It was ok... Its just I didnt care for negative LGBTQ r3emarks. The book really wasn't for me. However, I did like the cover of it, and the premise was worth a loook.

Enthralling! The story will capture you on page one. Hard to put down.
Many thanks to Pronoun and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

The prologue of this book set it up to be a decently creepy ghost story. And then it was all downhill from there. Every character is outrageously gorgeous and in love with the (rather pathetic) main character, who puts all of the other characters - and possibly the whole world - in danger so he can run off after the dude he has a crush on instead of letting more experienced people take the lead. The inclusion of a race of super-vampires could have been interesting, but it felt too much like a rip-off/mash-up of the Van Helsing movie and the Twilight series with everyone being very pretty and also very stupid. Honestly, the great descriptions of the Warfield plantation are the only reason this book managed to get a second star from me.

UnEven is the only word I can think of to describe this book. It had so much potential but fell short.

It had a lot of twist and turns but just couldn't hold my interest.

It didn't only had an awesome take on vamp lore (of which I'm always a fan, and always eager to try new content), it was also action-packed and it covered the human aspect of the characters beautifully. You can't help but root for Cooper and Randy (and Cooper is one charming MC on his own as well, so that's a plus!)

I really, really enjoyed this one!

Unfortunately I did not get to download this book in time so I am unable to review

Such a great read! I don't usually read Paranormal Thrillers, but the Author definitely had me enthralled; so much so that I finished the entire book on a long flight! I look forward to whatever comes next from the Author!

Thanks to Netgalley for making it possible for me to read this novel. Receiving an ARC had no influence on my review. Honestly the book hovered between a 3.5 & 4 star review for me but at the end of the day I thought it was a lot of fun so I kicked it up to the four. I’ll also say if you read m/m books only for the romance and sex, this probably isn’t going to be for you. There’s a romantic subplot sure but this is much more full on urban fantasy/horror and I was very happy for that (I’m more UF than romance, what can I say?)

Cooper Causey experienced some trauma in his childhood home in South Carolina and hasn’t been back in some time, even though he is very fond of his grandmother. Cooper’s been living a rather hollow life made up of endless one-night stands (having a large reputation for it) and hiding the strangeness of his life. But when he’s lured back to his childhood home, only to find his grandmother missing, Cooper’s world is turned upside down in so many ways.

The largest of which is that he meets the Anakim, a vampire like race from the Abrahamic traditions (though they, along with the Nephilim are giants rather than vampires in the lure) and learns there is something special about him that they want. This encounter brings him into contact with Betsy, who is also Anakim but working with a group of monster hunters, the members of Jericho, to help destroy her own kind. Cooper is rushed off his feet by the group, barely able to keep his wits about him as he learns all he is capable of doing. Into this mix we add Randy, local policeman and one of the first men Cooper ever fell in love with and could never be with.

It’s a lot of non-stop action and while Cooper learns to control his abilities a wee bit fast for my tastes, it does work. I wasn’t, however, overly fond of the ending and that’s about all I want to say so not to spoil it. I will say (mild spoiler at best) is that for once I’d like to see the love interest and/or friend actually stay out of the fight once they’re told they’ll be a huge liability because we all know what will happen. The bad guys will capture that person and sure enough the hero of the story is distracted. Because it happens every time in a story like this. The other thing that did bug me a bit was that the ‘darkness’ in Cooper came from an African ancestor who practiced voo doo. Yes, it’s pointed out that dark doesn’t mean evil but still, it felt a little lazy at best. Still, over all I enjoyed this and I’d go looking for more by this author.

A nice paranormal story. Very fast paced with great storytelling.

Awesome debut. Grabbed my action from the get go and kept it all the way through to the end. Anyone with a supernatural bent, needs jump on board now. Howard' about to build himself a following..!

I have so many mixed feelings about this book.

I wanted to love it. I felt like in the beginning I was going to love it. It just took a direction that I couldn’t follow and was not into.

Also, I wouldn’t really call this a romance and if I read the tags wrong that is not the books fault.

So, the beginning. The beginning felt like a ghost story; a ghost story of a childhood scare that changed the boy’s life forever. The set up was amazing. The southern, abandoned plantation home, the slave village, the entire setting was perfect. I was transfixed. I was filled with anticipation knowing there was going to be a homecoming, knowing based on this formula that the boy had to come home and revisit his fears.

It was like that, kind of.

The return was enough to keep me on the edge of my seat. The missed calls and warning message, the weather and the creepy childhood friend were just a few things that had me completely drawn into the story. Cooper knowing what he had to do and doing it added a perfect bit of fright to the story. And then it kind of took a turn from gothic, southern ghost story to, well, quite a mix of different paranormal elements and it, to me, took away from the beautiful setup.

There was too much. So much that the huge gap from childhood to adulthood just didn’t mesh. Maybe we needed more understanding of what Cooper had been doing while he was away. What he had been through since the childhood trauma. What actually happened after that day. What really kept him away and why it was completely ignored. Just something to make what happens when he returns home make sense. The story went from zero to sixty in a blink.

Aside from all the paranormal elements, the story took a bit of a religious turn and tried to incorporate the two. I wasn’t that interested. Like I said, it was too much. I needed more personal growth and less of all the information that was thrown at me, seemingly out of nowhere. And where this took the story made me very unhappy. I am not a fan of a story that makes me feel like it isn’t going to work and believe me, that is how I felt.

