The Secrets of Blood and Bone ~ Rebecca Alexander

This is a sequel to The Secrets of Life and Death.  I said in my review of that book that I didn't know if it was one book or a series because the last one had enough closure but there was an opportunity for the story to continue.  I enjoyed this continuation.  I give it a solid four stars.  You can tell the story is more comfortable and detailed in this one.  There are more answers given but for each answer there are 10 new questions which keeps you reading, wanting to know what is happening to our favorite revenants.  Again you have to adjust between the two timelines.  We are following the present day with Jack, Sadie, Maggie & Felix along with the past but only Edward Kelley this time with some new acquaintances, Dee is mentioned but not with him. 


This starts off not long after the first one ends.  Jack is still running high on the blood Felix gave her and Sadie is still weak.  They are in a different town where Maggie's sister died under suspicious circumstances.  Jack is different but still Jack for the most part.  Things have changed quite a bit in a short period of time.  We are introduced to a new set of baddies.  Bathory is gone in the present but the Dannicks are there and they are frightening.  They are part of an ancient line of "hunters".  There is a wolf on the cover so I am not really giving anything away saying, holy moley there are Weres in this book and not the ones we think of care of movies.    These are 100% more disturbing.

I think if you enjoyed the first book, this one will be a welcomed continuation.  If you didn't read the first book, no worries, both can stand alone as they give enough backstory for you to follow.  But I think you should read the first one just so you can understand more of the internal battle Jack is having related to Felix and blood.  I would recommend it.  It is packed with supernatural happenings along with bits of historical fiction to grab your attention and keep it. 

**SPOILERS**

Something is off with Jack.  You realize this from the get go. Clearly she cares about Felix or she wouldn't have pushed him away.  She knows it is unfair for her to steal his love when she's only a borrowed timer and she doesn't want to be selfish.  She is still strong willed and efficient.  She cares deeply for Sadie and would do anything to help Maggie...including clearing out her sisters destroyed house after an untimely death.  She is conflicted.  Because of the blood she has these new sensations.  It is terrifying because we love her and she could be becoming a monster like Bathory.  She is so unstable she does stupid things like run off Felix and throw herself at one of the crazy Dannicks only to almost get raped.  She is losing a battle between who she is, who she was and who she wants to be.  It's all becoming blurred, leading up to one heck of a revelation.

Felix is ANNOYING.  He clearly cares for Jack but he still leaves her to do his "research".  This research that landed him in my hometown, NOLA.  It also led him to the bed of another woman.  I hated that.  I hated that he turned the first pretty face that literally threw herself at him.  Ugh, men!  He realizes in the end he still wants Jack no matter what but my level of frustration with him was off the charts.  Granted he does find out quite a bit of information.  Like that the stories of vampires are based on truths.  It is a type of living dead but not like the legends.  Its revenants that drink blood and "ascend" to another level.  There is hinting at demons again but nothing concrete. 

Sadie is still sick but shes a witch!  That's exciting.  She has power she just has to learn how to use it.  She is completely dependent on Jack, Maggie and Felix.  She died again but they got her back.  I hate that she is so weak because I've really grown to like her.  Her ability to protect herself from the hunt by using the forest is wonderful.  She just needs something (blood...?) so she won't be so vulnerable. 

Flashing back to Kelley.  He is in Venice, researching something for his "boss" who happens to be a Dannick.  He needs a cure for a degenerative disease that is killing his bloodline.  Kelley of course bites off more than he can chew and realizes this "cure" is actually a curse, the curse of the Were.  But they don't literally transform, they still look human but they become obsessed with "The Hunt"...with murder.  They are crazed and savage, barely human when the full moon is out but with that "curse" comes extended life, youth and good health.  He almost dies, only to be saved by Bathory who wants him to "fix" her.  He hates her, knowing she drinks blood of children to remain animated.  But she saves him so he tries to help only to find out she isn't really herself anymore.  She is mostly Saraquel, the "Angel" he spoke to in book one.  It's a frightening revelation, basically she is possessed.

