Review: The Eldritch Conspiracy

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Celia has been asked to be a bridesmaid at the wedding of the century: her siren cousin the princess Adrianna is marrying the king of Rusland. Celia has been chosen not simply because she’s Adrianna’s cousin, but also because the bride-to-be has already survived one attempt on her life and Celia’s bodyguard experience may just save the day.

You see, not everyone in Rusland is pleased about the upcoming nuptials, and are convinced that Adrianna has bewitched their king using dark siren magic. And they’ll do anything to stop the wedding.

But that isn’t the extent of Celia’s problems: she’s on the outs with former co-worker John Creede, her boyfriend Bruno’s ex-girlfriend is determined to get him back, and her own gran is hiding an unpleasant secret from her. Celia does what she can to get by, but it seems that life is ganging up on her.

THE ELDRITCH CONSPIRACY (Amazon) is book 5 of the Blood Singer novel series by Cat Adams, and continues the story of Celia Graves, who does bodyguard work for a living, but as of book 1 being attacked by a vampire changed her life: she’s not only part-vampire, but her siren abilities were  awakened.

The opening chapter is confusing, and I had to re-check the series order to make sure I didn’t miss a book. Her relationship with John Creede has become strained and we find that her relationship with former flame Bruno is back on. I felt like I was dumped into the middle of the story, and the love triangle isn’t ever really addressed in this book–here’s hoping it will be in the next, because it’s the development of such things that lady readers want mapped out in a series like this.

I also had a hard time keeping track of characters, it’s been over a year since I read the last book ISIS COLLAR (EBR Review) and I got lost easily with not only the characters, but also events from past books. A little refresher here and there would have helped, but maybe it’s just me.

The good thing about this particular book is that plot itself is handled better than even previous books, the progression of events felt more natural and less arbitrary. Also, Adams’ characterization across the series is well done, with Celia’s progression and even the progression of secondary characters: they grow and change, for better or worse.

The series is only now growing on me, and here we are on book 5. It’s taken a while to get to this point, when I’m usually the kind of person to drop a series if the first book doesn’t pique my interest–but that’s the concession we EBR reviews make for our readers. I will be reading TO DANCE WITH THE DEVIL (Amazon) soon and hope that ELDRITCH is a sign of things to come.