Blood Money Book Review Novels & Stories

The morning was cold and I was currency. My father handed me to Dimitri Volkov, Bratva, like I was a contract clause. I said no at the altar. Loud enough for everyone to hear. The priest kept going. Dimitri didn’t even blink. That was fact one: I was married without consent, in Chicago, to a man who accepted silence as agreement. I left him later. Not in rage. In clarity, after I saw another girl get caught in his world with no choice, just like me. Then I went to war. Law school had taught me precision, so I used it. Civil suits. Asset forfeiture. Anonymous tips to the right agencies. I took apart everything legitimate he’d built, piece by piece, until he bled territories and pride. He showed up bruised once, signed over forty percent of his clean empire to my name, brought therapy receipts. That was fact two: I dismantled the man who caged me, on paper, without firing a shot. I still have the necklace. The one he left in my lap that first night. I wore it through the worst, through the year I rebuilt alone, through every hearing. Last month I was pregnant in a courtroom, arguing a case I won. He was in the gallery. The diamonds sat above my collar. No one asked. I never explained. That was fact three: I took something from that night and made it mine. It doesn’t belong to him anymore. It doesn’t belong to what he did. It belongs to me.

The Blood of Two Worlds Anna Elara McKinnley is a living heresy. The product of a forbidden union between a high-ranking Warlock and a savage Wolf, she is a hybrid of volatile magic and primal instinct. After her mother fled the scandal and the packs branded her an abomination, Anna mastered the art of disappearance. For years, she has survived in the human shadows by suppressing her scent and shackling her power. But her carefully constructed anonymity shatters when her best friend, Sophie, is lured to the Solstice Gala. To the human world, it’s the social event of the season; to the Blackwood Pack, it is a cold-blooded hunting ground where Alphas claim human mates to anchor their bloodlines. When Sophie is "marked" by the pack’s ruthless heir, she is locked away in a gilded cage, unaware that her life of freedom is over. To pull Sophie from the jaws of the wolves, Anna must return to the world that hunted her as a child. Infiltrating the Blackwood estate under a false identity, Anna finds herself navigating a minefield of aristocratic politics and predatory dominance. The air is thick with the scent of her enemies, and keeping the "beast" and the "witch" quiet becomes a losing battle. Her greatest threat arrives in the form of the one man capable of smelling the rot in her lies—a man whose lineage mirrors the dark history she’s tried to outrun. As the gala descends into a game of power and blood, Anna realizes that a quiet rescue is impossible. To save the only person who loves her, she must stop hiding and become the very thing the wolves fear most: a hybrid with the power to burn their empire to the ground.

Saratan: I lost everything when my celebrity boyfriend decided to dump me for a more…popular actress. I lost my dignity, my safety, my apartment, my savings… you name it. I was at rock bottom and then sunshine came flooding my way. Do I call it sunshine though? Being recruited against my will as a blood vessel and then indebted to a recluse vampire who ‘saved’ my life, is that sunshine? Dregen: My kind decided to make our existence known to humans and offered a ‘hand of friendship’ which they more or less grumblingly accepted but I do know for sure that the Vampire Royalties wants a little more than to just co-exist with what we call, “Preys.” Power…Power is their Ultimate target but I don’t care. My hands are too full investigating the disappearance of vampires. Then she came barreling into my life. Saratan Credi. I don’t want her but I’m stuck with her. My vampire hates her but my wolf craves her presence like a man starved of water in a desert. She thinks I’m a good man…tsk… but what she doesn’t know is I don’t have a heart. It shriveled up and died right after I ran away from home, renounced my pack, my wolf, and embraced my vampire, my darkness.

"He thought she was a pretty cage. She was the lock, the key, and the woman who'd burned the whole prison down."

Haunted by her sister Sofia’s murder, marked by the signature black rose of the powerful Moretti crime family, FBI Agent Elena Rossi goes deep undercover as “Lia Moretti.” Her mission: find the killer and burn the organization from within her greatest obstacle: Dante Moretti, the lethally perceptive underboss who sees through her disguise almost immediately. Instead of exposing her, Dante makes her a twisted offer: her secrets become his to control, and in return, he grants her his protection from the rest of the family, for whom discovery means a death sentence. Forced into his trajectory as his personal project, Elena walks on a razor’s edge between her mission and her survival, while Dante’s cold dominance ignites a dangerous, all-consuming passion. As Elena digs for the truth, she finds her sister’s trail leads shockingly close to Dante himself. Her investigation is a minefield of conflicting clues, betraying her badge and her sister’s memory with every moment she spends in his arms. When a black rose appears on her own pillow a direct threat and her FBI handler forces her to betray Dante, her two worlds violently collide. Exposed and hunted by both the mafia and her own agency, Elena and Dante are thrown together as fugitives. In their raw, desperate alliance, they uncover a truth more shattering than either imagined: Sofia’s death was a message in a secret war within the family, and the real killer is the last person Dante ever suspected. To get justice, Elena must help the man she was sent to destroy and wage a brutal war for the soul of his empire.

