The Undercover Gem - The Cull Bloodline Review
The Cull - Bloodline
By Eric J. Gates
For starters, we would like to apologize for the late arrival of this review. We, like many of the average joe, got behind in our reading. From AP tests (Addie and I are both seniors in high school) to graduation, we have both been exceptionally busy. Again, we apologize for starving you of posts. Luckily, if you follow us on social media, you will see that we kept up with that a little better.
Now, for the fun stuff. Our latest reading is by Eric J. Gates called The Cull - Bloodline. With this being the first installment in the series, the ebook can be bought for free on Amazon, and reading is easily brought to all your devices. Link located below:
Product placement not intended, but helpful as hell wouldn't you say? The novel featured refreshing vocabulary and insanely close attention to detail. Specifically, the opening pages describing the bone chilling rain storm, which grasps reader’s attention from the very beginning.
With that said, the storyline and writing style definitely reminds us of a Criminal Minds/Supernatural vibe, especially with the mentioning of the BAU and FBI. However, there is a major component of the book that we have not mentioned yet...vampires. With most vampire folklore novels being of the cheesy variety, we had somewhat low expectations of the book. It could have been easily an off brand Dan Brown novel that had a love child with Twilight. However, this is furthest from the truth. The Cull is the exception, and it paved its own way respectively with the concepts of the book as a whole. Gates did a fantastic job integrating all these different components without making the book seem scattered and overrated.
The praises keep coming. Though this novel was unheard of to us, we are convinced it is a hidden gem. The international feel takes you out of the states, yet still gives the perspective of down to earth spies. Additionally, short chapters and bursts of exciting plot changes keep readers focused (probably could be shrunk to a two day read). With a strange detail to add, the juxtaposition of the names were quite interesting to us. The two spies were named simple American names such as Amy and Katie. I suppose it is what to be expected of U.S. stereotypical nomenclature. Through the contrast between them and the men in the book, an enticing appeal is created and worth noting while reading. The only pieces of criticism we could come up were few and far between. The change in point of view at times was slightly confusing, but not anything too worrisome. Additionally, being the girls that we are, we wanted more sparks of romance from you know who (read book for understanding)...we hope to find what we are looking for in the next books in the series.
Additionally, it was very detailed and specific, at times even technical. The author really spent a lot of time working out all the plot holes and making it very detailed. But sometimes it was over detailed. Overall, the value as a whole outweighed any negative feedback we could have ever produced.
The ending of the novel does it justice. We were fairly surprised how Gates could bring together vampires, religion, feminism, spies, etc., but he did in a perfect ending that wrapped everything up in a nice bow. The next book is definitely on our list of future reads.
Finally, we would like to thank Eric Gates for reaching out to us and recommending the book for review! We hope you appreciate our feedback!
For our readers, stay connected, we have further posts in the next week revolving around our favorite quotes and our depiction of the casting of The Cull - Bloodline. Also, comment and let us know what you think!
Better Read Than Dead,
Geneva and Addie