Review: Bittersweet Blood by Nina Croft

 

Bittersweet Blood by Nina Croft

Publication Date: February 17th 2013 by Entangled

Tara Collins just wants to be normal. Everyone else wants her dead.

Tara’s eccentric aunt raised her to be fearful of the world and follow the rules. But after her aunt’s death, Tara is ready to take control and experience life for the first time. But she quickly discovers that everything she’s been told is a web of lies. Determined to solve the mystery of who she is truly, she hires private investigator to help her uncover the truth.

Christian Roth is more than your average PI. A vampire and ex-demon hunter, Christian lives among the humans, trying to be “normal.” But recently, things seem to be falling apart. There’s a crazed demon hell-bent on revenge hunting him down, and a fae assassin on the loose with an unknown target. And the Order he abandoned desperately needs his help.

As the secrets of Tara’s past collide with the problems in Christian’s present, she finds herself fighting her attraction to the dark and mysterious investigator. Falling in love does not fit into her plans at all, but Tara soon learns that some rules are meant to be broken.
 

My Thoughts:
Bittersweet Blood was a deliciously addictive paranormal romance/mystery complete with vampires, fae, and shapeshifters.  A combination that ticked all the right boxes for me!

Tara’s childhood upbringing was far from normal.  She was raised by her reclusive aunt and taught to live by strict rules.  All this goes out the window when her aunt dies and Tara discovers everything was a lie.  Aunt Kathy was no relation; she didn’t even exist according to records.  Tara wants/needs to find out who she is and who her aunt was.  Why did she lie? To get to the bottom of things, Tara breaks her first rule: “Never question the past” by hiring detective Christian Roth to find out who she is.  She wants to leave the past behind and get on with life attending college, having friends and fun, just like any normal twenty-two year old.  What she doesn’t realize is when the past is revealed her life will be anything but normal. 

When vampire Christian Roth lays eyes and nose on Tara he knows she’s something different.  She smells divine and he would love nothing more than to sink his teeth into her vein and take a good hard pull.  Tara is gorgeous, but she’s also a client so he needs to keep his desires in check.  On top of all this, Christian is being sucked back into the world he thought he left behind.  He quit the Order to lead a somewhat “normal” life but with recent murders pointing to someone with a personal vendetta against him, he has no choice but to help investigate.  Christian’s growing attraction and attachment to Tara paints a target on her back when demons are hunting anyone he cares about. 

Bittersweet Blood was a fascinating story.  When you read a paranormal romance novel, some of the rules that that apply to a contemporary romance are thrown out the window.  Urges and behaviors that would be unacceptable in real life are okay because of the nature of these beings.  So you get the urges and passions so intense and consuming, making these reads a thrill and a whole lot of fun.  Marking, biting, feeding, and claiming are all part of the fantasy. 

“You smell so delicious.” 

Tara twitched, but his hands held her in place.  His lips were on her skin and a wave of heat washed over her.  Her eyes fluttered closed as his mouth opened against her throat and his tongue stroked, slow and cool against her heated flesh.
“Maybe just a little taste…,”

Part of why this was such a consuming read was getting to the bottom of Tara’s identity and the mystery of who is targeting Christian.  Seeing how all this unfolds kept me furiously clicking through the pages to discover the next revelation.   The mysteries are entwined and it was fun putting all the pieces together. 

I guess this is a start of a series, although this story wraps up nicely and to my satisfaction.  Yay, no cliffhanger!  I loved the fantasy world brought to life by Nina Croft, so I’ll definitely be picking up the next installment. 

A copy was provided by Entangled through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

4 Suns