Reign of Blood by Alexia Purdy

Reign of Blood #1

     "Never tease anything that wants to eat you.

My name is April Tate and my blood is the new gold. Vampires and hybrids have overrun my world, once vibrant with life, but now a graveyard of death shrouded in shadows. I fight to survive; I fight for my mother and brother. The journey is full of turns that I am quite unprepared for. And I'm just hoping to make it to the next Vegas sunrise..."

     In a post-apocalyptic world, a viral epidemic has wiped out most of the earth’s population, leaving behind few humans but untold numbers of mutated vampires. April is a seventeen-year-old girl who lives in the remains of Las Vegas one year after the outbreak. She has become a ferocious vampire killer and after her family is abducted, she goes searching for them. What she finds is a new breed of vampire, unlike any she has seen before. Unsure of whom she can trust, she discovers that her view of the world is not as black and white as she once thought, and she's willing to bend the rules to rescue her family. But in trying to save them, she may only succeed in bringing her fragile world crashing down around her."

This book, holy sweet macadamia nut, I love this book. It was just so good. Especially for a vampire-apocalypse story, I have difficulty in finding that genre completely enjoyable. There was nothing about this story that I disliked. It was a pretty well-rounded story. From the set up of who April remembers herself being before the outbreak and missing who she was, to really coming into her own and completely embracing who she is.

The story is told from April Tates POV. A bad-ass fighter and survivor. After her family is captured while they are out gathering supplies April spends all her time and energy trying to find out who took them and if they are even still alive. Killing any and all of the feral-mindless vampires that have taken over the city. The first third of the book is about April and her mother and little brother Jeremy and their routine of hunting and gathering in the city most days and with the occasional training session to keep agile and limber to defend themselves from an attack. But all that changes when April's mom and kid brother are captured during one of their outings. That sends April into full on warrior-survivor mode, willing to kill anything that gets in her way of finding her family. It takes her to a place of distrust and slight paranoia.

During one of her attacks on a small feral vampire hive, a strange vampire-hybrid helps her escape with her life and convinces her to come back to her hide out with her. There she meets a large group of these Hybrid-vampires. They seem to remember who they were before the outbreak, and are intelligent, unlike the zombie-feral vampires that are countless. April meets the other leaders of the group, Blaze, and Rye. April having not seen a male close to her age in over a year naturally gets flustered at the sight of two attractive males. Rye seems to be instantly smitten with her. (some kind of Vampire mate thing) April is also quite smitten with him, but first denies, then fights it best she can trying to keep her focus on finding her family. The instant "love" between them would have been obnoxious had it caused the story to shift from April wanting to get her family back safely to a budding romance between Rye and April.

I loved all the characters in this book. Rye is a very intriguing character I hope to learn more about him in the later books. Blaze is even more of a mystery as is Miranda. I can't wait to read the next book to see what happens with April and her new abilities. And since I am a hopeless romantic, I want to see where Rye and April's relationship goes.