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Bad Blood #1
Bad Blood
After telling scary stories around a campfire in the woods, Valerie and Jay and their friends never consider that any of the stories might come true
- GenresHorrorParanormalTeen
201 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
3 people are currently reading
79 people want to read
About the author
Debra Doyle
95 books81 followersaka Nicholas Adams (with James D. Macdonald), Martin Delrio, Robyn Tallis (with James D. Macdonald)
Debra Doyle has a doctorate in English literature. Together, she and James Macdonald have written numerous sf/f books. They live in Colebrook, New Hampshire.
Series:
* Mageworlds
* Circle of Magic
* Bad Blood
Series contributed to:
* Tom Swift IV
* Robert Silverberg's Time Tours
* Daniel M Pinkwater's Melvinge of the Megaverse
* Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict
Debra Doyle has a doctorate in English literature. Together, she and James Macdonald have written numerous sf/f books. They live in Colebrook, New Hampshire.
Series:
* Mageworlds
* Circle of Magic
* Bad Blood
Series contributed to:
* Tom Swift IV
* Robert Silverberg's Time Tours
* Daniel M Pinkwater's Melvinge of the Megaverse
* Gene Roddenberry's Earth: Final Conflict
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 5, 2017
Val Sherwood and her friends are on a backpacking trip when one night around the campfire, Jay tells them all that he's a werewolf and by morning they'll all be dead. They all think he's making it up - until he jumps out of his tent the next morning, in full werewolf form, and attacks them! It turns out their chaperone, Mr. Castillo, is a werewolf too and he helps save them, but not before Val gets bitten. Now she's turning into a werewolf too. Not only that, but Jay is still out there and determined to kill them all!
This gets off to a great start, but slows down as Val deals with her werewolf status. At that point, it gets repetitive as she goes to school and worries a lot. It also means we get endless descriptions of scents and smells! I guess because werewolves have a strong sense of smell? In any case it was dull! It picks up slightly for a werewolf battle at the high school, and the ending is quite good as the kids get stuck on a deserted road, with Jay out there stalking them!
While reading, I thought this would make a pretty nifty movie. However, on the page, it just doesn't quite work. It's not as exciting or as thrilling as it could have been! It took me nine days to read, as I never felt the urgency to get back to it while doing other life stuff, which would never happen with a really good book!
This gets off to a great start, but slows down as Val deals with her werewolf status. At that point, it gets repetitive as she goes to school and worries a lot. It also means we get endless descriptions of scents and smells! I guess because werewolves have a strong sense of smell? In any case it was dull! It picks up slightly for a werewolf battle at the high school, and the ending is quite good as the kids get stuck on a deserted road, with Jay out there stalking them!
While reading, I thought this would make a pretty nifty movie. However, on the page, it just doesn't quite work. It's not as exciting or as thrilling as it could have been! It took me nine days to read, as I never felt the urgency to get back to it while doing other life stuff, which would never happen with a really good book!
December 20, 2011
I love this book! It is my all-time favorite!
June 16, 2025
It seems I always find one or two books out in the wild of Half Price Books that are missing perhaps from a set.
If I didn't know this was a trilogy it wouldn't really make a difference because Bad Blood works well as a standalone book. Doyle & MacDonald make the book interesting enough with how they have it structed since I am usually not a fan of first-person narration.
The back of the book makes it misleading, but all of this is told to us from the perspective of Valerie Sherwood. She is out camping with members of her Ecology club, their faculty advisor from the junior high Mr. Castillo and his wife, Rosa, another teacher at the junior high school. Valeria and her friend Diana are the only girls and the rest are boys: Bill, Freddie, Greg and Jay.
They decided to tell scary stories by the campfire and most of them are urban legends, but the group is having fun. When the Castillos head to bed, it is Jay's turn to tell a story. It sounds like a nasty made up tale saying that a blood transfusion during getting his appendix removed caused Jay to become a werewolf where he hunts at night. He claims he killed a jogger that was a local news story awhile back and that since tomorrow night is the full moon...the park rangers will find their bodies in pieces the following morning.
None of them believe it but as the others sleep and Valerie goes to trade places with Freddie to watch the campfire, a wolf rushes out from the tent...a huge werewolf. Mr. Castillo is an easy man to convince so he has the teens prepare a perimeter so they can remain safe and even gives Freddie a gun to shot at the wolf since he is the only one accustomed to hunting.
The Jay werewolf attacks Mrs. Castillo, and the others stay behind as Mr. Castillo goes hunting on his own with an even deadlier rifle. Bill has an idea to set-up a trap to net the wolf, but it doesn't go as planned when another wolf, possibly a normal one, triggers the trap. Valerie tries her best to cut down the net and ends up with puncture marks on her arm from Jay attacking her.
Daybreak, Jay has turned back to human, and Mr. Castillo returns to camp. Valerie goes with him to find the forest rangers and realizes the truth quite clearly...Mr. Castillo is the other wolf, another werewolf. Back in Vietnam, he didn't listen to a fellow soldier who told him that a lot of men were going to die and when they did, the soldier's grandmother cursed him into being a werewolf.
He doesn't believe that Valerie will go around killing people because Mr. Castillo hasn't and tells her that perhaps Jay has just always been...unstable. Valerie remembers Jay throwing rocks at kittens in fourth grade and his nasty smile when he told his story, so she has no doubt about that...
Mrs. Castillo is air lifted to a hospital and Mr. Castillo takes all of the teens, even Jay, back on the bus for home. Over the next couple of days, Valerie's wounds heal, and she finds herself becoming more hungry, thirstier but that anything with garlic makes her violently ill. She can no longer wear the pure silver bracelet her grandmother gave her, and the calendar tells her that the next full moon...is in two weeks.
