Rating: 
Summary: good writer; bad book
Review: What a disappointment. This novel apparently couldn't care less about plot or character consistency. If you insist on buying this book, skip the entire Seattle episode because it has nothing to do with anything else. In fact, read the first two or three chapters and the last one and save an extraordinary amount of time (in others words, don't spend more than twenty minutes on it). I didn't read the first novel and, sorry, I shouldn't have to. It's insulting to a reader to just throw in some characters from a previous novel for no reason other than to make it appear you're writing a grand multi-book epic. Three-quarters of the way through the novel, the point of view shifts to second person several times (that's so eighties)... Jefferson has good writing skills. She needs to learn how to apply them to the novel form. This book reads like a first draft that never got revised. I stayed with it because it was on recommend and I kept thinking it would actually get better. Alas, no.
Rating:
Summary: Unnecessary
Review: When I turned the last page of this book and came to the end, I had an underwhelming sense of Whatever. Not especially well written, hideously, pointlessly violent and graphic, lacking structure, plot or character development. The first book was fun, entertaining, harmless, escapist fiction, the second one is insulting. I'm not some nut, but come on- gay sex, straight sex, sex with multiple partners, graphic senseless murder (mostly not committed by the vampire), vandalism, and cheap gross-out tricks like a recurring crucified maimed drug-addled sewer rat? Please.
Rating: 
Summary: The ending could give you nightmares.
Review: Within one month, I'd been introduced to Jemiah Jefferson's books and read two of them: "Voice of the Blood" and "Wounds." Both follow the same story, and "Wounds" is the sequel. They are rather different books. While "Blood" is more of a vampiric erotica fantasy, "Wounds" is far, far closer to French Realism, like "Madame Bovary." Unfortunately, I detested "Madame Bovary" and got through it based on sheer force of will. With "Wounds," I managed through morbid fascination with the occasional reference to the previous book. In "Wounds," we find Daniel, child-vampire of Catholic-guilt-filled Ricari and sire of bitter, cunning Ariane, fascinated by the one person on the planet who he cannot, for all his attempts, read: Sybil, an apparently ordinary human who is really, really good at psychic and physical defense. Daniel, getting slightly tired of living for so long and watching friends die over and over, starts off by finding the aptly-named Sybil and interesting diversion and ends up bonded to her in ways about as powerful to his connection to vampires he's shared blood with. However, Sybil is also a dangerous psychopath who is haunted by a violent past, and is only drawn to Daniel based on how useful he can be to her. The majority of this book is about their highly dysfunctional relationship, and I spent most of it wondering to Daniel, "why don't you just *kill* her?" and wishing I could just step into the plot and do both of them in myself. I am tempted to say that anyone who has a low tolerance for such connections in real life will find this book the literary equivalent of nails on a blackboard. Which, I suppose, means that it was well-written, because seeing a friend go through this sort of torture would drive me up the wall just as effectively. So, I give this book three stars for being well-written and keeping me captivated in a way similar to how Daniel was kept so interested in Sybil. But I have to hold back two stars. One, a selfish star, because I was just too annoyed to really enjoy the book. One, a critical star because I really have no idea how the book ended. I even re-read the ending, and I'm still not entirely sure of the result, and probably won't know unless there's a third book. Maybe I blanked it from the trauma: the actions seemed fitting given what the characters had been up to so far. But whether the actions produced a result that would allow the book to end well ... I'm not sure. Sybil would scold me for wanting the answers laid out for me easily. But then, Sybil is most of what annoyed me about this book. So I think I get that point, but I just don't care.
Rating: 
Summary: A Work of Art
Review: Wounds, the continuation of her debut novel under the Leisure Horror publishing, is a masterpiece of delving into the very core of human nature, the dark and lighter sides of it. It is not only a good read (a found it hard to set the book down) but it leaves you aching to read more, in the best way possible. You feel for the characters. Their emotions, their situations. You really feel as if this could be a factual recollection that happened somewhere, sometime and is being written down by someone who was there.
For those of you seeking just another vampire novel, you will find much more than that in Jemiah Jefferson's work. She dazzle's you with her amazing talents.
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