Review: The Originals: The Loss (The Originals #2)
Paranormal Vampire Fiction
Released March 31, 2015
HQN Books

Reviewed by Sheena

Favorite Quote: “Klaus was never eager to be on the wrong side  of a bargain, but if it meant that Vivianne would be returned to him, he would listen to anything the witch had to say.”

The Loss picks up 40 years after the destruction and chaos that engulfed the Vampire’s New Orleans city.  The blood sucking siblings are back and as petty as ever.  Blatantly disregarding one another’s boundaries, harboring grudges and flaunting undisguised contempt, it is a wonder they have survived together for the past 40 years.  This all changes when Klaus becomes obsessed with bringing his fallen love, Vivianne back from the dead.  He hears tale that a powerful witch can  bring his beloved back from beyond the grave and stops at nothing to bring her back.  Klaus is so blinded by his fixation to have her once again, that even when it is painfully obvious that the vengeful witch Lily Leroux, is being duplicitous, he still goes along with her fiendish plan.   Klaus uses his life’s blood to bestow upon Lily a long sought after power that she uses to unleash vile devastation the likes of which New Orleans has never seen before.

I enjoyed the first The Originals series novel The Rise  and was quite pleased to see no signs of a sophomore slump in The Loss.  Easily read as a stand alone, in book 2, The Loss, the author does a fine job catching the reader up through flashbacks (used sparingly) and plenty of context references.  Not focused on looking back, the plot propels forward and a far more romantically inclined novel than the first book, The Loss, despite the hero’s  (anti hero?- he really is a jerk) obsession with his lover, the story is just not nearly romancy enough for me.  All those battle, blood thirsty vamps and a huge lack of focus on any naughty love bites? A few smooches and veiled sexy references here and there?  Meh! The trade off, these are Vampires of old  and they behave as such.  The story conveys the vampires are dark creatures and when they feed dammit the bodies pile up…score one for authenticity!

A problem I had with Klaus (whose actions, primarily, drive the plot forward) is his lack of compunction. Yeah yeah, he is a vamp and by nature egocentric- I get it.  But I felt no real, deep seated love between he and Vivianne.

And everywhere he turned, there was Vivianne…She seemed a bit subdued compared to her former vivacious self, but Vivianne was still thoughtful and articulate, and above all she had no interest in eating living flesh.

Right because that is how we describe our forever love…thoughtful and articulate. snort.  Though he says the contrary, his actions are severely selfish and come from a place of “she was MINE- I want her back, consequences be damned.” This attitude from him bugged me because despite his expected narcissism, he is a part of the ruling Originals, a leader of his clan, he absolutely behaved the spoiled brat and I found myself doing a lot of eyebrow raising and secon d guessing his actions.

The circumstances surrounding Vivianne’s…second life are a spoiler mine filed, so I won’t give too much away and I without pause recommend the book- if you are partial to action, battle royale novels with romantic….undertones. The fighting scenes are very well done!  I was sucked in (heh) and transported to the scenes, like a sentry observing, watching,  as if I too were a part of the battle- a skill I always appreciate when authors dare to write intricate battle scenes.

On the whole, the character motivations (aside from Mr. me, me, me Klaus) seemed overly reactionary.   I wanted the characters to DO something besides just react to the reign of terror..Dialogue, fight fight. Klaus gets his way. fight. Look- Vivieanne’s back.  Gasp. Fight fight.  Everyone is annoyed at Klaus. fight fight.  Klaus’ sister Rebekah is the bright spot in the spiraling series of events, as she alone saw the writing on the wall and attempted to head him off at pass after destructive pass.

Leashing my disappointment at the love drought between these pages, it was still quite well written and interesting.  There was a distracting lack of balance as the novel felt like A Klaus’ tale, and he was so singularly focused that a break into a compelling subplot would have been appreciated.  Nearly every facet of the novel fed into Vivianne’s resurrection and the fall out from Lily’s contemptuous rage.

I imagine fans of this book will debate if Klaus bargained to raise her because he truly loved her or if he was just in a vampiric grip of fixated fascination and the next installment will have him on the next crazed crusade.  As it stands, I remain invested in these characters and am interested to see where the series go from here.  Thankfully, I was spared a cliffhanger ending, the climax wrapped up nice and neat- just the way I like it.

Grade: C+

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