Bittersweet Blood
Author: Nina Croft
Publisher: Entangled
Date: February 17, 2013
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Source: NetGalley (Thank you!)
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Bittersweet Blood is one of those urban-fantasy-para-romance books.  When the mood strikes, I can just gobble this genre right up.  It's fun.  It's sexy.  It's intriguing and magical.





Tara just wants a normal 20-something life in London; however, after her mysterious aunt's death, she begins to break all of the rules and discovers that there is absolutely nothing normal about her.  Throw in a sexy vampire to guide her and every character from the fantasy world you can imagine, and you have a damn good story in the city.

Werewolves, and witches and fairies, oh my!  Most novels take on one or two of the paranormal, but this series seems to be taking them all on, and I love that.  Why not?  So many possibilities.  I was genuinely shocked at every revelation and jaw-dropper.  I love a book that can shock me.  I hate predictability.  This one had so many great twists that I didn't see coming.

I loved Tara's character.  She was sweet, but tough and knew how to stand her ground.  I felt like I really got to know her and she was unique.  A lot of times in these para-romance novels, the characters just sort of blend and don't stand out.  I really felt Tara's voice in this story and I really liked her a lot.

At the start, this story began to run a path a little to close to a Fifty Shades parody for my taste.  I really didn't want this story's Christian to be like that other story's Christian.  Thankfully, he wasn't.  He wasn't a phenomenally intriguing character, and I hope she develops him into something less perfect and more interesting in the next few books, but I still thought their relationship was sexy and sweet.  It had the right amount of tension without him being a controlling psychopath...whew!

This series has a lot of potential and though I would have liked for her to take more risks and break the mold of the para-romance genre, I will definitely be picking up the sequel to this first book.  I just hope she sticks with Tara's journey.  I cannot wait to see how this character develops over time.

Find it here:
Goodreads // Amazon // Barnes & Nobles

Only $3.79 on e-reader!  Grab it for a great summer read!