D.G. ~Shameless Reader~

Lately I only feel like listening to romance in audio and that's the only reason why I didn't dnf this puppy.

Bonded by Blood was a below average read. The characters were cookie cutter and nothing to talk about but the biggest problem in the book were the technical aspects, which needed a lot of work to make a cohesive book. The world building was an anemic mishmash of the usual vampire myths and some of the new themes we've seen in popular series like the BDB but with no explanation as to how these seemingly contradictory elements could work - I need more explanations about a world where vampires are born AND can be turned. The timing transitions were terrible. A few times I didn't realize that days/weeks have passed until I was several minutes into a chapter, so every time there was a transition I was left wondering if it was the next hour or the next week.

Another distracting feature was the weird shortening of the main characters' names. When people said 'Dom', I imagined the hero in leather and chains; Mckenzie was sometimes called "Kenze" and most of the time I didn't who they were talking about.

The author seemed to be inexperienced and/or uncomfortable with love scenes and didn't seem to think things through. Some scenes would start steamy and then sort of fade to black; there was a lot of rearranging of erections and hardening of the hero's cock but there were barely any details about the heroine's parts. I even wondered if the hero was the only one with genitals.

The confrontation with the uber villain (which was of the mustache twirling variety) was anticlimactic and there was a conflict with the hero's brother that was so obvious that it was laughable. Oh and that end was just too freaking maudlin.

This is the first time I've listened Antonia Laury and I'll definitely listen to a book narrated by her again. I enjoyed her narration even if the book wasn't to my taste.

Definitely not continuing this series.