Blogging for Books: Book Review, Tandem by Tracey Bateman

"Tandem" opens with lots of mystery that grabs the reader and makes you want to read more.


Six months ago the small Ozark town of Abby Hills was the scene for 2 gruesome murders, and then a house fire that claimed another victim and the life of the killed. Or at least, that is what the people believed.



Lauryn McBride is preparing to auction off the contents of Marcus Chisom's home, and the home itself for her family owned auction house. She is very troubled with running her business and caring for her father, who has Alzheimer disease. Lauryn finds some 100 year old letters and sets out to return them to the decents of the family. Amede Dastillion is quite happy to receive the letters and leaves her home in New Orleans in hopes of finding her long lost sister, Eden. You see, the letters were sent to Eden from Amede over one hundred years ago. How is this possible? They are vampires of course!

Soon after Amede and her companion arrive, animals are discovered killed and drained of blood. Soon, town members are discovered dead in the same manner. Everyone is afraid that the killer was not killed in the fire, and accusations fly. Lauryn must balance her need to complete the auction to pay for her fathers medical treatment, and caring for him as he slips farther and farther away into the last stages of Alzheimer's.

While I found this a compelling book, it is very general to call it Christian fiction.The Christian elements are small, and not presented to the reader in a preachy fashion, but they are not very clear either. It does display the eternal struggle of good vs evil.

I found the pace a little hard to follow, since it changes perspectives between characters often, and there are several other main characters that are trying to tell their story as well. But I finally "got into it" about a third of the way through, and I do not regret reading it, but don't feel 100% confident recommending it, at least as a Christian novel. The ending took me a little by surprise, which is always a good thing in a suspense book, but I also felt there were several things left unanswered. Since "Tandem" is a sequel to "Thirsty", I can only assume the writer plans on writting another book in this series.

Overall, it was a good read!
 
This review is of a book that I received free of charge from Waterbrook Multnomah Publishers for the purpose of reviewing it on my blog.
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