Review by Sadonna

TITLE:  How to Save a Human

SERIES:  Vampire Related Crimes

AUTHOR:  Alice Winters

NARRATOR:  Michael Ferraiuolo

PUBLISHER:  Self-published

LENGTH:  9 hours and 17 minutes

RELEASE DATE:  June 3, 2021

BLURB:

River
When I meet Bentley DeGray, I’m at the lowest point in my life because no matter how much I fight, my past won’t let me escape. Bentley makes me laugh and care and love, but what does any of that mean when I’m living a lie?

Things get complicated when I find out he’s with the Vampire Related Crimes Unit, the organization looking for answers about the abductions of prominent vampires.

The same organization that stands in my way.

My time is ticking down while I’m wound up in this role I’ve been forced to play, but I know that I would be drowning without Bentley by my side.

Bentley
We’re facing something that runs so deep that we don’t know who we can trust besides each other, even within the VRC. River makes me feel like every day is worth living and enjoying – like I’m not so alone. I can’t imagine life without him. But I know that if I want to keep him by my side, I will need to do everything I can to help him so our love doesn’t get cut short before it can truly grow.

How to Save a Human contains a cat who shows her affection by not drawing (much) blood, art projects that are a little…sketchy, the most underwhelming “bull” ride ever, and vampires that may or may not be in the mob.

REVIEW:

Note:  This story does run parallel to Books 1-3 of the Vampire Related Crimes series.  Reading the series in order provide maximum enjoyment of Book 4.

River is a human who is on a mission.  One day, he meets a surprisingly nice vampire at a coffee/book shop who ends up buy him his smoothie.  He doesn’t want a distraction from his mission, but can’t help be smitten with Bentley and agrees to meet him again – just so he can pay him back 😉

Bentley is a much older than River, but not too old as vampires go.  He’s dealing with the imminent loss of his last remaining human family member and it’s taking a huge toll on him.  He likes River and welcomes him as a distraction from both his job and his family stuff.  But he can tell something is going on with River that he’s not willing to share.   They enjoy each other’s company though.

When they keep running into each other in conjunction with a case that Bentley’s VRC team is working on and River discovers that Bentley is VRC, things get a little dicey since River may be involved.  Bentley is in a bit too deep though and needs to protect River now at all costs.  River has so many things going on and he can’t exactly walk away from his mission either.

Bentley’s inability to share what is really happening with his team is causing problems though.  His VRC partners are suspicious about his story.  River is desperate to stay safe, but is constantly in danger and Bentley is more than worried for him, plus he’s still got the distraction of losing his last family member to contend with.  Luckily the VRC team is solidly behind him and anxious to get to the bottom of both their case and River’s story.

Well as usual, with any Alice Winters book, you are in for a wild ride with this fourth installment of the VRC series.  Bentley DeGray has been a bit of an enigma during the last three books and in this story, we finally find out why.  Do yourself a favor and read the other three books before this one or a lot will be confusing 😉  I loved finally getting to know about him and how/why he’s held himself a bit apart from the rest of his unit on the VRC.  All of our usual suspects are out in full force – Karsyn, Claude, Finn, Marcus, Brooks and DeGray all work together to solve the case, bring the baddies to justice and keep River and Finn from becoming vampire food.  The bad guys are really really bad in this one too.  Poor River has been through so much.  His feelings for Bentley and Bentley’s obvious feelings for him are the one bright spot.  And it helps keep hope alive for him that he can persevere and triumph over the villains.  There is humor (particularly where Finn and Claude are concerned) and sweetness and deepening feelings galore.  We feel River’s pain in losing everything and his spiral into hopelessness.  Bentley also is saved from his own despair as things get worse on his family front.  This is just another great installment of this series.   And Michael Ferraiuolo does his usual masterful job of bringing all these characters to life for us.  His accents, his voices, his humor, his ability to provide the gravitas to the emotional scenes are all on full display.  Well done!  Highly Recommended 🙂

RATING: 

BUY LINKS:

Amazon

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