Recap #57: Bad Blood #2: Hunters’ Moon by Debra Doyle and James Macdonald

Written by Wing Published 30 January 201731 July 2019 Discussion 2 Comments

Title: Hunters’ Moon (Bad Blood #2) by Debra Doyle and James Macdonald

Summary: Bitten by a werewolf, Valerie had no choice but to accept the bloodthirsty call of the full moon. Even though she vowed never to kill humans, children were being murdered in the night–drained of blood. On their necks was the mark of the vampire. Valerie knew she had to stop the creatures from killing again. But she didn’t know the vampires had the power to control werewolves.…

If werewolves are only folklore…

…then why does Val Sherwood transform into a savage wolf every full moon? Because the legends are real. Val has no choice but to accept the ancient curse — and try to live a normal life in the town of Hillside.

If vampires are just a myth…

… then why are children slowly drained of blood, drop by drop, night after night? Because a dark master and his thirsty brood have come to feed upon them all, using their unearthly powers to enslave and destroy. Val is determined to track down the vampires’ lair with her own predatory powers. But…

If vampires are able to control wolves…

…then Val and her family are dead meat.

Tagline: Night calls the hunter — and the hunted…

Note: ~~As Dove requested, I’ve updated my template, because we now apparently call the Bad Guys Muffin Man. Hey, it makes as much sense as most Point Horrors.~~ I don’t actually use it here, even though there is a Muffin Man. Sort of.

Initial Thoughts:

I love this book so damn much. As we mentioned in the second episode of the podcast, Dove and I spent years searching for this series based on Dove’s hazy memory of some of the details of this specific book. I was both shocked and delighted when she told me there was a teen werewolf book I’d never even heard about, and probably built my expectations way too high, though I tried to keep them low, after some of the books I was most excited about recapping turned out to be terrible.

As with book one, I love this book. I marathoned the entire trilogy when I first bought it, and have already reread it multiple times since, over the course of less than a year. I’m so excited to share this recap with you all.

(THAT COVER YOU GUYS, THAT COVER IS SO RIDICULOUS AND SO WONDERFUL.)

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Posted in Podcast

Podcast 2: Books of Bad Blood

Written by Dove Published 22 January 201731 July 2019 Discussion Leave a Comment

Wing and I recap Books of Blood 1: The Principal by M. C. Sumner and Bad Blood 1: Bad Blood by Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald, and also discuss general horror tropes.

Posted in Nightmares Recaps

Recap #56: Books of Blood 1: The Principal by M. C. Sumner

Written by Dove Published 16 January 201714 November 2019 Discussion 8 Comments

Books of Blood by M. C. Sumner - Don't you just love it when the cover is so exciting and intriguing? — Books of Blood by M. C. Sumner – Don’t you just love it when the cover is so exciting and intriguing?

Title: The Principal by M C Sumner

Summary: Talli knows a deadly secret – and wishes she didn’t.

Principal Volker is tough on discipline, and anyone who steps out of line is summoned to his office, and gets a detention. But no one seems the same afterwards and pupils start disappearing. Talli knows it has something to do with Volker. She follows him to his house and discovers he’s a vampire.

Tagline: You’ll die if you get detention… (Yeah, nope, another Nightmares tagline written by someone who’s never read the book.)

Notes: I will use “Bad Guy” throughout my reviews to refer to the anonymous killer/prankster/whatever. Doesn’t mean it’s a guy. I will now refer to the bad guy as “Muffin Man” because of The Mall.

Initial Thoughts:

Books of Blood 1: The Principal by M. C. Sumner or “Robert distracts Class 4 during assembly”

I have been dreading doing this. So I can only assume that this book is significantly better than I think it will be. Or at least it shouldn’t be as bad as Hall Pass.

I’m doing a Wing here, and recapping as I read for the first time. Usually I read through the entire book, then recap. I’ve only done it this way once or twice before. And generally it highlights how bad I am at guessing what’s going to happen.

One of the reasons I’m so loathe to recap this is that bloody cover to the right. It looks stupid. I remember when I was in primary school, aged around eight, Robert, a kid in the year below me, was sent out of assembly for goofing off. He spent the rest of the assembly pressing his face against the glass in the door and making silly faces to crack up anyone who could see him. This cover sums up that memory perfectly. This is going to be ridiculous. (Also, I get unnaturally angsty when I can’t find a nice high quality cover for my recap.)

[Wing: I love it when the summary just flat out tells me the mystery behind the principal.]

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Posted in Podcast

Call for Podcast Questions and Topics

Written by Wing Published 9 January 201731 July 2019 Discussion Leave a Comment

No recap today, per our schedule, but we wanted to let you know that we’re recording the next podcast episode this weekend. If you have any questions you want answered or any topics you specifically want addressed, let us know by Friday, and we’ll use them to outline the episode.

Posted in Other Recaps

Recap #55: Bad Blood #1: Bad Blood by Debra Doyle and James Macdonald

Written by Wing Published 2 January 201731 July 2019 Discussion 3 Comments

Title: Bad Blood (Bad Blood #1) by Debra Doyle & James Macdonald

Summary: It started with a group of teenagers telling scary stories around a campfire. No one believed Jay’s wild tale of moonlight and werewolves. They thought he was kidding when he said, “By morning, you’ll all be dead.” But Valerie saw the strange hunger in the boy’s eyes – and that night, she felt the sharp touch of his fangs…

Tagline: The moon is full. Beware the beast.

Note: ~~As Dove requested, I’ve updated my template, because we now apparently call the Bad Guys Muffin Man. Hey, it makes as much sense as most Point Horrors.~~ There’s no actual hidden Muffin Man in this story.

Initial Thoughts:

I love this damn book so, so much. Dove read it when she was younger, and then lost it for years. It took us ages to finally track down the title, and then I read it for the first time and fell in love. With it, with the entire trilogy. Here’s hoping I can manage an entertaining recap when I adore a book this much.

[Dove: As Wing said, I bought the sequel to this from a bargain bookstore, and I think a friend “borrowed” it and it never came back. Knowing how much Wing loves werewolf books, I told her about it, hoping she’d know who it was by. She didn’t. So every so often, at the end of a writing session, we’d devote about an hour to searching for it, and after so many years, Wing found it. And it’s just as awesome as it was back then.]

NOTE: This recap will be without book cover and Dove’s comments for awhile on Monday morning. With the holidays, I didn’t finish this until too late for her to comment before it went live.

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