Bite the Woman That Feeds

Dirty Blood, Book 1

By: Penelope Barsetti

Narrated by: Ramona Master, Michael Ferraiuolo

Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

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

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.....

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

Perfect world building

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

loved it

I would really enjoyed this book! can't wait for book 2! I also liked the fmc!

Good overall but no true ending

The story line was good. The narration was good. I just hate when I don’t know there was an ending and you have to get the next book. Other than that I was good

The passion of their voices!!

I already fell in love with this story when I read it. I have been waiting for this audio as I do the rest of the series.
When I read I feel all the passion of the characters but to hear two of my favorite narraters bring it alive gives the story even more depth than just a read.Brava Penelope for creating this amazing story and having Michael and Ramona narrate

What an amazing story plot!

King snake and Larissa to formable the characters. Larissa is my all time heroine. She has passion. She has independence. She’s smart she’s a firecracker. I just hope they have a happily ever after and babies. Cannot wait to read the next installment.

Vampire enemies to lovers story

Really Great book. I love the storyline of enemies to lovers with a 1500 year old vampire, and a human with special powers who hate each other, but fall in love anyways. However, way too much explicit in detail sex chapters.

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.