My sister-in-law, Maeve Cohen, floored my luxury car and blew past traffic at about 125 mph, killing a family of three. She pretended to be me and acted as if nothing could touch her. "Those idiots walked into my path! It's not my fault they got hit!" she snapped. "I'm the Lincoln Enterprise heiress. Even if I ran, who would dare catch me?" In my last life, Maeve said her husband wasn't home and she needed a car to visit her parents, so she borrowed mine. She ended up racing down the road, plowing into a family crossing the street, and driving back over them to make sure they were dead. The couple had just bought a house. The baby was only a month old. When the victims' family demanded an explanation, she hid behind my reputation and spat venom. "They're just three worthless people! I'm the Lincoln Enterprise heiress; why should I explain myself? Tell them to come to me for funeral expenses!" The grieving family couldn't take it and came to my in-laws' place. "Three worthless people, huh? Today, we'll end you so you can apologize to them in person!" My husband had died the year before. With no one to protect me, the victims' family turned on me, and I was stabbed to death. The valuable wedding gifts my family had given to me became Maeve's overnight. My family tried to appeal for me, but trolls who hated the rich maliciously reported tax problems about my father's company. My father was driven to exhaustion. One night, he fell asleep at the wheel, and the car plunged off a cliff, killing him. Only after I died did I discover it had all been Maeve's plan to ruin us out of spite. Then I opened my eyes. I was back on the day Maeve took my car and ran into those people.

At Blood Oath Academy, no one arrives by chance—except Virelle Noctra. Marked by a power that shouldn’t exist, Virelle is summoned into a hidden world where vampires and werewolves train under fragile, ancient laws. But from the moment she steps inside, something is wrong. Her blood doesn’t belong to either side… yet both crave it. A ruthless vampire heir watches her like prey. A dangerous wolf alpha feels his instincts bend toward her. And beneath the academy, something older than both species begins to stir—something that recognises her. As alliances fracture and desire turns lethal, Virelle is pulled into a power struggle she doesn’t understand but can’t escape. The more her abilities awaken, the clearer the truth becomes: She isn’t just part of the war. She’s the reason it’s starting. And when the blood oath breaks, everyone will have to choose Kneel… or burn.

Set against the backdrop of Rome’s elite underworld, Blood & Dynasty follows Leonardo and Xena DeMarcus, two rulers who build an empire through calculated strategy, ruthless ambition, and an unbreakable partnership. From the moment they take control of Rome’s power structure, they face relentless opposition—from whispered betrayals to direct threats, including the relentless pursuit of their downfall by Elena Vasquez and later Dominic Renaud, a Geneva-based strategist who attempts to dismantle their empire from afar. Through violence, precision, and unwavering control, Leonardo and Xena eliminate every obstacle, ensuring Rome bends to their reign and never rises against them again. But their legacy is more than just dominance—it is permanence, and that permanence is solidified through the birth of their heir, Orion DeMarcus. Faced with the impossible balance between war and family, they fortify their estate, strengthen their dynasty, and raise Orion to be a ruler as fierce and tactical as they are, ensuring the DeMarcus name will never fade. As years pass, Orion rises, taking command of the empire, expanding beyond his parents’ reign, proving that everything Leonardo and Xena built was meant to last long beyond their rule. And in the final reflection, as Xena looks back on their time together, she understands one undeniable truth: Power may shift. Empires may evolve. But the love between her and Leonardo—the fire that shaped their dynasty—will never burn out.

Damian Moretti finally has everything he’s ever fought for—power in the Familia, and a future carved from loyalty and blood, and the woman he’s willing to burn the world for. Sareena is in his heart, his salvation, and the one girl he can never give up. She’s brilliant, untouched, and his. After London, she’s ready to stand beside him… forever. But the moment their jet touches down in New York, their future explodes. Sophia —Sareena’s jealous, manipulative twin - shreds their reunion with a single performance. Lies, tears, fabricated evidence have a room full of powerful men suddenly questioning everything Damian is. Sareena is blindsided. Literally. One brutal blow to the head, carried out by Sophia’s minion—had Damian’s world fracture. Now Sareena lies unconscious, fighting for her life, while every viper in the shadows circles closer. Damian breaks open the gates of hell to get answers—torture, bloodshed, and revenge delivered one trembling body at a time Will he expose Sophia? Will he destroy anyone who helped her, and will he make damn sure no one ever touches Sareena again? The deeper he digs, the darker the truth becomes. Sareena’s been betrayed for years. Cut off. Hidden. Hunted by the very family who claimed to love her. Ehile Damian fights to protect the only woman he’s ever loved, Gino—Underboss, grandfather, and a man drowning in guilt—must finally face the truth about the monsters he’s raised. Secrets unravel. Alliances crack. Bloodlines fracture. And Sareena… When she wakes up, nothing in her world will ever be the same. Because love in the mafia isn’t tender. It isn’t safe. It’s brutal, possessive, and merciless. And Damian Moretti? He’s willing to scorch the entire Familia to keep his girl standing beside him.

MATCHED is book #3 in a new paranormal romance series by bestselling author Bella Lore, whose series MY TRUE MATE and THE ALPHA’S MATE have over 500 five-star reviews. “I couldn’t stop reading.” --Amazon review (My True Mate) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ When her father suddenly dies, Winter Grace, 17, is forced to fly across the country and attend a mysterious prep school, an ancient castle in a fog-covered island on the coast of Maine. Nothing here is what it seems, and it isn’t long before Winter, feeling a surging power for the first time, realizes that she is not who—or what—she thinks she is. But when Winter feels an inexplicable crush for an elusive and dangerous boy at the school, she realizes a greater destiny is at play. She knows the relationship might destroy them both—yet she also knows that they can never be apart. In MATCHED, Winter and her love reach the place they never though they would. They are so close to retrieving the relic—when an unexpected twist may just force her love to sacrifice everything—even himself—for her. Creating an unforgettable world of vampires, werewolves, shifters and magic of all sorts, a world of fantasy, love and sacrifice, MORTAL will take you to another place, rife with shocking twists and turns. Fans of books such as Vampire Academy and Twilight and Crush are sure to fall in love! Future books in the series are also available. "The story was very well written and was unique as compared to other shifter stories.” --Amazon review (The Alpha’s Mate) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Excellent from start to finish and leaves you wanting more.” --Amazon review (My True Mate) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