First Drop of Crimson by Jeaniene Frost
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the first book in the Night Huntress World series, a spinoff from the *glorious* Night huntress series.
Denise MacGregory, best friend to legendary Cat Crawfield. She been through so much shit but still hella strong and got some bite *yes its a vampire pun*
“Don’t you ‘Denise’ me,” she snapped, “I don’t care how old, powerful, or strong you are. If you ever do something like that again, I’ll stab you n the heart. You son of a bitch, I can’t believe you threw me off a plane!”
Well reading it, you can’t help but compare Denise to Cat. Where Cat is murderous and vengeful, Denise has been hardened by personal tragedy so she more skeptical and protective. She sees the world for all its dangers but refuses to let that hold her back. I mean come on, the girl told fucking Ian that he looks like “a Dracula porn movie reject” *iconic*
Spade the old powerful vampire so he tends to be a little… old-fashioned
“First she’d manipulated him, now she insulted him. “No.”
She blinked. “No?”
“I understand your confusion,” Spade said smoothly, “since it seems you don’t hear that word often, but allow me to explain. It means I’m not your employee.“
Sadly, I didn’t feel like Spade really differentiated himself from Bones… minus the whole accent thing… He just the classic trifecta: brave, loyal and bloodthirsty ( •̀ᴗ•́ )و ̑̑ :
“If Spade couldn’t discover any concrete information on demon dispatchment, he’d start with decapitation and work his way down from there.”
Now lets get to the romance build up
Neither is perfect and they have both lost people and it just made them even fucking better. While Cat has a great backstory, she hasn’t really had personal tragedy or loss. Denise fights even through she been thru hell. And Spade patient but possessive. Just amazing:
“There’s nothing casual about my feelings for you, Denise,” he whispered. His voice deepened. “And I have no intention of letting you go anywhere tomorrow, or the next day, or the next.”
While it’s not *quite* insta-love. The build-up does go smooth and steady from sass to tentative allies to boomshakalaka
Honestly, I think I’m just sad to leave this world so I’m clinging to it via any characters that I can (oh come on, who can blame me?)
While some series do spinoffs that leave me feeling unfilled **cuz I just wanna know what my usual main characters are up 2**. This one didn’t!! I’m not sure if its because that the storylines are creatively intertwined, or because the characters were hilarious or I’m just a vampire slut. Those are all viable factors. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So if you’re like me and not ready to leave this hilarious fresh take on a cliche paranormal world, then I highly suggest adding this TR list and meeting ♡ Denise and Spade ♡
Leave a Reply