Blood Curse

Vampire's Love #1

by Janice Harrell

A teenage vampire is forced to resist her bloodthirsty nature when she falls in love with a mortal boy, and her growing feelings make her desperately seek to become human again. Original.

Genres: Vampires, Horror, Young Adult, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy, Romance, Fiction

223 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1995

Reviews

[Paula Brandon]

This didn't do much to change my wariness when it comes to 90s teen horror featuring vampires. Harrell willfully ignores so much vampire lore I wondered why she even bothered making Rena a vampire! I didn't understand the attraction; the boy she was after was about as interesting as a wooden plank!

[Sharron Joy Reads]

Rena is a 16yr old girl who is also a 200yr old lonely vampire. She falls in love with a mortal boy, James and is determined to win him from his girlfriend, Chelsea whatever it takes and Chelsea is determined to stop her.

Things I liked -
- The writing had some beautiful imagery.
- Rena’s back story was sad but her delight in slaughter was fabulous. The vampiric attacks were juicy.
- Chelsea was the typical popular girl of the school, vain, pretty and used to getting her own way but hilarious.

Things I disliked -
- The purposeful ignoring of vampire mythology.
- James was boring and dull as ditchwater. In fact all the boys were dull, the girls in this were far more interesting.
- It is no secret how much I dislike romantic stuff so fighting over a boy was pathetic to me.

A quick fun read though.

[Sam Kettle Natasha Slee]

I read these when I was about 13/14 in my school library and absolutely adored the books. Since then I have looked for them time and time again, I'm now nearly 31! I got so excited when I found them that I ordered them straight away! These started my love for all vampire books. Super super happy I found them again after 17 years!

[Candy Soulistic]

Great book! One of the first Vampire books I ever picked up. This is when I was in HighSchool and it was a great read. In my twenties I tracked down this book and the second book online and bought them. I re-read them. Great story!

[Lana Standley]

This was one of the first books i ever read as a child and i loved it. Since then i have been hooked on vampire love stories. Thanks janice

[Katherine Hayward Pérez]

Rina is 200 years old and is a vampire. A blood curse means she is destined to live life as an immortal.

James is a high school student who sparks an interest in Rina. She poses as a student and is in all his classes but his girlfriend Chelsea sees something wierd in Rina from the start.

Who will win James' heart?

Blood Curse is the first Point Horror book I have read and also the first in this mini series.

The author, Janice Harrell, had me hooked right from the first word in the book.

The doubt and mystery James and Chelsea felt surrounding Rina, her personality and presence was extremely well portrayed and the love battle between Rina and Chelsea in their fight for James was well done, too.

I felt for Rina when she missed her human life and disliked Chelsea.

A quick, fast- paced read. I'll be on the lookout for more Point Horror books as well as Blood Spell, the second one in the series (an extract of which is at the end of book 1 which I was pleased to find).

5 stars.

[Erin]

This is a very typical Point Horror novel. It features the story of a female vampire who becomes infatuated with a teenage boy she meets in a cemetery. She enrolls in high school to get closer to him with the eventual goal of making him her companion. Somehow, she ends up accidentally turning his girlfriend Chelsea into a vampire when she tries to kill her rival, thus setting up the next book. It's dated, but fun.

[Mell]

Read this ages ago, back in the 90s, when the original Vampire Diaries caused a mini boom in vampire books. The woman at the bookstore was scandalized that Scholastic Books was publishing vampire fiction.

But this one was a dud. The characters had no pop. I never bothered to read the sequel.

[Michele Vance]

Boring, undeveloped characters.

[Kath]

Rina is not your usual vampire, and I loved her! She was tricked and turned by Vlad, escaped from him, and never wanted to be a vampire in the first place. Because of that, she seems to have never really got the hang of it. In that sense, she reminded me a little of Claudia, not because they are exactly alike (Rina is 16, not a child before puberty) but because neither really got the chance to grow up or live the human life they should have had. Rina may be 200 years old, but emotionally there is still something very young about her. So when she spots a mortal boy she fancies in a graveyard, her solution is obviously to go back to high school and attract his attention.

I loved Rina as a character. She felt completely rounded to me because although she is a killer she is also strangely naïve and innocent in the way she thinks. It almost feels as though the vampire instinct takes over and she simply doesn't really think through the consequences of the deaths she causes.

I particularly enjoyed her dispatching the computer thieves - although given how much she hates computing lessons, perhaps she should have let them finish the job. The janitor was probably less advisable if the long-term plan is to remain an undercover vampire at the school.

