Blood Song is well-written, clever urban fantasy with lots of action, solid internal consistency, and a respect for the laws of physics (including ballistics) that I find refreshing. I do values stories more when the writers respect their audience enough to pay attention to the details.

Celia Graves earns enough money as an elite bodyguard to drive a Miata and pack some high end defensive gear, much of it magically enhanced. Her current client is a prince of a small country with strategically valuable natural resources. It is Celia’s job to protect the prince from supernatural nasties, like vampires, while he enjoys the fleshpots of LA. Hey, no one says she has to like her clients, just protect them. When a dicey situation explodes into all sorts of wrongness, Celia survives, but she is changed into an incompletely turned, part human part vampire - something that specialists in supernatural dealings call an Abomination. As a matter of principal, Abominations are usually put directly to death or … studied. You decide which is worse. But a few of Celia’s friends intervene forcibly on her behalf until it can be determined how much of her is human, or, from the other side, how much is vampire. Can she withstand daylight and ultra-violet light? Can she still eat food? What about garlic? Does she crave blood? (Hmm, that’s a yes.) Will irritating people cause her fangs to elongate? (Oh, decidedly, yes!)

Celia is very glad for what remains of her human nature, but mysteries pile up in her hands like strange and terrible jewels. Why was she not simply killed? Why did her psychic friend Vicki die at the night she was attacked? Just what game is the Prince playing, and is he playing or being played? And why would a distractingly handsome former lover turn up again now, of all inconvenient times?

The person with some startling answers happens to be one of Celia’s least favorite people in all the world: her mother.

For so many reasons, this is worth your time and dime, if UF is one of your genres of choice.

I also recommend that you take the time to peruse “A Note to Readers” because the authors differentiate between writing from experience and writing from research and imagination, and they ask reader not to leap to conclusions about their personal lives but to enjoy the story for what it’s worth. ~~ Chris Paige