The Blood Gospel: The Order of the Sanguines Series (Order of the Sanguines Series, 1)

Erin, Jordan and Rhun are a part of an ancient and secret Catholic prophecy, which states that only a Woman of Learning, a Warrior of Man, and a Knight of Christ can open the Blood Gospel. The Blood Gospel contains the written words of Christ.Besides being a fight between good and evil, we find out that it is a fight between evil vampires and good vampires. The evil vampires, Strigoi, enjoy hurting, feeding and killing humans. They are against Christ and the teachings of the Church. Whereas the good vampires, Sanguinists, have come together to create a secret arm of the Catholic Church to fight the evil in the name of Christ. They subsist on Christ's blood, blessed wine, which imbues them with the power to go out in sunlight.As a vampire book, I felt this was a really great idea to have the Catholic Church secretly protecting the world from a great evil. The vampires and the marked were not portrayed as all being mindless beasts looking for their next quart of blood. Rather, many were shown to be intelligient and sinister. They were playing the long game in the quest for the Blood Gospel, and in the end, we learn that this quest was only the beginning. It was an interesting beginning to the series. The end leads you to an introduction of where the series is headed.Thankfully, we were not left with a huge cliffhanger. This book had a clear ending, the end of the quest for the Blood Gospel. If you decide not to continue with this series, you will not be reading a book with no ending. So many of the writers of series and trilogies just don't get this aspect of writing them, they just stop in the middle of the story. Cantrell and Rollins are handling the series aspect as professional writers. They conclude their story.Is the story sacrilegious? Herein lies the truth, sacrilege is in the eye of the beholder. There are the hard core, who view making a fictional story based upon any elements of the Bible as a sacrilegious act. Then there are those that feel that touching any aspect of their truths about their Church or their interpretation of the Bible is a sacrilegious act. Then there are those who feel that making a new interpretation of a largely held belief by most Christians is a sacrilegious act. This book falls someplace between the last two.What occurs that could be sacrilegious? In the Bible, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead to show that he had the power of resurrection. In the book, Jesus saved Lazarus from drinking human blood by giving him his blood. Keep in mind, that 5 people, other than Jesus and Lazarus, were resurrected in the Bible, and they were not directly attributable to Jesus or God. Also, at the end of the book, another is said to be a Strigoi, who was also of importance in the Bible.Jesus wrote a gospel, which contained a prophecy. The prophecy appears to mirror some of the Bible. Yep, there is some changes to reflect the story, and yep, there is no evidence that Jesus ever wrote a thing. So, I feel all the Bible changes were relatively minor, and they are no more sacrilegious than the Lahaye fiction.The rest would just be sacrilege against the Catholic Church by saying there was a sect of good vampires, and some of their practices occur due to the presence of the Sanguinists. Read this clearly, this does not meet the definition of sacrilege unless you are worshipping the Church instead of God.Angelfall, a YA book by Susan Ee, was much more sacrilegious. It stated that God wanted to get rid of man, so all the angels came down to do evil to them with a few exceptions. And keep in mind, this was a YA book. So in my opinion the Blood Gospel is not sacrilegious, my opinion.The characters were interesting. There really was someone there for almost every reader. Erin is a strong and smart woman. Jordan is a hero, who has a caring and sensitive side. Rhun is strong, despite his weaknesses.There is action, intrigue, romance and mystery. Admittedly, I did find the story to be slow going at times, but it quickly would pick up speed again.I can't wait for the next book.

