Book 1 in the At First Bite series
Reviewed by CJ | Rating: 3.75/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
📱 Kindle Unlimited (Canada)
OPENING HOOK
A vampire walks into work and finds her boss drained dry, meets her fated mate as the body is being processed, gets bitten on sight, and then gets thrown in a cell because apparently that’s how the day is going for Bloom.
THE FULL STORY — SPOILERS INCLUDED
Okay so here’s the setup: werewolves and humans run this world together, they’ve got some kind of uneasy truce leaving vampires as the outliers everybody fears. A hundred years ago there was a massive vampire-werewolf war, and the alpha before Maverick wanted every vampire wiped out. Maverick didn’t agree with that — but vampires WERE turning humans at an alarming rate back then, so something had to give. That’s the world Bloom’s been quietly existing in for seven years, working at this big investment company owned by Maverick’s people, with only one single human coworker knowing she’s a vampire. Life’s fine. Boring, even. Until she walks in one morning and finds her boss Steven murdered, vampire-style.
Her best friend and human coworker is the one who actually found the body, and the two of them are standing there when Maverick — the alpha of all alphas — shows up. When she’s called in for her interview he takes one look at Bloom and knows she’s his fated mate. So he bites her. Right there. That’s apparently just the move when wolves meet their mate, no warning, just teeth. And because the murder is such an obvious vampire kill, he immediately suspects Bloom did it and throws her in a cell, half-starved, until they realize she’s SO starved she physically couldn’t have drained anyone. Meanwhile he’s got this whole frustrated and begrudging “she’s mine” thing going on while she’s under lock and key. It’s chaotic and I loved it.
Now that she’s been cleared, they eventually dangle enough money in front of her to get her to come back and help untangle the mess Steven left behind because it turns out he’d been super shitty at his job, which is a whole other problem, and everyone in the office knows that she is the best. Bloom doesn’t want anything to do with any of it, but between the money and the fact that her life is basically over now that she’s a known, arrested vampire, she agrees to give them a few weeks.
She gets back home after a week in custody and walks into a much bigger problem: Harper’s been turned. Harper’s mom runs the Vampire Alliance Guild (VAG, with a hard G not to be confused with short for vagina vag. Obviously.), which helps vampires find donors in the city. So Harper’s grown up around all of this, and she knew about Bloom the whole time while living and working alongside her. Right before Bloom got arrested, Harper had gone to tell her that the vampire she’d been seeing had turned turned her. She was heading to find Bloom when Steven caught her off guard mid-transition, and she snapped and drained him. Harper’s the one who killed Steven. Not on purpose, not as part of some bigger plan — just really, really bad timing.
It gets worse: turned vampires devolve into blood-crazed killers within three to four weeks. They’re already a week in by the time Bloom finds out. So now Bloom’s trying to solve a second murder that happened while she was locked up (not Harper — someone else entirely, going after the company’s higher-ups), keep Harper’s condition hidden from the VAG (who would kill her immediately, even though her own mother runs it, and would kill Veleour (the vampire who turned her) also which would be a crushing blow for the vampires since he’s one of only four eligible vampire bachelors left after the war decimated the population), fall into whatever’s happening with Maverick, and not lose her mind in the process. Not complicated at all.
The murders keep happening, all targeting people higher up in the company which causes Bloom to be moved into Maverick’s (Mav’s happy for the opportunity to win her over), and it all comes down to Neve — Harper’s mom, head of the VAG — who turns out to be behind it. She’d had someone in the office turned and was using them to pick off the higher-ups, and it looks like she was doing it because a family member of theirs was being held against them. We don’t get the full picture on that yet, but that’s clearly book two territory.
The part that got me was Bloom never even considering going to the werewolves for help with Harper, because obviously the VAG would kill her — but it turns out the wolves actually know something about helping people through a human-to-vampire turning. In the end, when it looks like there’s no hope left for Harper, Rhone (Wyatt’s beta) steps up and takes it on himself to help her through it by feeding her and being her support person. That’s where the book leaves us: no guarantees on how Harper comes out the other side, but she’s chosen to fight for it, which feels like the right note to end on (and it also helps that Rhone won’t let anyone else near her, or feed her…).
BEST PART OF THIS BOOK
Watching the factions actually start coming together — vampires, wolves, humans — after a hundred years of fear and a war some of these characters lived through themselves. Maverick became alpha coming out of that war, and he never bought into the “wipe them all out” approach the last alpha had, even with vampires turning humans left and right at the time. A hundred years later, watching that old fear start to crack a little was satisfying to read.
WORST PART OF THIS BOOK
It’s not a “worst part” so much as the hardest part to sit with — Bloom’s heartbreak over Harper and having to hide it from everyone. She knows the VAG would kill Harper on sight, Neve included, and they’ll kill Veleour too making it an impossible option. It never occurs to her to trust the wolves, because why would it? That gap between what she assumes and what’s actually true is what makes it hurt.
THE STEAM RATING BREAKDOWN
🔥🔥🔥🔥 — four flames. There’s explicit content here, so this is not a fade-to-black book. And yes, the werewolf bonding is present and accounted for, for anyone tracking that particular trope.
THE CHARACTER WE LOVED TO HATE
Neve. Easily. Head of the VAG, Harper’s own mother, and turns out to be pulling strings behind a string of murders. Despicable, and there’s no real competition for the title in this one.
THE ENDING — SATISFIED OR DISAPPOINTED?
Satisfied. It wrapped up with Bloom’s HEA while Harper’s fate is left open, but hopeful with Rhone stepping in at the last second. That’s peak Lola Glass for me: however wild the ride gets, you always know you’re getting gently set back down at the end, not left crushed and upset.
WOULD WE REREAD IT?
Maybe someday. I go back and reread her earliest stuff (the early Mate Hunt and Outcast Pack books were the ones that kicked off my re-entry into fantasy romance after having kids) because those caught me at a pivotal point in my reading journey. This one felt like coming home after a stretch where some of her recent books weren’t quite hitting for me. Happy to report this one landed.
WHO IS THIS FOR
Readers who want a happily-ever-after wrapped around heavier topics but never want to feel like the book is going to actually wreck them. If you want murder, mystery, and a fated mate bite with the guarantee that everyone’s going to be okay in the end — this is your book. It’s a hug from a friend, not a gut-punch.
WHERE TO GET THIS BOOK
📱 Ebook
📖 Physical Book
📚 More from the At First Bite series
Book 1 — Sweet Blood | Reviewed by CJ | ⭐ 3.75/5 | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Book 2 — Wolf Blood | Coming August 5, 2026
Ready for more reviews from CJ? [Find More Here]
Plot Twisted. 🔥
📱 | Series: At First Bite Book 1 | Genre: Paranormal Romance | Steam: 🔥🔥🔥🔥