Valerie starts her school year in the tenth grade at Hillside High School, and she has to share homeroom and lunch with Jay. He taunts her about how she will change and that he's made sure Mr. Castillo won't be around to give her any help by getting his parents and the school board involved.
Valerie distances herself from her friends and makes as many excuses as possible for not going out at night anymore. The following morning, Val's psychiatrist father is called into school to handle grief counseling because a student has been murdered, and it is of Val's Ecology Club classmates.
Over lunch, Jay taunts Valerie: "One down...four more to go."
Is it Jay taking more revenge or did Valerie embrace being the werewolf with the bad blood that is now flowing through her veins?
Since it is a trilogy, you know that there are going to be some survivors or that at least, Valerie will make it out okay. I'm very ready to find out what happens next so I can only pray that the next time I am out, Half Price Books may have the other two books.
If Bad Blood sounds as interesting to you as it did to me, there are always eBook copies for sale on Amazon because even reprints are hard to find for decent prices.
A hunting I will go...
If I didn't know this was a trilogy it wouldn't really make a difference because Bad Blood works well as a standalone book. Doyle & MacDonald make the book interesting enough with how they have it structed since I am usually not a fan of first-person narration.
The back of the book makes it misleading, but all of this is told to us from the perspective of Valerie Sherwood. She is out camping with members of her Ecology club, their faculty advisor from the junior high Mr. Castillo and his wife, Rosa, another teacher at the junior high school. Valeria and her friend Diana are the only girls and the rest are boys: Bill, Freddie, Greg and Jay.
They decided to tell scary stories by the campfire and most of them are urban legends, but the group is having fun. When the Castillos head to bed, it is Jay's turn to tell a story. It sounds like a nasty made up tale saying that a blood transfusion during getting his appendix removed caused Jay to become a werewolf where he hunts at night. He claims he killed a jogger that was a local news story awhile back and that since tomorrow night is the full moon...the park rangers will find their bodies in pieces the following morning.
None of them believe it but as the others sleep and Valerie goes to trade places with Freddie to watch the campfire, a wolf rushes out from the tent...a huge werewolf. Mr. Castillo is an easy man to convince so he has the teens prepare a perimeter so they can remain safe and even gives Freddie a gun to shot at the wolf since he is the only one accustomed to hunting.
The Jay werewolf attacks Mrs. Castillo, and the others stay behind as Mr. Castillo goes hunting on his own with an even deadlier rifle. Bill has an idea to set-up a trap to net the wolf, but it doesn't go as planned when another wolf, possibly a normal one, triggers the trap. Valerie tries her best to cut down the net and ends up with puncture marks on her arm from Jay attacking her.
Daybreak, Jay has turned back to human, and Mr. Castillo returns to camp. Valerie goes with him to find the forest rangers and realizes the truth quite clearly...Mr. Castillo is the other wolf, another werewolf. Back in Vietnam, he didn't listen to a fellow soldier who told him that a lot of men were going to die and when they did, the soldier's grandmother cursed him into being a werewolf.
He doesn't believe that Valerie will go around killing people because Mr. Castillo hasn't and tells her that perhaps Jay has just always been...unstable. Valerie remembers Jay throwing rocks at kittens in fourth grade and his nasty smile when he told his story, so she has no doubt about that...
Mrs. Castillo is air lifted to a hospital and Mr. Castillo takes all of the teens, even Jay, back on the bus for home. Over the next couple of days, Valerie's wounds heal, and she finds herself becoming more hungry, thirstier but that anything with garlic makes her violently ill. She can no longer wear the pure silver bracelet her grandmother gave her, and the calendar tells her that the next full moon...is in two weeks.
Valerie starts her school year in the tenth grade at Hillside High School, and she has to share homeroom and lunch with Jay. He taunts her about how she will change and that he's made sure Mr. Castillo won't be around to give her any help by getting his parents and the school board involved.
Valerie distances herself from her friends and makes as many excuses as possible for not going out at night anymore. The following morning, Val's psychiatrist father is called into school to handle grief counseling because a student has been murdered, and it is of Val's Ecology Club classmates.
Over lunch, Jay taunts Valerie: "One down...four more to go."
Is it Jay taking more revenge or did Valerie embrace being the werewolf with the bad blood that is now flowing through her veins?
Since it is a trilogy, you know that there are going to be some survivors or that at least, Valerie will make it out okay. I'm very ready to find out what happens next so I can only pray that the next time I am out, Half Price Books may have the other two books.
If Bad Blood sounds as interesting to you as it did to me, there are always eBook copies for sale on Amazon because even reprints are hard to find for decent prices.
A hunting I will go...
October 20, 2021
Was a short book but really interesting with a great story line. Teen werewolves are always interesting.
December 30, 2020
Werewolves
One of the better wereolf books I've read, has everything you need to keep you entertained and on edge :)
One of the better wereolf books I've read, has everything you need to keep you entertained and on edge :)
January 3, 2009
I got this book at Darkovercon 1994 because it was written by 2 old friends, but I did not get around to reading it until now. Frankly, it was a bit disappointing. Basically, it is "I was a teenage (female) werewolf" It lacks 2 things I like in that genre --humor and romance. There is just a suggestion of humor -- the heroine's father thinks she might be pregnant when she shows symptoms of lycanthropy -- but it is pretty much straight horror/conflict. There is a bad (male) werewolf who accidentally makes the heroine into a good werewolf, and the two fight it out with the heroine aided by some not especially interesting friends. After the opening, the situation is clear and the only suspense is how many of the heroine's friends get killed before they take out the bad guy. The answer, by my standards, is about one too many.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 17, 2013
I came across this when I was going through boxes in storage. I loved this series when I was a kid and decided to give it a re-read. It's still pretty entertaining!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews