blood tiedRating: 3.75 stars
Buy Link:
Amazon | All Romance | Amazon UK
Length: Novel


When it comes to the Blackmoor craft and the family’s legacy, middle brother Thaddeus Blacmoor is most serious about becoming the most powerful and maintaining their family’s control as the warlock gate keepers. Because of this, Thad has no time for trivial things such as relationships—with other people or with his family. On the eve of Samhain, Thad meets Ben, a handsome warlock, in a coffee shop and against everything he is, Thad finds himself attracted to Ben and acting in ways he never would. After a blurry night, things don’t seem to add up, beginning with the fact that Ben is nowhere to be found.

In his rush to get home for the annual Samhain celebration, Thad is side tracked by a literal ball of fire. After pulling over and trekking into the woods, Thad discovers a fire elf being attacked by a banshee. Thad, doing the only think he knows, saves the glorious fire elf. Attraction like he’s never felt slams into him when the elf finally looks at him. Then the elf disappears. After the strange encounter, Thad makes it home to find Ben, of all people, in his home with his family. An explanation of business with his father and brother caused the coincidence.

As the evening draws on, Thad tries to make it clear to Ben that he’s not interested in him, although Ben does not give up easy. When the other Havenbridge families arrive, a hitch in the form of a fire fairy—Prince Aiden Teine—arrives with news and a battle. A dark force is converging in the fay lands and the families of the gate are needed to bring it down. As the Blackmoor brothers ready themselves to save Otherworld, Thad has a battle of his own to contend with—Ben and Aiden. That battle comes to a halt when Thad has to focus on saving not only the Otherworld, but his family as well.

Blood Tied is the second book in Jacob Z. Flores’s The Warlock Brothers of Havenbridge series.

Thad’s story. I was a little surprised by it. It wasn’t at all what I expected and nothing at all, really, like book one, which has ups and downs. For the most part I read this book and enjoyed it because of the first book. Thad brought his own party and drama to the table and it’s good. But the world began in the first book and I’m glad it continued here.

Thad is the brother I cared least about in the first book. He’s quiet and a bit of an ass, but then again, I seem to migrate toward those characters. He didn’t get a lot of page time in book one, so most of what we know about him before starting this book was that he’s a loner. But thankfully, there is so much more to him than that. I dare to say, outside of his father, Thad’s mother’s death affected him the most. And it shaped him into who he has become. To call him power hungry would be incorrect. He wants to be the most powerful, but not in order to take over the world or anything like that, mostly to prove to himself that he can and to prove to his family that he’s worth something. Enter Aiden. Aiden is the light in Thad’s dark, focused world. Before Aiden stormed into his life, Thad was on a path to destruction that no one, not even Thad, saw coming. Aiden showed him what love and opening himself up could do.

The inner struggle between Ben and Aiden for Thad takes a bit to flesh through. The thing with that is, I was a bit surprised Thad didn’t figure it out sooner. I liked the conflicting emotions Thad was dealing with, but he’s the most analytical and logical of the brothers, so I expected him to figure things out way before he did, because I had already figured it out.

As for the story, like I said, it takes a completely different turn from the first book. The fairy realm and banshees along with the vampyre from the first book makes for a complicated world. Not in a bad way, I’m just not sure if I’m in love with like I was in the beginning. There’s a completely different story involving Aiden and the twist in his story that I’m not entirely convinced would be acceptable in this world, yet it was made startlingly acceptable.

The conclave… well, they’re still the mysterious rulers they were before, though we know more about them now and I assume that will make a play in the next story. We do, however, have a face to put to the conclave—only one. That one is a flashback, sort of, the book one as well. The interesting part of this book is the way it interweaves with the first book without being so much like it.

The world expanded in this story, into the fairy realm. The characters found new purpose and weaknesses. And then, of course, once Thad and Aiden gave in, they dominated the story. For those reasons I liked this story, but still, it wasn’t what I expected.

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