Love Without Blood-Raz Steel

Love Without Blood
Raz Steel
Love Spell, Jan 2009, $6.99
ISBN: 0505528002

Two strangers break into the home of Dr. Lara West. They demand she remove a bullet from one of the intruders, which she does. Their gratitude is displayed when the one whose bullet she removed decides to taste her pulsing blood; afterward they tie her to a chair and set her house on fire. She escapes and races off to the hospital where she works, but knows her life will never be the same since the intruder sipped her blood.

Bobby the vampire works as a nurse at the same hospital that employs Lara. He took a job there so that he could steal blood without harming people and as a penitence to make up for transgressions he committed when he first converted to a monster. However, the hospital investigates the loss of blood packs while another nurse Meridian Jones tries to uncover Bobby's secrets.

This is a engaging urban romantic fantasy that starts off with an exciting but somewhat confusing bite and never looks back as readers will relish entering the reddish Raz realm; the confusion at the beginning is caused by the readers’ expectations cleverly twisted by Mr. Steel. Although the plot is somewhat thin as much of the novel introduces the audience to a world of LOVE WITHOUT BLOOD, fans will be pleasantly surprised once the spin is understood and enjoy a fun look at a “General Hospital” filled with vampires, who like humans, some are moral and others psychopathic predators.

Harriet Klausner