Review: Blood Sins by Kay Hooper. 4* 10/09/2022

This book is a continuation of the “Blood Series” of Noah Bishop. This is a well written thriller about a creepy cult in the Church of Everlasting Sin in a small town named Grace, in North Carolina. There are characters throughout the book that have psychic powers. The book was filled with mystery, suspense and ambiguity that kept me reading to the end.

Reverent Samuel is the leader of the church his powers are increased by draining other people’s psychic powers to make him more powerful. Tessa Gray, a member of Haven, has a unique gift of being able to identify and connect with other psychics so she asked to go undercover as a wealthy widow living in Grace and use her status to gain access and become a member of the church and find out more about the leader, the missing people, the murdered people and find out what he is doing to the young girls of the community ( )

This book was pretty good. I couldn't decide if I should give it 3 or 4 stars. But I do love books about crazy cult leaders. I haven't read the first book in the trilogy, but I have read other books in the series. ( )

The Church of Everlasting Sin is led by Reverend Adam Deacon Samuel (a.k.a. Father). The church has been in the Grace, North Carolina, area for about ten years. Most members live on the compound, a community in themselves. Few are seen outside the compound. The children do not attend public schools and more than a few of the kids inside the church know that something is not right. The girls have the most to fear. The Haven organization knows that the church is somehow involved in the area's deaths. Bodies have been found in the river and X-rays showed that virtually every bone in the bodies had been pulverized, yet there were never any marks to indicate how this happened. Undercover agents have already given their lives to ferret out information and even helped a few of the children to escape. All that is really known is that at least one of Father's closest advisors is a strong psychic and no one can get a read on Father because he is like a null field.

This is the second novel in the series. If you did not read the first book titled "Blood Dreams", you may want to consider doing so before beginning this story. However, the author has done a good job of updating new readers within the first few chapters. Some characters from the previous book return to play secondary roles in this one. Tessa and the police chief are the main focus this time around though. Be warned that there are some graphic scenes in this story. Readers learn about Father's early childhood. (Not a pretty picture, trust me on that.) Still, the author retains her own outstanding gift of being able to write about paranormal talents and make them seem as if they are business as normal for the characters. ( )

I would have liked to have had Samuel's abilities outlined how he was doing things, but not having it didn't ruin the story in any way. It was different how Kay could have brought a possible budding relationship to the front of the story line but didn't because it wasn't the 'right time or place' for it to be part of the story. It would have been nice to have more of Tessa's background story, if she were in previous books, I don't remember. ( )

3 stars. I enjoyed the story. There were 2 to 3 chapters that just felt like utter filler as it wasn't any new information, just a rehashing of what we already knew so that was a bit discouraging. I still give it 3 stars as the rest of the book was really good. ( )