Which is how I ended up being the only one who could help. As a null, I don’t have any particular magic powers—just the opposite, really. I negate all the magic within a certain radius around me, creating a magic-free bubble that has me as its center. In theory, if Marko stayed within that area, I could keep him human for a short time, and he and his wife could make a baby the old-fashioned way. Assuming, of course, we could all get past the extreme awkwardness that would be involved.

It was weird, but it was far from the weirdest thing I’d done lately. The leaders of the Los Angeles vampires, werewolves, and witches all paid me a retainer to clean up supernatural problems that arose in the city. When things were quiet, as they’d been for the past couple of months, I was free to pick up freelance work.

Most of the time this involved shepherding vampires around during daylight activities, but two weeks earlier, I had been paid to attend a witch’s beach volleyball tournament so I could make sure her opponent wasn’t using magic to cheat. A few days before that, I’d accompanied a crowd-shy werewolf to a taping of his favorite sitcom, to help him stay calm in the midst of all that teeming humanity. I might have actually enjoyed that outing, except the sitcom was one of those “fat slovenly husband vs. shrill anorexic wife” crapfests. Freelance work could be kind of a gamble.

This series is wonderful.

Scarlett goes to Las Vegas (which is a vampire haven) to look into two vampires flagrantly breaking the Old World rules using their powers to ... put on a Vegas show of all things. And also keep a bachelorette party safe. But it's all for a purpose in the end. One thing leads to another, a bunch of vampires die, and Scarlett has to save the day. And then kill a new friend, because that's what she promised.

I rolled my eyes. Ah yes, Old World politics. You can’t attack someone with a perfectly acceptable story, even if you think they’re lying. It’s not like putting up a controversial Facebook post. Proof is the only thing that matters.

Scarlett remains the big draw of this books, still just as snarky:

“And your solution was ‘violence is never the answer’?” I said, amused.

“Well, it isn’t,” he said defensively.

“Unless the question is, ‘What is never the answer?’” I pointed out.

There was a pause, and then Jesse said, “Did you actually need something?”

And complicated:

Life is funny. Wait, scratch that. People say that all the time, but what they really mean is that life is cruel, tragic, and unfair—but not without a sense of humor about it.

Well worth the read. I totally can guess where the next book is going... ( )

See book 3, Shadow Hunt

"Blood Gamble" continues the walking disaster that is Scarlet Bernard's life as a Null: a human who cancels out the magic of supernaturals in her presence, vampires and werewolves become human and witches' spell bounce off her.

This book takes Scarlet out of LA, where she is supported by people she trusts, and into Las Vegas, a city she has a bad history with and where she has to fall back on her own resources. She is made more vulnerable by the fact that her cover story for being in Las Vegas is to attend her sister-in-law's belated hen-party weekend. This gives her enemies potential targets. It also gives us the fun of her seeing her suffer through various girly rituals that she has no wish to take part in.

It was refreshing to see Scarlet in a new environment. I thought the tacky-but-hard-to-look-away-from nature of Vegas was captured well. The plot was original, held a few surprises, gave me a few laughs and made just enough (mostly remote) use of well-loved characters from earlier books to keep continuity.

Scarlet did a lot of growing up in the last book, "Midnight Curse", finally pulling herself out from her victim status and becoming an actor in her own right. She continues that here, for the most part, acting independently and often quite aggressively. She is dragged into her past again by another Null that she met when she was a teenager and who she is sympathetic towards, despite his flaws because she sees that she could easily have become what he now is.

This is a well done, first person account, that works because Scarlet is a mostly ordinary, mostly nice person who keeps finding herself with life and death choices. What could be more engaging than that?

Read this if you're in the mood for an urban supernatural adventure that's heavy on snark and attitude that hides a heart of gold.

I recommend the audiobook version as Amy McFadden is the perfect narrator for Scarlet's books.

Try a sample for yourself by clicking on the link below.

https://soundcloud.com/brilliance-audio/blood-gamble-by-melissa-f-olson


( )

62 points/100 (3.25 stars/5).

There is a vampire troupe in Vegas, and Dashiel wants Scarlett to look into it, just in case. Quickly, Scarlett finds there is more going on than they could have ever expected.

This was a stronger book than Midnight Curse. It did, however, suffer a bit from middle child syndrome. Olson takes Scarlett out of Los Angeles and brings her to Las Vegas to uncover some trouble to get into. It is a nice change of pace. Scarlett is on her own, she isn't bugging anyone, she isn't really dragging anyone into her daring adventures. She was more tolerable in this book because she couldn't really upset anyone around her, it was just her getting into trouble all by herself.

However, that end. Have you ever spent an hour of your life telling an author "Don't do it. Don't you dare fucking do it. I will fucking hate you if you do it. Just say no. You can do it, just say no."? And, then they do it? That happened here with me. I knew that was going to be how the book ends. If you're read this, and you start reading the book, and say "huh, please don't tell me that is going to be how it ends?" I can probably safely say yes, that is how it ends. Because, Olson went and did it. I've been railing for the last ten minutes that she went and did it before I could calm down enough to write this.

Scarlett's not having others to lean on is a positive in this book. She is calmer, she doesn't have as many moments where so rages out because someone is trying to help her, because no one is there. There is almost an entirely new cast this book, I really liked it. This did, however, leave room for a new love interest. A love interest Scarlett really did not need in her life. Her life is already enough of a mess without it. The romance felt out of place, rushed, and like the author had a reason for them being together other than them actually liking each other. That said, Scarlett shows a bit of personal growth as a character by the end of this book, finally. However, she still makes a bunch of terrible decisions.

There was one part of the book that made me roll my eyes, though. Scarlett calls up Jesse looking for some help, and Jesse lays in talking about "I can't believe I have to tell you this" about how Scarlett is a "hero". I'm sorry, Scarlett is not a hero just because she keeps feeding her ego. Scarlett, this entire journey, has gone from one disaster to another believing only she can solve everything as long as she is in the middle of the action. She is in the way half the time, and if she delegated anything at all, half the troubles in this series would be solved way easier than her having to be everywhere doing everything. Really annoying scene.

Since starting the read, starting with Bloodsick, I've always wanted to see more regarding Sashi and Will. This felt like the first step to me getting to see this, so I'm really happy with that. Sashi is a wonderful character. I hope she pulls through in the next book for me. I feel like we're getting closer to a series with Scarlett, Lex, and Sashi as the main characters working together to do something grand.

This was actually a better put together story, though. The story is more internally consistent and follows a logical progression. I wasn't bored or put off by entire sections of the book. I enjoyed the read more in this book than I have in any Scarlett Bernard or Disrupted Magic book to date. ( )

I really enjoyed this book. It was well written and had a great story. The characters were well developed with distinct personalities and relationships. I had not read the previous books so there were a lot of characters that I wasn't familiar with but it didn't detract from the story. After reading this, I will now go back and read the previous books. I highly recommend this book and this author. ( )