From Goodreads: Blood can both wound and heal…

Willa is lucky: She has a loving blended family that gets along. Not all families are so fortunate. But when a bloody crime takes place hundreds of miles away, it has an explosive effect on Willa’s peaceful life. The estranged father she hardly remembers has murdered his new wife and children, and is headed east toward Willa and her mother. Under police protection, Willa discovers that her mother has harbored secrets that are threatening to boil over. Has everything Willa believed about herself been a lie? But as Willa sets out to untangle the mysteries of her past, she also keeps her own secret—one that has the potential to tear apart all she holds dear.

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One of my students recommended this book to me, so I picked it up to read one evening without having read the book jacket.  Sometimes I do this—go blindly into a book because I want to be surprised by everything.  Well, imagine my surprise when Willa’s family suddenly goes on alert because her father is a murdering butcher intent on finding her!  That was perhaps the last thing on my mind when I opened the book.  I was thinking that perhaps it was about vampires, based on the title and the cover, but I was mistaken.  This novel has nothing to do with vampires… it deals with psychopaths instead.

I wasn’t immediately wrapped up in the story, but when the frantic phone call came for Willa about her estranged father, I found myself extremely alert, especially as the reports of his heinous crimes came in.  Knowing that he was headed for Willa and her family, my heart began to beat extremely quickly, and I became wrapped up tight within the story.  Unfortunately, the novel soon began to lose steam, in my opinion, as Willa and her sisters begin their tantrums.  I must say that I was never a real fan of Willa or her step-sisters.  There was a lot of animosity there, and they behaved quite horribly on many an occasion.  And, while I do respect Willa’s curiosity about her father’s side of the family, I do not condone the way she went about it, accusing her mother (when her father JUST killed a woman and little children, for heavens sake!) and becoming mouthy.  I get that we all become unhinged at times, but I can’t imagine wanting to go to his house, to see the crime scene, to attend the funeral… ick.

Overall the story had a great premise, though I wouldn’t say that it kept my full attention.  Parts of it were spectacular, but the characters and their selfish attitudes really put a damper on my response to this one.  Three stars.

I borrowed this book from the library.