How does this tie in to the present?  Well he clearly gets the "cure" back to the Dannicks as they are the Weres of the present day.    Jack knows too much but is a survivor.  Sadie almost dies AGAIN but whew she doesn't.  And they all save a young boy form becoming a monster like the rest of his crazed family.  Felix professes his feelings for Jack (yay) and Jack does the same (double yay) but she is acting more and more strange.  She seems to be blacking out.  Then she talks to one of Felix's research contacts and learns there is ALWAYS a price for immortality.  A revenant that drinks blood doesn't "ascend" they are acquired by a demon.  Jack is now Saraquel and it's awful.  Felix knows and tries to help and Jack tries to commit suicide to protect those she loves.  I freaked when it ended...she jumped off a bridge into the Thames!!! 

I received this book for free from Blogging for Books to give my honest review.

Is it just because he looks like a Magician because I didn't see anything "Magical" so to say..?

Okay that sounds like I hated it.  I didn't, I actually enjoyed it but I didn't understand the reference at first.  Well unless its based on that book then I guess I kind of get it (now that I've seen it).  He looks like a magician and he has companions and what not.  Now this is based off of high level observations.  I'll go into more thoughts in the "Spoilers" as I don't want to give too much away.  But I will say I was impressed with the Doctor, I loved Clara (again) which is happy/yay/whoohoo because as I've said before the whole last season Danny story just made me not like her and of course there is Missy who is just so much fun...crazy but fun.  All in all I enjoyed the episode.  I think it was mostly an overview of the entire season to come as a lot was introduced but not much explained.  I don't know why people are hating on Capaldi so much.  I think he's a fantastic Doctor.  Some of his personality as the Time Lord is hard to deal with after 10 & 11 BUT he has that Classic, "I am a Time Lord, I know best, stupid ape (hahahaha)", attitude which is funny, well at least to me.  They were all a bit rude and quite scary at times but he has a harder face.  Almost like a dad who lets you know with a single look to quit your $hit or else you're in BIG trouble (Go to your room - hehehe).   But he as an actor has the ability to show you that the character still cares...you can't hate him...how can you hate him?!?  See below spoilers for my favorite quotes of the night.

**SPOILERS** for The Magician's Apprentice

We open with a War.  Not the time war but something bad with humans...maybe.  A little boy, trapped, needing help when a hero appears in a Blue Box.  Then the little $hit says his name is Davros and I just about lost my mind, as did The Doctor.  So there in lies the decision, leave Davros to die, changing TIME or save him because you are in fact a "Good Man".  We don't know what happens because we are suddenly with Clara and the planes have stopped moving mid-flight.  She was classic Clara, the Clara we meet with 11.  The one who is feisty and smart and a friend to the rogue Time Lord above all else. 

I love that UNIT contacts HER because they can't find the Doctor.  That right there tells you how much they feel he values his companions, right?!?  Our clever girl figures it out.  Figures out HOW to find him.  A TEXT message comes through "singing", Hey "Missy", like from the Season Finale.  I snorted, good stuff.  We get to see Missy again and all her shenanigans.  She is still a cracked out Mary Poppins but her less crazed side is showing.  She is worried about her oldest Frenemy.  He has sent her his last will (WTF?!?!).  Not to Clara but to her. Honestly though, she has the best one liners.  Really she does.  I giggle every time she is on the screen so I hope they keep her around for a bit. 

They get to where the Doctor has been laying low and he rides in on a flipping TANK playing the Doctor Who theme on a freaking Electric Guitar.  Seriously, how can you hate him?!?  Then he spots our leading ladies and starts playing "Pretty Woman"...OMG!  The little exchange with Clara was amazing as well.  She's teasing him about being nice and she says "which one of us is dying, hahaha" and he hugs her...he doesn't do hugs anymore...ahhhhhh. 

So creepy dude made of snakes (I feel like this creature may be evolving in my neighbors yard...with all the snakes, it is a possibility) takes him and his ladies prisoner much to the Doctor's dismay...he doesn't want them captured too!  I couldn't stop laughing at Missy in the holding cell.  She is so annoying to Clara but not in a mean way...its quite fun. 

