Of Blood and Honey

It seems the only luck Liam Kelly has is bad luck. A young man in 1970s Northern Ireland, he's living in the middle of a civil war zone. Say or do the wrong thing and off you go to some nasty internment camp. That's where Liam ends up on more than one occasion. That's not to say he's a choir boy. He isn't the most likeable guy, but all he wants is to find a job and marry Mary Kate.

While at the internment camp called "the Kesh", Liam discovers the anger inside him can literally turn him into a monster in the form of a very large killer dog. He later learns how he came to have this power of transformation and struggles to control it. Throughout the story he uses the power to seek revenge on certain people.

Author Stina Leicht conveys the turbulent streets of Northern Ireland during "the troubles" very well. It was an extremely dangerous place and you didn't know who you could trust. Rioting was common. There were "checkpoints" to try to catch members of the illegal Provisional IRA (Irish Republican Army) and terrorists.

Besides the stress of joining up with the IRA with his friend Oran, Liam doesn't know his biological father and that is also a big conflict in the story.

Can Liam keep his monster under control? Does he even want to? What will happen when he comes face to face with his father?

OF BLOOD AND HONEY starts off slow, building the characters. The real action starts about a third of the way into the book and it can be quite brutal at times. Still, if you suspend your disbelief a bit, it's a great story of love and revenge.