Blood Ties Book One

The Turning

By: Jennifer Armintrout

Narrated by: Elenna Stauffer

Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

I'm no coward. I want to make that perfectly clear. But after my life turned into a horror movie, I take fear a lot more seriously now. I finally became Dr. Carrie Ames just eight months ago. Then I was attacked in the hospital morgue by a vampire. Just my luck.

So now I'm a vampire, and it turns out I have a blood tie to the monster who sired me. The tie works like an invisible leash, and I'm bound to him no matter what I do. And of course he's one of the most evil vampires on earth. With my sire hell-bent on turning me into a soulless killer and his sworn enemy set to exterminate me, things couldn't get much worse...except I'm attracted to them both.

Drinking blood, living as an immortal demon, and being a pawn between two warring vampire factions isn't exactly how I'd imagined my future. But as my father used to say, the only way to conquer fear is to face it. So that's what I'll do. Fangs bared.

Don't miss the rest of the Blood Ties series, including Book Two, The Possession and Book Three, Ashes to Ashes, and Book Four, All Souls' Night.

©2006 Jennifer Armintrout (P)2006 Audible, Inc.
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Critic reviews

"This fast, furious novel is a squirm-inducing treat." (Publishers Weekly)

I loved it

This is definitely a book I wasn’t expecting from Harlequin. It doesn’t have the normal happily ever after story line. Also there are graphic accounts of injury and torture by the vampires. But, that being said this was a fantastic debut novel by Armintrout. If the series keeps up she will be held in the same company as Charlene Harris, Laurel Hamilton and Sherrilyn Kenyon. He characters are well thought out and she took the time to work through how people go about not aging and having dead people disappear and not be suspected.

Interesting listen

I gave this book a try during one of the sales that are offered. I finally got around to listening and while I do plan on listening to the other titles in this series I did find this book a bit long in the tooth (pardon the pun) at times. The book seems to be more at home in the romance section. I was not expecting so many references to 'love making'. All in all an interesting story which has drawn me in to try the next book in the series. I do hope there is a bit less sex in the next saga.

Good Book, Lousy Narration

The narrator has a nice voice that would be better used in non-fiction readings. She does not do dialogue well. Her characters come out sounding like cartoons with sore throats. She also needs to slow down. She reads like she is in a drag race.

Other than that this is a good book. Plot, characters and scenes are well done. You can get into the book enough to cheer the good guys and hiss at the bad guys.

I will go on to read book two despite the narrator being the same one. Sometimes you just have to overlook the reader in order to enjoy a good book.

Unpredictable

Really good and unpredictable. As reviewed by my teenage daughter.

Horror & romance

A romance for horror fans. Gets very violent and gory at times. Don't compare to other vampire romances because this one is nothing like the others. If you don't like violent bloody horror stay away from this one. If you enjoy those with some drama and romance mixed in then give this story a go. I enjoyed this story but it was a bit umm macob. Parts of this series may make people a bit uncomfortable at least it did me. That being said I enjoyed and finished all 4 books in the series.

Meh

The story seems disjointed and leaps are made in the story that could have been developed more. The narrators normal voice is fine. The voices of the soul eater and the teenager boy where painful to listen to. She would do will with documentaries or self help. Just not the voices of male characters. Hopefully, subsequent books will be better

Read it

I give the story about 3 stars and the reader about 2 stars.

The story is origional but a bit disjointed.

The narration was somewhat grating... sometimes the charactors sounded alike.

So far so good!

First, Elena Stauffer gave an excellent performance EXCEPT for male voices. So I gave her the middle rating because half the character's were male. However, as I stated, she was excellent in her engagement and managed to make the character's come alive.

I really enjoyed this book, storyline and character's. The character development was on par and the plot kept me guessing. I was engaged from the first chapter which was phenomenal! I can't wait to see where this series goes so I'll be continuing for sure. I highly recommend Ms. Armintrout as she's an author I've come to follow.

I also appreciate that this is included in Audible Escape or I may have missed it!

This is not a PG book. It is an adult book with sex very much a part of it, but does not take up every other scene as many out there do. So if you're not into sex with your books, then this won't be for you. I personally love sex in my books and this was a very good balance with an guesstimate ratio on my own of 70% storyline and 30% sexual content.

Eh. (spoilers)

The story was okay. I didn't much like any character except Nathan. The main character was a doctor who smoked?? That's a detail that rubbed me the wrong way. She was weak and flat for most of the book and couldn't sit down and figure out what she wanted. Her entire relationship with cyris(??) was cringeworthy. I mean, she actually thought she loved the guy?? He was abusive and cruel. Character development was not the greatest except for Nathan and that's most likely why he was my favorite character.
The narrator....where don't even start. Multiple times in scenes with Ziggy and the witch (this shows how memorable the book is- I can't even remember her name) I really thought about returning the book. Ziggy is 18, not 4. The voice was like nails on a chalkboard. How that passed the authors ok I don't even know. Sadly I was glad and relieved Ziggy died.

I won't be continuing the series.

Book ok; narrator horrible

Is there anything you would change about this book?

If there was one thing I would change, it would be the Narrator. I just could not get past her delivery of the character dialog. She really should limit herself to text books... maybe some self help books...

Would you be willing to try another book from Jennifer Armintrout? Why or why not?

yes... even though I found many of her devices unbelivable (such as her protagonist suddenly becoming a martial artist in some cases)

How could the performance have been better?

oh.. a different Narrator!

Did Blood Ties Book One inspire you to do anything?

It inspired me to wait for another cheap sale for book 2, as it has the same Narrator