I am so here for the vampire resurgence and so I was super excited for The Monster and the Last Blood Match. But unfortunately this was not for me. It tries to balance romance and intrigue but ends up having trouble with both elements. Keep reading this book review of The Monster and the Last Blood Match for my full thoughts.
Summary
For Reyna Carpenter, giving up her body isn’t a choice―it’s survival.
In a world where humans are currency and vampires rule from the shadows, Reyna accepts a high-paying position among the wealthy and ruthless elite. Her new job: a live-in blood escort for the enigmatic and dangerously powerful Beckham Anderson. She expects cruelty. She expects hunger. She expects to become his next meal.
But Beckham won’t drink from her.
He keeps his distance, his unreadable gaze shadowed by something far more dangerous than just desire. As the nights pass, Reyna begins to sense it―an invisible war being waged around her, secrets that twist through the corridors of Visage, and whispers of something far more valuable than power.
Because Reyna isn’t just rare―she’s the key to something bigger than she ever imagined. And the reason Beckham refuses to taste her blood?
It might not just change them―it might destroy everything.
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
This was marketed to me as a paranormal vampire romance meets intrigue about something larger going on in the background. But The Monster and the Last Blood Match struggles to deliver on either of these. I felt like as soon as I was feeling like I was getting pulled into one, we switched to the other. Firstly, the romance did not work for me. I felt like we didn’t know Beckham enough to feel like he had any depth as a love interest. And part of Reyna’s own frustration with him is that he never reveals anything. But because of that, I had trouble buying the chemistry and tension between them.
It’s one thing to think, “Oh this is just physical attraction”, but we are supposed to believe that they feel something but based on crumbs. I wanted to see more insights into what made Beckham worth so much to Reyna. In some ways, this made the romance element incredibly frustrating. Secondly, the intrigue of the mystery fell flat for me. Maybe it was that this series opener gives you all just a taste of what it can be, but for me it wasn’t enough to keep me going. We see all these hidden elements of what the world is and what could be happening. But much like the romance, we don’t see enough to understand the stakes or the depth. We don’t have to be spoiled or let into the inner sanctum.
Overall,
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Instead we could have focused more on the inequalities and what it was like for Reyna to grow up under the thumbs of the vampires and how it felt for her. But we don’t see enough of these feelings to even understand the depth of the world. It was frustrating because I really wanted to understand the dynamics to see what might be swirling underneath. Unfortunately, the side characters also felt flat to me. I wished we either spent more time with them, or they had something else to provide hints at something more. Ultimately I was unfortunately disappointed by The Monster and the Last Blood Match. I wanted so much more.
Find The Monster and the Last Blood Match on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop. org, & Blackwells.