Tag Archives: paranormal thriller

Midwest Book Review: The Blood of the Viper, A Kate Pomeroy Mystery

Mystery & Thrillers

The Blood of the Viper
Linda Watkins
Argon Press
978-1-944815-17-2         Upon publication $4.99; on Preorder $0.99
Author website: www.lindawatkins-author.com
Ordering: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B096H389H8  

The Blood of the Viper places Kate Pomeroy in the limelight as she returns to Storm Island, the scene of prior mystery and adventures. Married with a newborn, she has returned to her clinic and is looking forward to what should be a well-balanced life and career.  

This fifth novel in the Gothic mystery/horror series adds to the rest of Kate’s stories and continues to build her life and reactions to it. The novel opens with a threatening vision of supernatural viper’s blood which is powered by an ancient evil and a thirst for the human soul.

Kate and Jeremy’s baby, Hamilton Sloane Bradshaw, arrives at the start of this story, marking a new beginning in her life’s values and motivating forces. The next chapter moves backwards in time to the Yucatan and an assassination attempt that has left Vlad Sokolov paralyzed and vulnerable. 

These two seemingly disparate events and the viper’s threat come together as the story evolves to embrace the ancient sect that threatens lives and impacts events that unfold on Storm Island. 

Linda Watkins takes the necessary time to build her story as the island’s most recent newcomer moves into the strange Gothic mansion and proves to be a recluse harboring a dangerous secret. 

Watkins chooses the first person to explore Kate’s experiences, reactions, and interactions. This heightens the drama and “you are there” feel of the plot as she struggles to meld her new life and focus with a growing sense of threat to her family and home. 

The care taken to incorporate Kate’s past and present and the island’s special history does not detract from her latest adventure for prior fans, while gently pairing Kate’s exploits with a sense of her past experience, for newcomers. 

An Indiana Jones-style of adventure and supernatural confrontation emerges from the tunnels and mystery Kate faces—but at a more reasoned pace that takes the time to meld interpersonal actions and reactions with discovery and adventure. This will especially please readers of gothic supernatural suspense who want more than a fast pace alone. 

Readers of Kate Pomeroy’s prior Storm Island adventures as well as newcomers to her life and times will relish The Blood of the Viper not just for its mystery, but for its attention to detailing the evolving love between Kate and Jeremy as their new life together assumes another layer of complexity and love. 

While serving as a stand-alone story, Blood of the Viper both adds to the series adventures and leaves the door open for more. The Blood of the Viper