Bite the Woman That Feeds

Dirty Blood, Book 1

By: Penelope Barsetti

Narrated by: Ramona Master, Michael Ferraiuolo

A sickness has claimed the kingdoms of men. Everyone is either sick or dying, weak to a curse that has no cure—except for me. I’m immune to this mysterious illness, and I do my best to heal the sick and ease the pain of the dying. I was supposed to marry the Prince of Raventower, but after his father and elder brother succumbed to the sickness, he’s now king—and can only marry someone of his station.

Kingsnake, King of Vampires and Lord of Darkness, marches upon our gates and demands a handful of our healthiest citizens. The vampires have always stuck to their lands, but their lack of food has made them desperate. King Elias not only succumbs to his demands—he offers me on the condition that Kingsnake never return. The man I loved betrayed me—and will feed me to a monster.

Prisoner to the vampire king, I witness his cruelty and malice first-hand. I knew I would hate him, but I didn’t know how much I would hate him. The feeling is mutual, because I can feel the emotions of those around me, and his emotions burn with rage anytime he’s in my presence. But the second he tastes my blood, everything changes.

His anger is replaced by an intensity I’ve never felt in my life. It’s so powerful it smothers me until I can’t breathe. His stare is like wildfire, so searing hot it makes my skin melt. I know he wants me—and he wants me more than anyone else ever has. Even the man I loved never wanted me like this… I would never sleep with a vampire…but Kingsnake is no ordinary vampire.

©2023 Penelope Barsetti (P)2023 Dreamscape Media

Perfect world building

World building
Spice
Strong female lead
War
Revenge
Miss placed hate
Vampires, werewolf’s, humans, “gods”

Just wow!

I don’t know what I was originally expecting but this far surpassed any notion I had diving into this blindly.

So freaking good

Yessssss

This is amazing story great build just as amazing as the buttons story love it so much

Such an amazing story!

I probably should have seen the outcome but I did not! It was so good the character motives were on point!

My only slight is that I didn’t fall in love with the voice actors.

But this book was good enough that it carried them the rest of the way!

audio is rough

This is one of my fav books and it's unfornate this audio is rough. I feel like I am either listening to an AI audio, or like a 1900s radio story. I have never left a review this negative on any book ever, but lord I feel like I just set up my phone to read this to me. It's so bad.

uhmmm

SPOILER FREE: I was really confused by the use of language in this book. In the beginning, the FMC has a conversation that has a very 18-19th century prose to it, but then a few chapters later they're using current slang for things? There were also a few misuses of words, like the author tried to use a bigger word but didn't really know what it meant (or maybe used the wrong word?). This is definitely a sub/dom-'pleasure in the pain' type of dynamic and not really written in a way where you can overcome any discomfort if it's triggering to you at all. During a lot of the 🌶️ scenes, I kept wondering "was this written by a man or a woman"?? Not that women can't have these sorts of thoughts during 🌶️ time, but this was written in a way that I don't think any of us can really relate to (very p*rn inspired). If I had a penny for every time they said big d*ck in this book....
As for the plot.. it's all very clear which way things are going to go and you as the reader are clued into everything before the characters are, so you're sort of just waiting for the characters to catch up to you. Which personally, is not my cup of tea in this genre. The FMC also describes seeing certain things throughout the book and at first, I thought what she was seeing was actually going on, but you figure out about 30% through the book that it's actually just in her head. This did not come off to me as a literary tactic, more just that the author didn't explain a very basic concept of the magic in the world before just writing out the scenes. Part of why I feel this way is because there are other disjointed scenes throughout the book that make you wonder "were there just pages skipped or was that just a really abrupt cut scene?" The magic system and world building are very subpar and there's still a lot about those two things that are left unexplained, while we got an almost obnoxious amount of 🌶️ scenes instead. The best part of the book for me was honestly Fang. He's a true homie and his relationship with the FMC is the only thing that kept me reading.

Cliffhanger

Amazing book! My only problem is that it ends in a cliffhanger. The first 2 in this series end in a cliffhanger. Book 3 wraps up most of it but there are still loose ends that I'm assuming will be wrapped up in 4 through 6. I'll find out soon.

Good start to a new series

I did not read anything - reviews or even the plot summary before starting this book so boy was I in for a surprise. The storyline of this book is about a world where there are many different creatures other than humans in this world vampires, orcs, elves). In the vampire world, there are different factions of vampires- and they all seem to have taken names from the snake kingdom (i.e. Kingsnake, Cobra, etc). Anyway, the Vampires definitely need human blood to survive and some kingdoms of the vampires take them forcefully (they are referred to as prey) and others have humans that willingly volunteer to donate blood for various reasons.

In this world, one particular territory - Grayson, the realm of Kingsnake- all of a sudden has had a plague hit the humans and they are dying off extremely rapidly. If the humans get sick and a Vampire feeds on a sick human, that impacts the Vampire as well. There is one human woman who seems to be immune from the plague and her name is Larissa.

The King of the Grayson territory goes to this human realm and demands 8 humans as feeders - with Larissa being one of them and so it begins.

Larissa's blood is not only powerful, but it gives the King strength and power that he has not has in many centuries. And soon, everyone wants her. Some to kill her, others to have her.

Larissa starts of hating the Vampires, but eventually begins to understand them and especially begins to have a relationship with the King. So - that is where things get interesting.

This world is unique and interesting. There are many, many things that we are just discovering along with Larissa. The longer we stay in this land and the more characters we meet, the more we realize that there is a heck of a lot going on between the various factions. There are the Originals, the Elves (who have portrayed themselves as gods to the humans for centuries), the different factions of Vampires and werewolves...to name a few.

So- things are getting interesting.....

Mixed feelings about this one

I gave this one a shot. I was hoping for depth, substance, and a good story line as well as the typical 🌶️🥵… the spice is fine but every time I heard “big dick” I just rolled my eyes. It was off putting and annoying. I was hoping the FMC was going to be more than just combative and naive. I was hoping for a powerful partnership with respect but it was just the MMC being annoyed and then just wanting to bang her all the time. I wanted emotion, passion, erotica, and a solid story line. There was soo much potential here but it fell short. I want to explore the world and characters especially since there are to be 6 books in the series.

Good story

I was not on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading. I actually took several breaks from this book which is something I normally don't do with audiobooks. It was a good story, it just was maybe a little bit slow... I'm not sure. It just didn't keep my interest well. Also I do not think that the narrators fit the characters; the male more so than the female. She did a pretty good job, but as with most of the female narrators she kind of hurt my ears. Overall, I think I recommend but am seriously on the fence.