Harrell also cheerfully bends vampire lore to suit the story. Rina can wander around in daylight just like in Twilight, kind of a given if your vampire romance is set in a high school. There is also a rather random trip to Las Vegas, because apparently even the undead need a holiday.

But what I really loved was the way the rivalry between Rina and Chelsea develops. It starts as teenage jealousy and gradually becomes something much more dangerous. By the end I was completely invested with the book ending on a knife edge.

And oh, Rina. What a mistake to make!

All I'll say is that it ends on a cliff-hanger, and I am now firmly Team Chelsea for book two.

Ridiculous in places and occasionally completely unconcerned with traditional vampire rules - if you love everything 90s and everything vampire then you will enjoy this.

[Nadia Hana Hana]

You would think that this is a novel about a pretty vampire who fell in love, a girl with dark history ? NO! This is a book about hundreds years old vampire who is just aimlessly fell in love with some random guy, tried to kill his girlfriend, murdered a bunch of people, and still, for some reason, the author still want to paint this character as innocent and naive. It’s so inconsistent; the writings are awful, and the main character is just a manipulative psychopath. A sorry, sadistic, manipulative psychopath who “happens” to be a vampire. Yet here we talk about romanticizing love and her history, and her “innocent”, how much she’s not like “other girls”, how she’s special, beautiful, alluring ( manipulating ) because she’s a vampire. But besides that, nothing. At all. She has no interests towards anything, no nothing. So one day she met some guy and boom, she’s obsessed about him. Think about if the roles reversed. It won’t be a “Vampire’s Love”, it would be dark suspense-crime novel. I don’t mind the sexy, mysterious, alluring types of female characters. But this is just bad writing, she’s just plain, childish, and obssesive.

[Nadya]

First read this when I was roughly 13 years old. This was the first book I finished in one day.

As a 37 year old re-reading it, all I could remember was a vampire called Rina in high school and the blue cover with a vampire mouth on it.

Someone from Instagram told me the author and title. Remembered nothing of the story.

Flowed quite nicely and happy to have re-read it ☺️

Didn't remember the story.

[Sarah Thomson]

Re reading this after diving into the point horror world in my teens. It tells the tale of a teen vampire who falls in love with a fellow school boy.

The characters are fun but not deep. It’s what I’d call light viewing for readers. It’s not an intricately detailed or accurate book when it comes to lore but it was a fun read.

[Nadya]

I read this years ago in high school..the first book I read in a day. Years later I could only remember a vampire with the name.of Rena and a blue cover with a vampire mouth on it. Thanks to asking on an Instagram post someone gave me the title and author and I have now ordered a copy for myself (previous cope was the school's library)to reread.

[Scott Oliver]

When Rina, a centuries old vampire (who just happens to look 16), encounters James on one of her nightly cemetery visits she falls immediately in love. Rina decides to pretend to be a regular teen and enrol at school to be near James and finds her plans scuppered by his girlfriend Chelsea

I brought this years ago when I was a teenager and haven't read it since then. Not a bad read even now

[Heather]

A lot sexier than your average Point Horror, and a lot more vampirey too. A nice departure from the faux realism of RL Stine and sort of campy with it.

I read this for our podcast Teenage Scream, which dissects the best (and worst) of 90s Teen Horror.

https://soundcloud.com/teenagescream

[Bryony]

Classic point horror 🧛‍♀️

Kind of a tropey concept but told from a female vampires POV.

Chelsea was the most interesting character, James was just dull.

[D.L.]

Oh, what a stupid book!

[Madame Jane]

A very good read. Ridiculous in some places but entertaining otherwise.

[Louise]

A fun read. Oddly, I had the sequel in this series as a kid but hadn't read this one before. I liked the overall plot although I do think the characters could have been drawn a lot better.

[Georgina Barnes]

A fun read, read as part of a book club on Instagram @takesofpointhorrorbookclub

[Sakura Koneko]

I picked up this series after reading Janice Harrell's other vampire series, Vampire Twins.

I was a little dismayed at first at how normal the book seemed to be, even though it was nice to have a main character that was a female vampire. There were a lot of goofy things in this book regarding vampires, though in the end it wasn't a bad book.

If you're bored and able to find a copy, I'd say give a look.

[Sam]

Loved this book, if I remember rightly I read it all in one day and it was that good I've still got it on one of my many bookshelves and still have a read of it every now and again

[Teash]

i loved this book, it was amazing. made me feel like i wanted to be her in a way. i lent my copy to a friend and never got it back :(

[Katrina Sutton]

This was a book that I enjoyed very much. It has romance and vampires. What more could you ask for?

[Limbo Doria]

its a beautiful book