Blood Descent (Blood Hunters #3) by Marie Treanor
It is finally time for Elizabeth Silk to give birth to her baby. The vampire and hunter world is on full alert because this is the first child to be born of a human and a vampire. For Konrad, this is a day he has been dreading. Though the other hunters have managed to strike an accord with the vampires, he is convinced that despite Saloman's promises, the vampires represent a huge threat to humanity. With that in mind, Konrad travels across Europe in an attempt to find hunters who will rally behind him. What Konrad does not expect is to ally with a vampire named Maggie but when her goals seem to be the same as his and he finds himself lacking the hunter back up he would like, Konrad decides that he has no choice. It's a race against time but Konrad keeps finding himself distracted by Maggie.
Once again, Treanor starts subverting gender norms for this genre by having a female vampire and a human male. Konrad is also incredibly damaged having been tortured nearly to death by vampires and witnessing the death of his parents at the hands of vampires. Woman as victim, in need of saving, is often the theme in paranormal romance which makes Konrads back story really challenging to the ridiculous gender tropes too often normalized in paranormal fantasy. Unfortunately, this is were subversive plot ends. It quickly becomes clear that despite being a vampire, Konrad is stronger than Maggie. Maggie's only real strength lies in her telepathic ability. To make matters worse, Maggie's mission for almost the entirety of this novel is to save Konrad, who is supposedly a good man gone bad. Could it be any more trope laden? The idea that a woman should fix a damaged man is extremely problematic and leads far too many women to abusive relationships.
We do get the requisite declaration of love at the end of Blood Descent but it is highly problematic given the abusive nature of the interactions between Maggie and Konrad. For the majority of the book, Konrad repeatedly threatens to kill Maggie and when he is not holding a weapon to her heart, he is verbally abusive. Maggie spends her time being passive, sure in her conviction that her goodness will cause Konrad to change his mind about vampires. Where do I even begin with how problematic this message is? The very idea that if a woman is good enough that a man will stop abusing her is victim blaming and sick. The relationship between Konrad and Maggie is not a whirlwind romance but the story of a woman being abused over a lengthy period of time supposedly in the name of love. Konrad gives a weak apology and is of course forgiven because Maggie loves him. There is no discussion of counselling to deal with his abusive tendencies; it's a ridiculous narrative about the love of a good woman saving damaged man
