sands’ Argeneau Vampires series has an entry whose hero writes non-fiction about his family that is marketed as paranormal romance by his publisher–very successfully. Single White Vampire is one of the earlier and better books in the series, and a considerable part of it is set at a romance writer’s convention. It’s one of my two favorites in the series and has some nice laugh-out-loud moments.
Tanya Huff is married to writer Fiona Patton (another fantasy writer with some really interesting novels, especially her Branion Realm-books were nobles have same-sex Companions).
I read all the ‘Blood’ books a few years ago from our local library and remember enjoying them. But I was much more of a fan of the short lived tv adaptation they made ‘Blood Ties’. It was an interesting show which was definitely more of a drama than a romance. ‘Moonlight’ (the other Canadian vampire detective show around at the time) was much lighter and more focused on the romance aspect though if that’s what you were looking for.