Blood Ties by Tanya Huff

The Blood Books center around three characters- Victory or Vicki Nelson, ex-cop turned PI whose eyes are slowly going bad from retinitis pigmentosa, Mike Celluci, her former partner and former lover, still a cop, who can't give up loving Vicki no matter how hard he tries and Henry Fitzroy, a romance novelist who just happens to be a vampire, and the illegitimate son of Henry VIII.

In the first book, Vicki met Henry when she was on the trail of a diabolist, a man who was summoning demons. But he wasn't the real problem. It was the extremely powerful demon who his summoned demons were attempting to bring to the human world that was the problem. Vicki found herself attracted to Henry and became his lover, something Mike resented, but she found that letting Henry drink from her drew out the process of her disease, and made her keep her sight just a little longer.

In the end, after a number of adventures together, Vicki was dying, and Henry saved her by turning her into a vampire like him. But two vampires cannot remain in one city together, they are simply too territorial: the older and stronger will kill the weaker, or the weaker will flee. But in one final case together, they found out that occasionally, the lust to kill can be converted into a different kind of lust entirely, and managed to survive working together in the same city. Henry moved to Vancouver, and Vicki stayed in Toronto.

This book is a collection of short stories written by Tanya Huff involving all three characters. The first, "This Town Ain't Big Enough" shows how Vicki, a newly made vampire and definite low woman on the totem pole, defends her place in town when an older and stronger female vampire decides to move in and take over.

"What Manner of Man?" Has Henry helping a man in the British Government discover a French spy working among the nobles of the ton to gather secrets during the Napoleonic War.

"The Cards Also Say" has Vicki working with the Rom, or Gypsies, to capture a man who is stalking her, and presents a danger to both her and the Gypsies.

"The Vengeful Spirit of Lake Neapeakea" involves Vicki protecting a truly repellent real estate agent from a supposed monster living in Lake Neapeakea. While Vicki assumes that the people living around the lake are more to blame than some supposed monster living beneath it, the man she is supposed to protect has an absolute genius for pissing off everyone around him... and doesn't seem to care.

"Someone to Share the Night" involves Henry's search for a girlfriend, and what happens when he suspects that one of the women who answered his ad is not as innocent as she painted herself to be.

"Another Fine Nest" has Vicki going after giant cockroaches living in the subway stations under Toronto.

"Scleratus" shows us how Henry dealt with the men and the Inquisition who killed the woman he truly loved, Ginevra Treschi, and also, how he was turned aside from an eternity of nothing but vengeance by having to clean up a situation he had helped create.

"Critical Analysis" shows Vicki's case involving an author who has been targeted by someone for death... but nobody seems to have done anything to the author but himself. Could be somehow be hurting himself and not knowing about it?

"So This is Christmas" is the story of "A Christmas Carol", with Vicki as the Scrooge Character, having a dream on Christmas Day (because she sleeps during the day).

The Final two chapters are about writing the story "Stone Cold" for the Lifetime Channel version of her stories, and the final script she handed in, which was not quite the version finally shown on the screen. In the end, they kept six lines out of what she wrote, which allowed her to be credited as the writer of the episode.

I really enjoyed this book, because I started reading the "Blood" books when they first came out (eons and eons ago...). I liked the characters and their interactions and relationships, and the idea that a vampire made a living as a romance author. It's been done again since then, but I remember smiling so hard my face hurt when I first read the books. It was wonderful to read all these short stories and remember my experiences of reading the original books.

The stories in this book are wonderful, expanding and sometimes explaining the things that happened in the stories. I especially enjoyed reading the stories involving Henry and his past, before he met Vicki, not so much the stories about when Vicki is a vampire, as I preferred Henry to Mike Celluci. But, to each their own, and any fan of the original books or of Tanya Huff's work will enjoy these books, no question about it.

The last two chapters I found the most fascinating. as well as a bit disheartening. Only six sentences survived out of an entire script? And yet that qualifies you to be credited as a writer? Being a writer myself, I'm not sure how I feel about that. It does make me sad, though.