Stained in Blood - ARC Review

 This was an interesting novel. There are some things that I liked and there were some things that I disliked about this book. I always believe in getting through the bad things first. So, I found it hard to connect to these characters. I wanted some more time to get to know them as individuals, or have more insight into them before we got to some of the other stuff. For example our FMC, Eden, just seemed like she was the wind blowing from one thing to another. It felt like she allowed for the MMC, Shiloh to kinda maneuver her from not really wanting to be in his presence to all of a sudden she's getting fingered. Like she wanted him but I just feel like that escalated quickly. From there she kinda just rolled with whatever was going on without really taking a second to breath and take it all in. Ironically enough, I don't really have any character negatives for Shiloh. I don't like how he moved from one woman to another. Even though we verbally get the confirmation that they both agreed on how their relationship was, it set Eden up to look like a homewrecker. I really hate that for her. I hope that as things progress with the story that things get better in that aspect. The next thing that kinda had me hung up is the fact that everything just felt very meh. We don't have a concrete villain per se and there really wasn't any relationship drama between Shiloh and Eden. The issue was with other characters and then when we do see those other characters, they felt very non factorish. So without any real tension in the story, it felt like a long prologue. Now, onto the things I liked! I liked that Eden was in a very non traditional field. I rarely hear of this field mentioned amongst many black characters so to have this be her field was so interesting. It is something that I am interested in myself so Eden and I would definitely bond over bones and ancient studies! I also liked that there were so many POCs in positions of power! We have Eden, who is a doctor, the vampire warden over this area and a police officer. I liked that we get to see people who look like us in different positions with different likes than just the "norm". Overall, I really wanted just a little more mmph from this book and it would have definitely been higher on my recommend list.

The spice in this book was ok. Again, I wasn't really connected with the characters completely so it didn't manage to hit like some others have. Also, I am not a fan of excessive spit. So there is a lot of drool happening in this book and it gave me the super ick. I would give the spice a 3.5 out of 5. After all that, I do want to know what happens next for these characters. I think I would probably like to see some more depth from them and more tension between them and what the "big bad" ends up being in the next book. I think I'd recommend this to someone who likes southern vampire vibes. With caveat, that there is a lot of drool. I feel like I need trigger warnings for drool.