Hobs Review of Blood Tally by Brian McClellan

Welcome back to another book review. Today we will be looking at Blood Tally by Brian McClellan. This is the second book in the Valkyrie Collections series. This series takes place in a world much like ours but with a hidden underside of magic and mayhem going on. The story is told through the eyes of Alek Fitz. He is a reaper for Valkyrie Collections, an agency that gathers debts for the paranormal elements of the world. In book one we just hear about them collecting souls but now we see a much wider range of things they collect like magical overdue library books.

OK so I guess that may not sound as exciting to some but trust me, this really is a great fast paced read. Where was I?… Alek Fitz, right, he is a guy with a bit of a weird family tree. He is part troll and due to that fact and a loophole in the laws that abolished slavery of magical creatures in the 1970’s, back when he was just a baby, he is still a legal slave to his boss. She works him mercilessly but at least as long as he keeps finishing jobs quickly he is left on his own for the most part.

In the first book we met Maggie a jinn that is stuck inside the ring that is also stuck on Alek’s finger. The uncomfortable but unavoidable relationship between the two of them is a major part of what made the first book so good. We also met the evil necromancer Nick and his powerful Draugr Trevor … OK not so powerful but I got Brian to say he was named after me the last time I saw him, so he is cool if not powerful. lol

Unfortunately Trevor is not just brutally killed in book one but taken apart at the molecular level….. Ouch …… But Nick does show up here for a small cameo to give us a direction that book 3 might head in. I only mentioned them so I would have a way to tell you about Trevor the poor innocent Draugr that was senselessly murdered by Alek. Now back to the review for the second book.

I was happy to see how Maggie and Alek’s relationship has grown in the few months that have passed between books one and two and I loved the 2 new characters we meet here. Trust me, meeting Eddie alone is worth the price of admission for this ride. It would be a bit of a spoiler to tell you a whole lot of the plot here mostly because the book is just so short not much happens that doesn’t directly move the plot forward. But I will say that Vampires and lawyers together are a truly powerful and terrifying combination. But I am sure you already knew that from how Fred continually beats his enemies with the power of Tax Law in the The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant series by Drew Hayes (Seriously a great 6 book series)

Overall I really enjoyed Blood Tally and the audio was brilliantly done by one of my favorite narrators, Luke Daniels. My only complaints would be the short length, it is really more like a novella at only 164 pages for the E-Book and the audio just over 6 hours. Also not a huge fan of the cover but that may be just because Brian’s Powder Wars series are some of my all-time favorite covers so I had high expectations. But with those 2 things taking off points Blood Tally book 2 of the Valkyrie Collections series by Brian McClellan still gets 4 and 1/2 stars out of 5 from this old goblin.

And now I would like to introduce you to Eddie.