Review: Bloodline Immersed In You

Please note that this review has spoilers!



Bloodline Immersed In You by A.R. Dean

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



2 and a 1/2 towards 3 stars

I am picky with my book tastes, but I am open enough to read almost anything that crosses my way; especially if it has vampires.  I discovered Bloodline Immersed in You while browsing freebies for Kindle and was immediately drawn to the premise of a nurse who turns into a vampire after an accident in the ER with a needle. I jumped into this book with very very low expectations, being a self pub first book, however, I became engrossed with the story, enough to enjoy it despite it's drawbacks.

I enjoyed the plot, as it's a tad different from many of the books out there in the paranormal + vampire genre. In this book we have a female MC who turns into a vampire early in the book. Nick, a hot sexy vampire helps her during her transformation and  becomes her lover. this last part is obviously NOT expected at all :-)

Kathleen - or Katy, Kat- is 36 years old. She lives in our contemporary world, in Texas and works as an ER nurse at a hospital. She is married and had a daughter when she was 16, who doesn't live with her, but with her dad.  Kat's current marriage is in the brink of collapsing, however she is sort of satisfied with most of the aspects of her life; particularly her work and routine. She has a best friend Angie

You'll expect that when 1) she learns that vampires exist, 2) she becomes one and 3)she gets super powers: becomes a shape shifter and has premonitions; the book would  take a turn focusing towards more paranormal twists, but here is where this book left me dumbfounded. It became a story about the everyday normal life of a middle upper class couple that sometimes in between the: steamy sex scenes, the dinner dates (yeah, our MC loves sushi), hospital shifts, the strangled relationship with a daughter the long term infidelity and divorce; remembers that they have to drink blood... Yes, I had forgotten, they are vampires.

Vampires are supposedly everywhere. They are vampire judges, police, doctors and I wouldn't be surprised if the politicians were too. Soooo much potential in this story, but I felt it came short by focusing on pointless things, that felt unnecessary and long. We don't learn much about vampires, beyond that they can live forever, sunlight doesn't affect them and some have strange powers.

As I said in the beginning, I'm a picky reader, but I know what kind of book I was reading. I felt it was very creative and I did finish it quickly. The author has a great voice and imagination that bleeds (note my vampire allusion) in a fantastic way through each page. I was not expecting some of its twists and I was pleasantly surprised.

However, I can't help to note that I felt this story wanted to tell a lot in such a way that many characters, events and situations were seriously unnecessary and in many cases underdeveloped.

There were things and situations I didn't wanted to see, hear or have our characters say.



For example, the best friend Angie, who dies and leaves Kat all her money and all the chapters devoted to their relationship... it just dragged on.
I had to challenge myself to continue reading this book when early on, Kat and Angie are out at night dancing, a sentence put me off entirely: 'Our continuous dancing like lesbian lovers seemed only to fuse the guy's persistence'. Argh! Stereotypes much? Why is this necessary? It didn't add anything to the story. I sort of understand what the author was trying to explain here, but...nope. Why is it necessary to add the word lesbian here? She is having fun with her girlfriend. Stereotyping behaviour of people with diverse sexual preferences bothers me.
However, this was not something that came back to the story, so I was glad to continue and give it a chance.

We learn at the beginning that Kat is a very sexual person. And true to her character, we get to read about steamy hot sex. It had lots of good very graphic sensual descriptions, leaving only small amounts to your imagination. Very sexy stuff! I appreciated how Callie, Kat's daughter, acted upon her desires and made the first move with Dean. And in that note, yes, I found it a bit creepy that this guy was first in love with Kat and then her daughter... but maybe its just me

Nick was a good male lead. Flawed when he just leaves Kat in the bar once she sees Orlando (her maker) fully aware that she is in danger and just acting on a vampire instinct... Tsk-tsk, not cool Nick , but his devotion redeems him. I liked him. I also liked Stephen and his welcoming personality. As you can already imagine, this book has a whole lot of story and characters in play.

There was simply too much unnecessary medical information. As a reader, I am looking to immerse myself in a story that is entertaining, not to read how medical equipment works, lab techniques and ways to analyse blood. Why was C.S.I. a  TV success? Because even though the main plot was to solve a case using lab-work, the story was focused on the interactions, observations and 'discoveries'; not the description of what equipment was used and the details of lab-work. Leaving much more room for imagination. Kudos for the research involved writing this book, but I would cut many of these.

There were a lot of grammatical errors, and editing that needs to be done. Particularly the second half has plenty of dialogues that never close the quotations.

I think I should stop. I could go on and on in stuff  I liked and stuff that I wasn't entirely sure. This means that the book was good enough to keep me engrossed. Yes it needs editing, yes it drags on unnecessary stuff, but I had fun.

I'm not sure that I would recommend it to anyone as it is. If it gets a revision I'll certainly would!



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