The Blood Books are now available in "Blood Ties" TV tie-in editions. View our TV tie-in feature page here here. Vicki Nelson has received the call that no daughter ever wants to receive—that her mother has died. Marjory Nelson’s coworkers at the Queen’s University Life Science Department told her that she suffered a heart attack, and that they’d be waiting for Vicki to arrive in Kingston to make the funeral arrangements. But what begins as a personal tragedy turns into the most terrifying case of Vicki’s career, when her mother’s body disappears mysteriously from the funeral home. Someone at the University is determined to learn the secret of life after death…and they’ve decided to make Vicki’s mother part of their horrifying experiments. Praise for the series: “An interesting departure from the many vampire books now available. It provides an entertaining and engrossing stor y for leisure reading.”— Kliatt “A suspenseful story that deals with the emotional content of the situation rather than the obvious potential for overt horror.”— Science Fiction Chronicle “Huff has retained her humor along with her horror, her characters have continued to develop, and her plots are quirky and original .”— VOYA “Explores the borders of death and beyond with an intensity that is only partially lightened by touches of ironic humor. Written with the author’s usual flair for realistic fantasy.” — Library Journal Tanya Huff  may have left Nova Scotia at three, and has lived most of her life since in Ontario, but she still considers herself a Maritimer. On the way to the idyllic rural existence she shares with her partner Fiona Patton, six cats, and a chihuahua, she acquired a degree in Radio and Television Arts from Ryerson Polytechnic—an education she was happy to finally use while writing her recent Smoke novels . Of her previous twenty-three books, the five— Blood Price, Blood Trail, Blood Lines, Blood Pact, Blood Debt —featuring Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII, romance writer, and vampire are among the most popular. ONE     “MRS. SIMMONS? IT’S VICKI Nelson calling; the private investigator from Toronto?” She paused and considered how best to present the information. Oh, what the hell . . . “We’ve found your husband.”     “Is he . . . alive?”     “Yes, ma’am, very much so. He’s working as an insurance adjuster under the name Tom O’Conner.”     “Don always works in insurance.”     “Yes, ma’am, that’s how we found him. I’ve just sent you a package, by courier, containing a copy of everything we’ve discovered including a number of recent photographs—you should receive it before noon tomorrow. The moment you call me with a positive ID, I’ll take the information to the police and they can pick him up.”     “The police thought they found him once before—in Vancouver—but when they went to pick him up he was gone.”     “Well, he’ll be there this time.” Vicki leaned back in her chair, shoved her free hand up under the bottom edge of her glasses and scrubbed at her eyes. In eight years with the Metropolitan Toronto Police and nearly two years out on her own, she’d seen some real SOBs; Simmons/O’Conner ranked right up there with the best of them. Anyone who faked his own death in order to ditch a wife and five kids deserved exactly what he got. “My partner’s going to talk to him tonight. I think your husband will decide to stay right where he is.”       The bar was noisy and smoky, with tables too small to be useful and chairs too stylized to be comfortable. The beer was overpriced, the liquor over-iced, and the menu a tarted-up mix of at least three kinds of quasi-ethnic cooking plus the usual grease and carbohydrates. The staff were all young, attractive, and interchangeable. The clientele were a little older, not quite so attractive although they tried desperately hard to camouflage it, and just as faceless. It was, for the moment, the premier poser bar in the city and all the wannabes in Toronto shoehorned themselves through its doors on Friday night.     Henry Fitzroy paused just past the threshold and scanned the crowd through narrowed eyes. The smell of so many bodies crammed together, the sound of so many heartbeats pounding in time to the music blasting out of half a dozen suspended speakers, the feel of so many lives in so little space pulled the Hunger up and threatened to turn it loose. Fastidiousness more than willpower held it in check. In over four and a half centuries, Henry had never seen so many people working so hard and so futilely at having a good time.     It was the kind of place he wouldn’t be caught dead in under normal circumstances, but tonight he was hunting and this was where his quarry had gone to ground. The crowd parted as he moved away from the door, and eddies of whispered speculation followed in his wake.     “Who does he think he is . . .”     “. . . I’m telling you, he’s somebody . . .”     Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII, o