Rating: 4 Stars

Publisher: Hayden Saint

Genre: Gay Paranormal Romance

Tags: Age Gap (200+ Years), Exhibitionism, Fated Mates/Blood Bond, Halloween, Insta-Love/Lust, Romance, Series, Short Story, Vamps

Length: 49 Pages

Reviewer: Cindi

Purchase At: Amazon

Blurb –

Ashford After Dark : A Paranormal Vampire Romance.

It starts with a job that pays too well…and a doctor with eyes like ice over deep water.

Ethan Wells needs tuition money, not trouble. The Rydell Institute’s night shift on Level B3 sounds catalog blood samples, keep his head down, don’t ask questions. Then he meets Dr. Lawrence, impossibly composed, cold to the touch, and far too interested in Ethan’s blood.

A Halloween warehouse party strips away the lab’s polite lies. Jonathan is a vampire ruling over Ashford’s shadow world. Ethan should be terrified, but he can’t stop thinking : choose me.

Rivals circle close, hungry for what Jonathan has claimed, but Ethan finds safety in the crypts beneath the Institute. There in the shadows he discovers what it means to truly belong to a vampire.

Possessive vampire • Blood bond • Protective MMC • Halloween
Heat Spicy
HFN
Ashford After Dark Book #1

Review –

For books this short, I normally type a quickie review on Goodreads. I almost never type a full blog review because there’s usually not that much to say about the story. I’m making an exception with Blood Work because I want to read the others in the series that will likely be reviewed here as well.

Note that there are a couple of spoilers in this review. There’s no way to describe the story otherwise because of the length.

Ethan is a college student who is interviewing for a new job at a research facility. Devon, his best friend and roommate, already works there, making a really good salary. Ethan is nervous, but he freaks out a little when he meets Jonathan Lawrence, the interviewer and head of the facility.

Jonathan is… different. He’s also very nice to look at, almost distractingly so. The interview is really weird. Not only does Jonathan take four vials of blood from Ethan – for research purposes, of course – he also licks the blood off his (Jonathan’s) finger. It’s kind of creepy and sexy at the same time. Ethan is paid a lot of money for the blood, then offered the job. It’s the overnight shift, and he’s trained by a woman named Esther. Unfortunately, Ethan barely sees Jonathan at all during his first week.

That changes the night before Halloween when Jonathan asks him if he’ll be at a Halloween party next door, I think? He doesn’t plan to go to the party, but Devon talks him into it.

The party is when things start happening between the two guys. The building is crowded, but Jonathan immediately spots Ethan shortly after he walks through the door. A lot of people are trying to get close to Jonathan, but he only has eyes for Ethan. One thing leads to another, and they end up grinding against each other upstairs with others looking on. A lot of those watching are angry because they want Jonathan for themselves. The reason for that is kind of explained.

Apparently Ethan has a rare type of blood that not only attracts Jonathan, but it attracts others as well, none of which are human. Ethan learns this the hard way when he has a moment and ends up next to a really creepy guy dressed in a demon costume. But is it really a costume? 🙂

Jonathan and Ethan do end up leaving together, Ethan learns Jonathan’s secrets, they have sex, and they live happily-ever-after… kind of. Things happen quickly, and had it not been for the mate slash blood bond, I’d say it was HFN.

I liked this okay, but I’m not sure how linked the series is. I know the books are all set in Ashford, an area that’s described as not being too safe. My question is do any of the unfinished things from this book get mentioned again in a later one? This had some strange things happening – most notably about the ‘demon’ who harassed Ethan – that weren’t explained at all. Jonathan is described as ‘a vampire ruling over Ashford’s shadow world’ so does that mean he’ll be in other Ashford books as well? I guess I’ll know when I read the others if he and Ethan are mentioned again. I know Devon is in the second one, but I’m not sure about the others.

It was a nice, quick read with a little bit of spice. I think this is my first by this author.

4 stars.