Review--Bad Blood by Lucienne Diver

The gods play…and mortals pay.

Latter-Day Olympians, Book 1

Tori Karacis’s family line may trace back to a drunken liaison between the god Pan and one of the immortal gorgons. Or…maybe it’s just coincidence that her glance can, literally, stop men in their tracks. While her fear of heights kept her out of the family aerobatic troupe, her extreme nosiness fits right in with her uncle’s P.I. business.

Except he’s disappeared on an Odyssean journey to find himself. Muddling through on her own, she’s reduced to hunting (not stalking, because that would just be weird) brass-bra’d Hollywood agent Circe Holland to deliver a message…only to witness her murder by what looks like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Suddenly, all of her family’s tall tales seem believable, especially when Apollo—the Apollo, who’s now hiding out among humans as an adult film star—appears in her office, looking to hire her. She knows the drill: canoodling with gods never works out well for humans, but she’s irresistibly drawn to him. Maybe it’s her genes. Maybe not.

Given her conflicted feelings for one hot and hardened cop, it’s a toss-up which will kill her quickest. The danger at her door…or her love life.

Warning: Contains pot-boiling passion between a heroine who may—or may not—be a descendent of Medusa, and a hot god and a hunky cop with the…equipment…to handle her, even on her worst bad-hair day. Beware of killer kisses, trickster gods and bearded grandmothers Who Know Everything.

Lucienne Diver's Bad Blood is the first book in her Latter-Day Olympians series and it was quite the read! Tori is definitely one wild character, she's tough, feisty and has a good dose of sarcasm to boot. Very relateable!

Tori is a PI and was hired to find an agent named Circe and deliver a letter to her from a client. Only when Tori finally gets close to delivering, Circe is murdered by a fishman. Although I do like the terms something that "looks like the Creature from the Black Lagoon" because it's a favorite movie of mine! This has everything going for it! A modern day series with twists of the Greek gods thrown in and of course the movie reference!

To add to her PI talents, Tori is also part gorgon. Her state can freeze people for a short time. Which has helped her get out of a few jams when necessary. Now Apollo, a highly famous actor has come to her asking her to solve the murder of Circe and find out exactly who killed her. There were a few other cases that one tied into this case as well, that Tori had to deal with on top of everything.

The gods have sort of been doing the whole hiding among us thing for awhile, as we soon learn Apollo is also THE Apollo. I think I kind of suffered from first book syndrome here, in that there was a lot of information to take in and process and while we got it in droves, it was still hard for me at times to process everything and apply it to the current situations. But then I kept remembering the short story I read and how much I loved that, so I figured this is a case of first book syndrome. I am still planning on reading the rest of this series because it has a LOT of potential.

There's also a bit of romance going on too. Two possible men vying for Tori. But it's done in a way where it doesn't feel like the ever dreaded love triangle. I even love that Tori makes a comment on that towards the end. Apollo of course is one of them. A swoon-worthy god who wants her, but Tori feels like that's not the best option since his previous lady loves have had bad ends--being slightly insane (ie: Cassandra from Troy where she's psychic and no one believes her) and then there was Daphne who now has to be a tree forever so she could escape Apollo's affections.

Then we have detective Nick Armani. For the longest time he's sort of been the arrogant type. For when Tori is working her cases, she sometimes get mixed up with police going-ons and that leads her to being interrogated by Nick. The two definitely have a connection of sorts going on. They banter back and forth and then it suddenly turns towards flirting and reciprocating! Definitely liking Nick in this situation!

I guess the only issue I had--while trying to read in a slightly noisy environment--was trying to follow along. The writing style is very different to what I read as a short story, but I am figuring that that's because this was the first book. So it has that sort of awkwardness to it. Because the more you write, the better it gets. So I went from the latest and greatest to the beginning, when everything is still new. I stumbled a bit when suddenly I noticed Tori working on another case and was wondering when that popped up, but I might have missed the cues while the noise level was at its peak. But I'm not giving up on this series, no chance!

The ending was pretty awesome! Who doesn't love a battle? Things are getting pretty intense for Tori and even though the book is over, it's of course, only the beginning of her troubles! Can't wait to see what other adventures Tori has in this series.


Overall Rating 4/5 stars