Blood Type (Blood Type: Book 1) by K.A. Linde

5 Stars

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group, Loveswept

Date of publication: April 24th, 2018

Genre: Romance, Fantasy

Series: Blood Type

Blood Type – Book 1

Blood Match – Book 2

Blood Cure – Book 3

Where you can find Blood Type: Amazon | Barnes and Noble

Book synopsis (from Goodreads):

A startling new vision of paranormal romance: When a human ventures into the world of vampires—a decadent milieu of blood-bonds and betrayal—she discovers that not all is what it seems.

For Reyna Carpenter, giving up her body isn’t a choice. It’s survival.

In a civilization laid waste by poverty and desperation, Reyna accepts a high-paying position with the wealthy and hungry vampire elite. Her new job is as the live-in blood escort for the intimidating, demanding, and devilishly handsome Beckham Anderson. He’s everything she expected from a vampire, except for one thing—he won’t feed off her.

Reyna soon discovers that behind Beckham’s brooding, wicked façade lies a unique and complex man. And that, in a dark and divided world, she is more valuable than she ever would have believed.

For with each passing night, Reyna can’t shake the sensation that it’s Beckham who’s afraid of her.

Note: Reyna and Beckham’s story continues in Blood Match.

My review:

When I saw that this book was up for review on NetGalley, I almost passed it by. But something about the blurb caught my attention and made me look twice. I thought it was going to be your typical Twilight knockoff. Not only am I glad that I requested (and got) the book, I am glad that my assumption was so wrong. This book is nothing like the Twilight knockoff. NOTHING like it. So don’t expect a book like that. Expect something that is much darker and grittier. These vampires don’t glitter.

Blood Type takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. Vampires came out to the humans years before, sending the world into a tailspin. After the dust settled, the vampires had taken over the world. People were left fighting for food, shelter, and jobs. Reyna grew up during that time and is struggling to survive in the new world the vampires created. Her way out is to become a blood escort. Someone who lets the vampires feed off of her in exchange for money. But, she gets chosen to test out a new role. A role as a live-in escort. Her sponsor is the VP of the escort company, Beckham Anderson. As heat and lust sparks between Beckham and Reyna, she can’t feel that there is something off. Something that she doesn’t know about. Something that could make or break her world if she finds out.

Like I mentioned above, this book was gritty. It was not written to make you think that vampires where nice people who happened to want to drink your blood. Nope, these vampires were evil. Even if they had good intentions, like Beckham. I loved it!!! It was a refreshing read and different from other vampire books. I was not bored reading it.

I felt bad for Reyna. She tried everything in her power to get out of where she was staying. The escort service was her last resort. She didn’t want to be known as a blood whore. She was ashamed of it. I did get a laugh out of her wardrobe and her reaction to it. What was running through my head was Julia Roberts wardrobe before Richard Greer picked her up in Pretty Woman. Except Reyna had the opposite reaction.

I couldn’t get a feel on Beckham until almost the end of the book. Normally, that bothers me but in this case, it only added to how much I like the book. He is a vampire. I shouldn’t be able to read him like a book. I should have to work, like Reyna did, to see what he was like underneath. It wasn’t until the bombing that I even began to understand him. I loved it!!!

The sexual tension in Blood Type was through the roof. Reyna and Beckham do not actually have sex until towards the end of the book. I thought that the author did a great job keeping the sexual tension up until then. When they finally had sex, it was explosive. I swear my Kindle’s screen fogged up a few times.

The end of the book was insane. Not going to get into it, but I was not expecting what happened. There is a cliffhanger. I don’t like cliffhangers but this one made me eager to read book 2.

What I liked about Blood Type:

A) Vampires were what I thought they should be. Not glittery freaks.

B) Reyna and Beckham’s sexual tension

C) The plotline

What I dislike about Blood Type:

A) Reyna being forced into being a blood escort

B) The other live in blood escorts. They annoyed me

C) The judgey peeps that Reyna met

I would give Blood Type a rating of Adult. There is explicit sex, explicit violence, and language. This is a book that no one under the age of 21 should be reading.

I wouldn’t give this book any trigger warnings.

I would recommend Blood Type to family and friends. I would give a warning about the sex, violence, and language. This is a book that I would reread. This is also a series that I am going to enjoy reading.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group and Loveswept for allowing me to read and review Blood Type.

All opinions stated in this review of Blood Type are mine.

**I chose to leave this review after reading an advance reader copy**