A mysterious Vatican priest. A military forensics expert. A bright archaeologist. Three people with very different backgrounds who will be tasked to work together in order to find an ancient artifact: a lost gospel written by the hand of Christ Himself. But they're not the only ones looking for it. A secret sect consisting of both vampires and humans are looking for the book as well. Will the 'fabled three' find the book first and use it for good or will their enemies unleash horror on the world?The Blood Gospel has some interesting points. It ties heavily into history, especially that of the Catholic church and Christianity in general. It's obvious the team of Rollins and Cantrell did their research...and twisted what they found to make things interesting. A sect of the church consisting of vampires and the vampires who are set against them in opposition? The duo pull out many recognizable names from history to weave the tale.While the premise of the book had me thinking this would be a home run. While I do read some vampire fiction, the fact that Rollins was co-author of The Blood Gospel had me thinking it was going to be something special. I've never read anything by Rebecca Cantrell, I admit, so I'm not familiar with her work at all, but I'm a huge Rollins fan.This didn't seem like a book written by James Rollins. I'm not sure who had what part to play in the writing of this book but this lacked the usual Rollins 'voice'. The fast prose, the fantastic dialogue, the quick and frenetic pacing. The writing seemed, stiff and overly formal, from both a narrative and dialogue perspective. One of my biggest pet peeves when reading a novel is when there is a distinct lack of contractions, especially in dialogue. 'I do not know. I cannot do that. Why had you not told us that before?" For some of the older, ancient vampire type characters, that's fine. But Erin and Jordan constantly speak that way to the point where neither has a unique voice. And honestly, nobody speaks that way. This may seem like a minor point but it gave the characters a cardboard feel and lent a staccato rhythm to the narrative. While their back stories are fleshed out enough, the dialogue was painfully proper. Jordan doesn't suffer from this as much as Erin did, but still...it's there. Also, Jordan, being the military 'grunt' seems to be the comedy relief...but he's not very funny. They try to make him funny for purposes of breaking the tension (which is needed in any tense book) but it just feels flat.Also, the book seemed overly long. With the lack of any big 'WOW! Didn't see that coming!' moments, a long book can seem much longer than it actually is. Such is the case with The Blood Gospel. While the authors' twists on both religious dogma and historical facts seemed fresh, none of the plot seemed to be that much of a surprise. The 'big reveals' don't feel as epic as they should. Sometimes, even if you do know where a book is going, the joy is still in the journey, but for the reasons mentioned above (the overly stilted dialogue and narrative) the fun factor was ramped down a couple notches. Even the action sequences, a hallmark of any Rollins novel as fans well know, lack the spark that he's so well known for.Still, there were enough intriguing elements to keep me reading, even though at times I'd wondered when the book would actually end (it drags in many parts, especially between the climax and the end). Will I check out the next one? I'm leaning towards it because I'm curious to see what happens with several of the characters.All in all, not a 'bad' book, but a firm 'ok' book. As I mentioned, I'm not familiar with Cantrell's work. What little I do know of her leads me to believe that she's successful. Maybe this is like the 'supergroups' that crop up in the world of music from time to time: take some pieces from talented bands, toss them together, expect something fantastic. Those don't usually work all that well either and I think that may be the case here.

I'm reading a lot and, good or bad, its sometimes fun to write reviews. Unfortunately almost every review I write is 1-3 stars. Either there are just a lot of bad books out there (I think I should be avoiding self published books a bit more) or I'm really bad at choosing books to read. So it's finally nice to read something that gets things right. This is a very well written book by two people who clearly know their profession. The plot is well structured and holds together (a failure of many books with a supernatural theme seems to be that the authors don't think it needs to be believable). Its a long book (700 pages I think) so you get your money's worth (could easily have been two books) but despite this it sets a fast pace with lots of action and maintains this from start to finish. It has many plot twists and the characters are decently developed.Nothing more off putting than when the main character annoys you (the army guy seems a bit wooden but the others are well drawn) but the authors know their business and its probably why they have three main characters. It would benefit from some more 'quirks' in the characters and a little more grit, two things that British writers seems to do much better than Americans. However, this is a minor quibble and the writers do a lot to avoid this just being a formula driven action romp. The bottom line is that this book is A-list. So many books which receive very good reviews here, really are not.

I am a huge fan of James Rollins thrillers. I literally cannot wait for them and so as soon as I heard about The Blood Gospel I ordered in the American edition. What turned up was a huge paperback for the visually-impaired. As a result, I could certainly see it but I could barely lift it. A small price to pay.The first thing to note is that The Blood Gospel is not part of the excellent Sigma series. It is completely different. Co-written with Rebecca Cantrell, whose work I am not familiar with, it is a mystery thriller with a supernatural twist. Normally, this would be enough to put me off, especially when I learned that this was a novel about vampires. But, and this is a huge but, wipe from your mind images of the sparkly and painfully tragic undead. This is nothing like that at all. In fact, The Blood Gospel is my favourite thriller of 2013 so far and it will take a lot to knock it off that pedestal.From the very beginning it is clear that the reader is going to have to hang on tight. The novel opens at Masada, the desert fortress in Israel which was the site of a mass suicide by the last of the Jewish rebels to hold out against the might of Rome in the 1st century AD. An earthquake devastates the ruins, revealing a hidden temple containing the crucified remains of a mummified girl and unleashing something else into the air. The remains are investigated by military forensic expert Jordan Stone, archaeologist Erin Granger and Vatican priest Father Rhun Korza. It's not long before the three are on the run, propelled on a chase to discover what was once in the girl's sarcophagus and is now lost - a gospel believed to contain the words of Christ himself. Stone and Granger are soon caught in a war between two breeds of eternals - the Sanguines and the Strigoi - which takes them to the religious heart of Rome as well as the evil centres of Europe. Each must reclaim the words of Christ.As with all thrillers of this type, you need to suspend your powers of disbelief. If you manage that, as I did almost instantly, then you'll find yourself on a thriller rollercoaster that merges history with the supernatural. We follow the three heroes across Europe, making stops in Rome, Germany and St Petersburg, incorporating familiar figures from history, throwing light or darkness on religious rituals from the past 2,000 years, resurrecting demons from the deepest wells of horror, fighting for life, death and worse, and having an absolute blast of a time!James Rollins writes thrillers exceptionally well. The Blood Gospel is no different. The characters are all entertainingly real, with the expected added frisson of love, lust and jealousy done well. There are three heroes after all - none wants to be the one left out. The locations are well realised and the mystery itself is a corker. Above all else, though, The Blood Gospel is a very well-written and brilliantly plotted thriller, completely preposterous and utterly gripping. Rebecca Cantrell is, one suspects, the reason for the supernatural edge but it works well with Rollins' style. This is also a substantial book. There are enough pages here to consume you for more than a couple of days.I was left wanting much, much more and I'm delighted to hear that this is the first in a planned series. Great characters, fantastic story, full of excitement and packed with passion. What more can you ask from a thriller? Marvellous!