And then the book ended. No kidding. It ended. I was left starting at the last page utterly confused.

So, to sum it up, this book had a lot of potential but kind of went off the rails. I don’t think it knew exactly what type of story it wanted to be so it tried to be a little bit of all of them.

Not a bad try, but for someone like me who loves everything and anything paranormal as well as a dose of horror, this just did not work for me.

3.5

"The memory no longer seemed like it was his. It belonged to an innocent boy full of life."

Blood Divine is one of those books where it's hard to identify the main genre. It's m/m but it's not a romance focused story. Not Urban Fantasy either - I'm settling on a blend of horror/fantasy with some m/m romance thrown in. Paranormal elements abound.

After a creepy prologue that shows a strange experience that happens to a group of children, chapter one opens the main story years in the future where main character Cooper Causey is an unsettled man returning to his hometown to check on his grandmother after she left an alarming voicemail. All is not well at home in a small, creepy Georgia town - but Cooper apparently had no idea how twisted things really are, nor how unique he actually is. Enter a long-lost love opportunity that never settled, some new 'team members' who show him the light (kind of), and you have an interesting story.

The first half may have been the best part - Howard is excellent with words and I fell into the story right away. The build-up was especially intriguing because there's no way for the reader to know what's going on. The prologue ended in a way that sort of cut-off, leaving that a mystery that isn't revealed until later. There's an ominous feel about the grandmother with clues that don't add up in the house, and even the romantic figure is better in the build-up part because of the awkward memory moment and things left unsaid. Even if the firs thalf is the best part, the rest of the novel has a lot going for it too. I will say I pegged this as a weird ghost story but didn't expect it to have another supernatural regular pop up. I won't reveal what it is since that would take away from the story a little.

The story came apart at some of its seams later, especially during some action sequences. The romance didn't stay as strong as I'd like since the characters had a pre-existing emotion that the reader learns about right away instead of experiencing and growing up to. There's the potential of heat but it's not shown in the first book either. Some of the dialogue lost me at times during the ending, but overall the writing stayed solid. Pacing is dependable and doesn't sag at any time.

While the world-building isn't ultra unique, it does put in some inventive issues - namely in dueling groups. There's a twist on who to trust. The ending thankfully didn't dish out a cliffhanger, but it did leave an opening for a sequel, which I'll definitely be reading. Love the combination left standing together at the end and I'm intrigued about future possibilities. The villain feel is a bit cheesy and needs some work, but the writing style flows well, the main character is easy to like, and it's a paranormal themed ride set in Haunted Georgia (which gives extra brownie points automatically.)

This isn't the style I usually read but I was hooked since moment one. There was enough suspense to keep the reader interested instead of frustrated for the unanswered questions, and the paranormal elements didn't feel trite. The biblical component was something I didn't expect but appreciated a lot. Although I'm not big in horror I enjoyed the mood and creepy setting. Also I was afraid the gay romance would be a excuse to throw some sex scenes in the mix, but it was well written and interesting.

Cooper has returned to his boyhood home in Georgetown, South Carolina because his grandmother, Lillie Mae has left a strange message on his phone. Cooper hasn't been back due to a horrific experience in childhood. He went to visit Warfield, a deserted plantation with his pals. Something scares them and Cooper gets left behind. He faces a ghost named Blue who was a slave on the plantation. He is big and scared looking to 8 year old Cooper. When Cooper gets home to Lillie Mae, he discovers her missing and calls the police. Randy, the police officer is a boyhood friend that Cooper had a crush on and discovers that he still has. Randy doesn't believe that there is anything to worry about Lillie Mae even when he sees Warfield in blood on the pages of her bible. Cooper decides to go to Warfield to find his grandmother. He becomes a prisoner of two vampire like people. They want his blood as it has something special in it. Cooper is allowed to leave by himself to make a decision. What must he decide? He goes back with hopes of finding his grandmother and escaping. Will he? There is much more to this story, but I won't spoil it for you.
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Even though this is a vampire story, the author writes it in such a way, that once I started reading it, I couldn't stop. I thought about it when I wasn't reading it wanting to get back to it to find out what would happened next. I wasn't disappointed. Besides vampires, ghosts and romance it's a story that won't scare you but find that it is thrilling and suspenseful.

Blood Divine is a good paranormal read. It entertained me enough to want to finish the book. Was I blown away? No, but that's OK. Sometimes you don't always need that effect, to enjoy something. Paranormal fans, will like reading it. If you look online, you'll see the book has gotten great feedback.

Basically you are getting a whole lot of supernatural beings and some romance here and there. The story is based in South Carolina, so you have a nice background scenery to go along with the story. Story is based around Cooper and how he ends back in his hometown after an alarming call from his grandmother. Once he arrives, he gets a lot of supernatural stuff dumped on him and he needs to figure it out asap. This begins a series of situations and even an old crush comes back into the picture.

Will Cooper find his grandmother? Will he deal with his new fate? And what he truly is? You'll have to read to find out what happens.

​While the book was reasonably well written, I didn't realize when I got it from Net Galley that was in the classification that it is. That totally messed up this book for me. I wouldn't have gotten it at all had I know, and this was a DNF. I didn't post online because of this. I'm sorry I missed the part about it being a "gay" genre.

Admittedly this is a new genre for me (I've never read it), but I think I've fallen in love with both the genre and Greg Howard's writing. A true thriller with a sprinkling of romance, "Blood Divine" will have you on the edge of your seat and dying to know what happens next.