The Blood Doctor [Paperback]

The start was promising especially as I've always been fascinated by genetics.
After about 10 chapters, however, I had figured out the solution. (I understood *what* the first Lord Nanther had done and *why*, I just didn't know how exactly he had organized everything.) I read on, because I said to myself: 'No, it can't be that simple. Barbara Vine has always kept you guessing - if not to the end, then at least to 2/3 of the novel.' But reading on confirmed my suspicions and I simply couldn't understand that Lord Nanther couldn't figure out the solution. Didn't he ever take a *really* close look at his own family tree?

Unfortunately, the main characters didn't manage to hold my interest either:
Lord Nanther IV seemed more in love with his wife's looks than with her personality. But maybe that's just how it appeared to me as I found Jude's personality incredibly tedious. We only learn about her that she's obsessed with having a baby at all costs. We never really got to know what she was like before she was consumed by that wish. I feel sorry for her, but simply couldn't manage to like her.
Lord Nanther IV is intelligent, conscientious -- and unfortunately very boring. I also found that I couldn't stand him constantly putting up a front and being dishonest about his feelings as not to hurt his wife. (I thought that it might have been a really good idea if Lord Nanther IV and his wife had been honest with another - just once.)
The only person who was interesting to me was the first Lord Nanther. Of course, he's not a sympathetic character until the birth of his second son. And since we nearly only get to know him through his great-grandson's research, he remained too distant for my taste.(It would have helped to learn more about the contents of the third notebook...)

I don't think I would have finished reading this book, if Barbara Vine wasn't one of my favourite authors and I hadn't had to stay in bed because of the flue. I'm quite disappointed as I had constantly hoped that there would be another twist - but there never was.

So it seems that my favourite books of B. Vine will remain A Dark Adapted Eye, The House of Stairs and Asta's Book followed by No Night is Too Long and The Brimstone Wedding. I will reread these books and hope that maybe her next novel will be as good as they are.

Having started The Blood Doctor I checked soon on Amazon if there were any reviews of other readers and most of them gave similar impressions as I just had reading the first say 100 pages. Quite negative, I have to admit.

But, as a faithful reader of her books, I continued, sometimes just not caring about all the family ties especially late in the book when it gets so confusing in the Swiss Alps, I just read on.

All in all, I must say, had this book been by another author I read for the first time, I would not have finished it. Now, after having just done so, I am glad I continued after the difficulties at the beginning, it is quite fascinating after all.

My, very personal, female impression all in all, is: this is a very sad, sad book, sad on all levels if in the 18th and 19th century or today, I really pitied the narrator, Martin, not so much for his lost seat in the House of Lords (although he soon misses this kind of work) but for his rather unsensible egoistic wife whom he adores and loves so much. And, well Henry, the blood doctor himself, is a very tragic figure as we learn, when reading on.

For firsttime Barbara Vine readers this might be a hard start but for people who already know her work I think, The Blood Doctor is very interesting although quite different from all her other books.

This one I'm afraid continued her latest trend in my view. It did not not grip me and I found it very predictable. I continued to the end as ever, hoping for something to kick it into life, but failed.

Sorry to be negative - most of her work is outstanding.