Firstly,I do like James rollins books,he is in my top 7 of authors which include David golemon,David Gibbons,Matthew Reilly and especially Andy McDermott and Chris Kuzneski,so it gives you an idea of the style of reading I likeThis one,(although James books either revolve around the excellent Sigma force novels or totally different adventure with ferocious creatures ) doesn't seem to work as wellIt is co written with Rebecca Cantrell a vampire type writer,and the the book is somewhat different from other vampire type books,but I can't help feeling it's been written to get on the "band wagon" with the modern theme of vampires being the "in thing " to read and watchIt is well written,and is basically a story between good ...ish religious vampires and very bad ones with human intervention,Nazis,Russians,Israel and Rasputin thrown in for good measure. To be fair it is quite a good read,but,if it hadn't had James Rollins's would I have bought it?.....probably not,if it had just been Rebecca cantrells name on it I probably wouldn't even have picked it up to read the small print...sorrySaying that,I probably will buy the others in the series,just because they have input from James Rollins,but I won't rush to buy them before my other favourite authors.One other thing,American authors always make their heros tall,well built handsome Hollywood types,the British and Aussie heros are more normal....Andy mcdermotts is short ,balding getting older and putting a little weight on despite being ex-sas,but far more believable and Matthew reilly's characters have scars and issues,I do think the American writers should install a bit more of normality into the characters..they can still be strong etc,but most Americans I see certainly aren't like the books?

This is a book I had wanted to read for so long. Every ingredient in the synopsis whetted my taste buds - it is so my kind of book. Unfortunately, I spend the majority of my time in Norway and ordered it at my UK address. Okay, I accept I do stupid things on occasion. My embarrassment was compounded when one of the authors asked me if I had read it after I had told him/her (I won't say which one) that I couldn't wait. It was well worth waiting for anyway. I could read this book a dozen times.I won't bore any of you by repeating half of the synopsis as it's up there in black and white for your perusal. What I will do, is say what I loved about it. I have always loved Rollins' style and the kind of book he writes. To me, he is akin to Dan Brown, but with a keener edge. Where Brown takes a breather with lengthy descriptions of historical locations (which is okay for a history buff such as myself) Rollins just ploughs on with the story and never relents with his pace. Of course, this is a collaboration with Ms Cantrell and together I feel they are a formidable partnership.A cocktail of ancient mysteries, cults, vampires of both persuasions, secret societies, the Nazis, a host of historical greats, and the Catholic Church. What more could a reader want? I liked also the use of three main protagonists as opposed to the usual ritual of hero plus one(usually female). All three have their intricacies and complexities that keep them interesting, as well as their individual interactions with each other that bring us to identify with and care for them. I loved too the introduction of many great historical figures going back two thousand years. I don't give spoilers so you will have to read the story for yourselves, but they each add real substance to the book, leading up to the final excellent twist at the end.Blood Gospel is an action-packed, fast-paced, thrilling read that I would recommend to anyone. I'm going straight to Amazon now to order Innocent Blood. I know it will be money well spent. Five glowing stars from me.

This kept me up until the small hours. I liked the tautness of the writing, the basic theme was right up my street, and the characters well defined. If this is one of a series.... count me in for the next one. The background and the locations were descriptive without being over done and the pacing was excellent. I am a quick reader and can get through a hardback in two evenings, and my memory is excellent I? do not usually go back to a book once read but this one I will read again for the sheer pleasure of the authors expertise.Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki