Possession by Jennifer Armintrout

"My father always said fear was a weakness. Well, that's easy to say when you don't have to worry about vampire slayers or holy water. I hate fear, but undead life goes on. In the two months since I was attacked in the hospital morgue and turned into a vampire, I've killed my evil sire, Cyrus, fallen in love with my new sire, Nathan, and have even gotten used to drinking blood. Just when things are finally returning to normal -- as normal as they can be when sunlight can kill you -- Nathan becomes possessed. And then he slaughters an innocent human. Now it's my job to find Nathan before the Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement does, because they're just waiting for an excuse to terminate him -- and anyone foolish enough to help him. But it gets worse. It turns out that Nathan's been possessed by one of the most powerful and wicked vampires alive -- the Soul Eater. And who knows what vile plan he's concocted? With the Soul Eater and my possessed sire on the loose, I have a lot to fear. Including being killed. Again."

Possession is the second book in the Blood Ties series. It picks up a couple of months after the events of The Turning, and Carrie is still living with her new sire Nathan, but things are not all well.

There is no real detail of whats happened in the previous book at the start of this one, it jumps straight in to action with Nathan being possessed (and subsequently nearly killing Carrie and then bolting) in just a couple of pages, with no real lead up, making for a jarring start. Add to that the constant switching of point of view between Carrie and her former sire Cyrus (and then a little later Max) it doesn't make for an easy start. It took me quite a while to get in to this book, but even then it was easy to put down.

The plot is pretty solid and most of the character development with Carrie, Cyrus and Max is interesting too, but I found this book to be lacking something. It wasn't as gripping a read as the first book, despite a fairly quick paced plot, and the ending was pretty anti-climatic. No real big fight as you would expect, and what did happen was over quickly. It was still a decent read and it still held my attention enough for me to want to read the next, but it's not the easiest book to get on with. There is a lot of angst surrounding every character, they're all grieving for many things and there is very little in the way of light to break up the dark making it a fairly depressing read at times too. Overall, 3 out of 5 stars. Hopefully the next will be better.