Blog Tour Review: Eternal Blood – Marie Treanor

Blood Eternal by Marie Treanor
Series:  Awakened by Blood #3
Release Date:  October 4, 2011
Publisher:   Signet Eclipse
Page Count:  355
Source:  Bewitching Book Tours
Buy the book at: Amazon 

Despite the growing passion that unites them, all is not well between Elizabeth and Saloman. She refuses to follow him as he builds his influence among the human population and consolidates his rule over the vampire world. A shocking revolt is just the latest crisis that’s call him away.

But under Saloman’s regime, vampires have become less concerned with secrecy. And after he joins forces with vampire hunters, Elizabeth begins to understand the inevitable collision of the two worlds. She could be a conduit between humanity and the undead-is she can manage to play both sides and stay alive…

Elizabeth has her Ph.D, her teaching position at St. Andrews University is about to end, and she’s sitting on a job offer from a university in Budapest wondering if she should take it.  She’d be closer to Saloman, but she’s not sure he wants her there or if she’d appear to clingy.  On the other hand, she’d be closer to her hunter friends and could continue doing some odd jobs for them. 

One of her odd jobs takes her to an Army hospital where she visits an injured soldier who tells her a story of vampires drinking is blood after being injured in an explosion and then being rescued by a dark angel.  The man sounds hauntingly like Saloman, which has Elizabeth wondering what he’s up to.  Next, she sees video of him telling Peruvian villagers to leave a day or two prior to a devastating earthquake.  She realizes he’s helping people, not trying to control them as she originally thought.  Desperate to get to him, she’s about ready to book the next flight to Peru when she gets word from the hunters that the Ancient Luc, has been reawakened and she’s needed in Turkey.  She knows what this news will do to Saloman, so she vows that she will be the one to put Luc back into his grave to save Saloman that pain.

Saloman feels when Luc is awakened and makes his way to Turkey.  He discovers that Dante’s had a hand in awakened Luc and is now teaming up with some very reluctant hunters to try and capture both Luc and Dante before things go really bad.  But things go from bad to worse when Luc and Dante stir up the vampire community in a revolt against Saloman and his new ways.  It’s now up to Saloman, Elizabeth and the hunters to stop Luc before more blood is spilled.

This book will make you love Saloman.  I was kind of on the fence with him, because he was such an arrogant ass most of the time.  It always seemed like he was using Elizabeth for sex and/or blood, then discarded her afterwards.  Sure, in Blood Sin, he did get a little better towards the end, but he was still all about him and not so much about Elizabeth unless she was right in front of him.  He’s different in this book.  He’s always thinking about Elizabeth, even when she thinks he isn’t.  We discover he’s learned to close himself off from everyone since he was a young boy, because his father would use your secrets to punish you.  To Saloman, if no one knows what you love they can’t use it against you.  But he’s learning that closing himself off from Elizabeth is hurting her more than he ever realized and he changes…for her. 

Elizabeth finally starts seeing that she has been a bit of a doormat to Saloman and starts to stand her ground with him, a little.  She knows that she can never stay mad at him if she’s right in front of him, but she does start walking away and giving them both time to reflect on whatever action Saloman has done to set her off.  She learns that if she asks the questions or tells Saloman how she feels, things work out much better (for example:  telling him about her job offer and finding out he’s excited).

I wasn’t in love with the ending to this.  I was confused about what happened with Elizabeth when her new powers came into play (as I don’t remember them being mentioned much before) and how that managed to stop all the bad vampires in their tracks.  But I was ok with that, since for me the story was really about Saloman and Elizabeth resolving their differences to be together.