Spells of Blood and Kin: Toronto’s Dangerous Inheritance

An inheritance can be a place in a family, a debt, or a danger someone else has kept under control. In Spells of Blood and Kin, Lissa Nevsky inherits a grandmother’s position in a small folk community — and the obligations that come with it.

Claire Humphrey’s debut novel was published by Thomas Dunne Books on June 14, 2016. The publisher’s premise brings Lissa into contact with Maksim Volkov, whose violent blood-borne nature has spread to a young man named Nick. Finding Nick before he harms others becomes part of a much older family entanglement.

Contemporary reviews reached for werewolf language, though they did not describe the creatures in quite the same way. Publishers Weekly called the infection lycanthropy; a June 2016 review in Bull Spec described the Kin as werewolf-like berserkers who do not change form.

That difference is useful for a reader approaching the novel through its monster connections. The premise’s threat is not dependent on a visible body changing into a wolf. It can pass through blood, obligation and the failure of an older safeguard.

Toronto gives those dangers an ordinary set of streets to move through. The question promised by the setup is an intimate one: what happens when a family’s old work falls to someone who has only just learned how much it was holding back?

Sources

• Spells of Blood and Kin — Publishers Weekly review
• Macmillan / Thomas Dunne Spring 2016 catalog
• Bull Spec, contemporary review, June 21, 2016