Soucy, Glenn: Blood Tithe I (2010)

Blood tithe

First off, I love this cover.

Blood Tithe is a serial. Too many questions are left unanswered at the end for it to be anything else. Obviously, I recommend that you begin with this novel. I believe Blood Tithe is Soucy’s first novel and it bears signs of just that. But Soucy manages to overcome most of those problems by keeping his characters interesting and active.

“Once someone is altered, they can gather energy from every living thing. If they take that energy and wrap it around their heart, and then give it to another person, it creates a Blood Tithe. From then on, every time the original person collects more energy, the one he made the Blood Tithe automatically gets their fair share.” Glenn J. Soucy

I have been trying to remember what five-year olds are like while reading Blood Tithe. I can see a person his age falling for the temptation of the forbidden. You do not have to be five to fall for the forbidden. But five is how old Jeremy is when he goes against the commands of his parents and finds his life irrevocably changed. The point in his life when the sins of World War II genetic research comes back to haunt a community. I loved the tension Soucy managed to keep going full pace when Jeremy met Howler and his desperation during their subsequent meetings.

If Jeremy had been my son, would I have become afraid of him? Ideally, my answer should be a resounding no. As most of us end up learning, reality and ideals often do not blend. I really do not know which parent I would have become.

When we meet Jeremy at 13/14 life has become dire. He has done something he feels awful yet justified about in an eye for an eye sort of way.

In choosing to jump from Jeremy as little to Jeremy as teen-ager Glenn Soucy has undertaken a task that many authors shy from for good reason. Blending the two without getting details wrong or messing up on details is where we see that a stricter editor would have made Blood Tithe great.

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