I did NOT expect the planet to be invisible.  I get that we were trying to show Missy is still bat$hit crazy by opening the airlock.  I wasn't expecting them to be walking on nothing, only to find themselves walking on the surface of Skaro (what...What...WHAT?!?).  But, but Skaro was destroyed...right?!?! So the ladies are captured by Daleks, well $hit, and the T.A.R.D.I.S. is procured by the Daleks, double $hit.  And The Doctor is in a room with a dying Davros, WTF?!?  We watch in "horror" as Missy turns on Clara and is exterminated, which turns to Clara running and she is zapped as well.  Our "fearless" hero is losing it a bit as he watches two of his friends perish.  Now I don't think they are dead.  I think Missy did something with the Vortex Manipulators and they are now in the T.A.R.D.I.S.  But that is just my thoughts.  

Davros admits he has NO control over the Daleks, they do as the please.  We see flashes of a younger Doctor (Four) on Skaro trying to "fix" things.  It was from "Genesis of the Daleks" an episode, I thankfully watched not long before this one aired.  The line that gets you is this one, "Listen, if someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives, could you then kill that child?" Flash to this Doctor back on an earlier Skaro pointing a "gun" at the young Davros.  Roll credits.  

Well, I don't believe he will kill him.  He isn't that type even when so destroyed because he's lost everything, he wouldn't do THAT but we shall see next week.  So I am thinking this title is about Davros.  He is the apprentice.  He took "power" as shown by the Doctor and created something awful, something that he admitted he has no control over.  His dying "wish" is to see the Doctor admit that compassion is a failure, his failure.  To take the blame for his companion's deaths and go back to the beginning and finish off young Davros so that the Daleks never exist (maybe, probably not).  Except that can't happen, it would cause a major paradox.  They are too entwined in history and future history to be wiped out of it.  The universe will find a way to fix it and that could be 1000 times worse that what is supposed to happen.  So we shall wait and see who "The Witch's Familiar" is referring to.  

Favorite Quotes/Happenings:
1.  Oh, don’t be disgusting, we’re Timelords, not animals. Try, nanobrain, to rise above the reproductive frenzy of your noisy little food chain, and contemplate friendship. ~ Missy
2. Missy "tickled" a Dalek
3.  Jane Austen – amazing writer, brilliant comic observer, and strictly among ourselves, a phenomenal kisser. ~ Clara
4. (in reference to Missy) It’s the wicked stepmother! Everyone hiss! ~ The Doctor
5. Is that supposed to frighten me? Snake nest in a dress? ~The Doctor 
6.  Doctor: Davros is my arch-enemy. Why would I want to talk to him?
     Missy: No, wait, hang on a minute! DAVROS is your arch-enemy now?
     Doctor: Hush!
     Missy: I’ll scratch his eye out.
7.  Doctor: Why have I ever let you live?
     Davros: Compassion, Doctor. It has always been your greatest indulgence. Let this be my final victory. Let me hear you say it, just once. “Compassion … is … wrong.”

Sally Hansen Airbrush Legs®

I've never really thought about using leg makeup before.  I'm not old but I'm not "young" either.  In recent years I've noticed some flaws on my legs but I don't really pay attention to them.  Nothing major but very small spider veins, scars from a rough fun childhood, and minor bruises (I'm a tad clumsy). 

I hate getting my face makeup on my clothes so I was apprehensive about using leg makeup prior to getting this sample.  I received the liquid lotion, not the spray.  My first use was a pleasant surprise.  I followed the instructions and let it dry completely before dressing.  It seemed odd to be putting makeup on my legs but I just pretended it was lotion.  Who knew you could make my legs look so soft, smooth and even.  From a distance they looked quite amazing.  In pictures they looked very nice.  Up close you could still see some "flaws"  but nothing too obvious.  It went on just like any old lotion but you must pay attention or you may end up with uneven looking skin.  It dried fairly quickly and that felt a little weird.  It was like I could feel a layer of something on my legs but the sensation eventually passed.  I will say it did NOT rub off on my clothing for which I was thankful.  I was also thankful that it didn't seem to "sweat off".  I live in the south...it's hot.  Every part of your body sweats.  I wouldn't wear it running but I was impressed that my walking all over downtown didn't seem to affect it. 

I would not choose to wear this daily but I don't wear face makeup daily.  I would use it for special occasions or professional meetings where my potentially banged up legs may be on display.  

Just remember to wash your hands immediately after applying...I don't know if it would "color"  them but I wouldn't take the chance. 

I received these products complimentary from Influenster for testing purposes.