For the Blood by Debbie Cassidy

For The Blood, #1 REVERSE HAREM ROMANCE / DYSTOPIAN / PNR Stay alive at all costs. No attachments, no looking back, no emotion. The last thing my father gave me was a key. No explanation, no details, just a key. The last thing he asked of me was to take the key to a set of co-ordinates. But survival in a fallen world filled with Feral isn't easy. The Fangs and the Claws, once upstanding members of society are now slave to the virus, hunting indiscriminately under a perpetually full moon. There is no hope. There is no haven. Not alone. Not until them. They are a new breed of monster—beasts of both fang and fur. Unaffected by the sickness, they crave only one thing, and it runs through my veins. Survive, my father said. Look out for no one except yourself. But sometimes the only way to survive is to make attachments. Sometimes the only way to live is to accept a dance with death. And right now, for me, the path to survival is in the blood. Here’s to hoping it doesn’t kill me. The Vampire Diaries meets The Walking Dead in this Post-Apocalyptic Urban Fantasy with a slow burn Why Choose romance

This one...took me by surprise. Very well done, strongly action orientated, especially considering it's a reverse harem. The well crafted plot really does seem like a hybrid between walking dead, but I would leave out the Vampire Diaries comparison because it doesn't fit (to me) at all. You get vampires of sorts, but it's not anything like Vampire Diaries (thankfully).

A couple of key points:

1. The Let's Dance, I'll Lead fight scene = epic for some reason. Can't get it out of my head.
2. I love Ash
3. The way she meets Ash and the boots in the night leading up to it, the little things make all the swoon difference
4. Logan really is a douche
5. Mad science experiments
6. I have a bad feeling about Tobias, we'll see in future books.

Gripping, couldn't put it down and it ended up costing me over an hour of sleep. Le sigh.

The story is strongly action paced and there's plenty of tense moments. I'm not a huge zombie fan in general but these aren't traditional and the author incorporates them well in a non-cheesy  manner that's just intriguing. The world is bleak and ended, it's been after a big fall and destruction of everything mankind knows. 

Here monsters exist, and they reign.  

The romance is in the beginning paces, so this is a slow-burn and more realistic sort. The main character is sassy, fun, strong, determined - sometimes almost too mean for my tastes but she has the soft spot trying to conflict with her warrior nature that endears her to me. And let's face it, tough stuff leads to tough people when they're survivors, and she'd already been fighting awhile before the book opens it's first window into this twisted world.

Well done and recommended.