Title: Blood For Blood

Author: Edward Vaughn

Release date: August 2nd, 2024

I’m always a sucker for books where one person has to go up against seemingly insurmountable odds. Such is the case for those books where it has a secondary titling of ‘A Demon Hunter Book,’ like this one. It gives a ring of Hellboy, of the earth having been overrun and a figure rising up to try and save humanity. To a degree, Alan Baxter’s Eli Carver series does just that, though it is firmly rooted in the supernatural world.

I’ve been wanting to check out Edward’s work for a while now, and when I saw Matthew Vaughn post about this one on IG and Tik Tok, I knew this was the one for me to dive in and discover just what horrors Edward had created.

What I liked: The book follows Mason Ward, a hunter. One in a long line of family born hunters, he is hired to track down and capture or kill the creatures that now roam the world. Vampires, witches, werewolves, you name it, and yes, demons. In this particular time, Ward is at an exorcism of a young girl, when the demon turns its sights on him and tells him that his sister is burning in Hell.

This is the prompt needed to have Ward search for his sister, firstly to find out if she is dead and when he learns the truth, he needs to get to the bottom of it.

There’s plenty of action in this one, as well as some very solid family dynamics at play, especially between Mason and his younger brother Christian. Vaughn does a great job of displaying the years of annoyance between them subtly and efficiently.

The ending is an engaging converging of the subplots laid out leading up to it and sets things up that there may be more Ward stories in the future. I’m not sure if there are other stories related to Ward already, but he’s a very intriguing character.

What I didn’t like: The biggest thing for me with this one was it was far too slim, too rushed. This novella had the potential to be a modern classic if it was four times longer. It would’ve allowed Mason to be more fully formed, the family story of them hunting, how they became hunters etc. etc. could’ve been included and would’ve created some truly memorable lore, and each of the interactions that Mason had would’ve felt fuller, more complete and satisfying to the reader.

There’s a lot here, but all of it felt glossed over and waiting to be plumped up and made all the juicier for the reader to sink their teeth into.

Why you should buy this: What Vaughn has done here, is introduce the world to a very interesting world, character and family. The ending, as mentioned, let’s us get our hopes up that there will be more and I sure hope we see more Ward in the future.

If you’re looking for a very fast-paced, action-packed novella that will have you racing through to learn the truth, look no further!