Review of "Blood Relations: A New World" (Audiobook) by Glenn Stevens, Narrated by Danielle LaRauf

Score: 89+/100 (8.9+ out of 10)

We can't believe it has been over two years since we first read the paperback version of Blood Relations: A New World by Glenn Stevens!

Despite our mostly-mixed review of the ebook version, we were still very intrigued by the prospect of what the audiobook version might have in store. Maybe it could pack a bigger punch.

Would the voice and performance of the narrator be able to engage us and bring these characters and their emotions to life?

Would we feel differently about characters like Eros, Elizabeth, Camillia, Linda, Jessica, Christine, and Laurie?

And what about the spicy content? Would it sound awkward and out of place in audiobook format or would it be more meaningful and impactful?

The same for the vampirism and extraterrestrial elements... Would the audiobook format allow for a greater suspension of disbelief than words on a page?

Well, our experiences and opinions were once again mixed. Does the audiobook have some bright spots? Absolutely.

Does the book/audiobook still have a bunch of issues? Yes. We'll get to those.

But, first, we'll say this: we have a much greater appreciation for Eros as a character and this story as a whole than we previously did. We especially have more appreciation for the character of Camillia, who just seemed a lot more likable and special this time around.

The relationship between Eros and Camillia was substantially more impactful, interesting, and emotionally resonant this time around. In fact, we'd argue that their arc—their part of the story—is the best in the entire book! Seriously, from the time that annoying Elizabeth was removed from the story to Camillia's twilight years in Medieval Romania, this book went from a 8.4 out of 10 to about a 9.2 out of 10—that's a huge difference! It's unfortunate that the book overstayed its welcome, became redundant, and dragged on and on and on and on until it lost most of its momentum by the end.

If it hadn't been for the wonky, lower-quality stuff at the beginning, compounded by the really tedious, drawn-out last two quarters, this book would've probably scored much higher. And we're serious about that. If this book were tweaked and refined by a dedicated team with some beta readers and proofreaders, it would be a much higher quality work.

With that said, we did notice some substantial improvements in our experiences listening to this audiobook in 2025 compared to reading the ebook in 2023. First and foremost, Eros is a much better character and a much better person than we remember him being. He's actually not the womanizing, brutal, self-serving parasitic monster we remember him being. In fact, he's actually heroic, romantic, kind, and compassionate, at least most of the time.

Eros actually cares about people, especially the different women he forms relationships with throughout his long, long life. But his compassion and love also extends to humanity as a whole, especially for the most vulnerable and in need. We appreciated that.

________________________________________

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
________________________________________

For example, in one of the most exciting parts of the book, Eros risks his life and everything he has (including his relationship with Camillia) in an attempt to save the king's sick and dying son. But he not only does this to save the prince, he does this to save the doctor and the doctor's wife, Nicoletta, who are both scheduled to be executed/sacrificed by the king's men for their failure to cure the prince.

Eros really could've just left all three of them to die and went on his merry way with Camillia, but he didn't. He didn't because doing so would've been cruel, cold, and wrong.

Eros actually has a conscience and a moral compass, which is something we appreciated about his character.

Are there times he annoyed and frustrated us? Of course. But it was nowhere near as bad as we remember it being the first time we read this.

Another thing we liked about this book, particularly this Medieval Romania section, is that it actually demonstrates some literary/storytelling competency. The relationship and feelings between Eros and Nicoletta are perfectly paralleled by the relationship and feelings between Camillia and Prince Albert. In fact, you could even say that Eros-Nicoletta foreshadows Camillia-Albert. The same jealousy that Eros feels about Albert is the same jealousy that Camillia had once felt about Nicoletta.

(As an aside: Speaking of foreshadowing, it's interesting to note how it's subtly revealed that Camillia wants to be a queen even before she meets Prince Albert because of precognitions/visions that Camillia and Eros share).

There's actually a layer of sophistication to the dynamics between Camillia, Albert, Eros, and Nicoletta.

Furthermore, it's another example of Eros learning to feel and experience human feelings and emotions. The first major time we saw this was when Eros learned what death was via Elizabeth's passing. He realizes that humans don't come back to life the same way that his species/vampires do.

Now, in perfect honesty, the way that whole scene plays out is painfully awkward. It's clunky, weird, unnatural and pretty difficult to buy into.

One moment, Elizabeth is running in saying that the wolves are attacking all the chickens, the next moment she turns against Eros, then the next moment she's dead. Camillia is all mourning initially, somewhat like you'd expect considering that her mom just died, killed by her lover/best friend, but then she awkwardly gets sidetracked noticing that Eros is emotional about her mom's death. She then says a bunch of things that just don't play out well. We may need to paraphrase because, obviously, we can't see the text via audiobook, but it's something like:

"Eros, when we die, we don't come back like you do. How do you not know that already?"

And, perhaps most painfully awkward of all, Camillia stops her mourning and lamentations in mid-tear to say something to Eros like, "Oh, Eros. This is the first time you've seen death, huh? I've lost my brothers and father and now my mother. But this is your first time experiencing and learning what death is."

Gosh, if we have to hear "Oh, Eros" one more time, we're gonna run through a wall. Over and over and over again, characters are saying "Oh, Eros." We understand that the effects of the venom might be impacting the characters' feelings and making their thoughts cloudy and their speech flowery, but it gets really grating after awhile.

Oh, and by the way, the characters spend an inordinate amount of time apologizing and saying "I'm so sorry" to Eros. It just seems really unnatural and bizarre. It also has the ill effect of making Eros seem like even more of an insufferable Gary Stu, which becomes even worse as Eros because ultra wealthy later.

Anyway, after Elizabeth dies, Camillia then proceeds to coddle and comfort Eros as if HE'S the one whose mom just got mauled and killed.

One of the notes by one of our reviewers literally reads "Girl, your mom just died!!! How the hell do you care more about Eros being sad than your mom dying?!"

Oh, and by the way, remember that the wolves just attacked like ten minutes ago. Does anyone care or even remember the wolves? Hello, Camillia, Eros... you might want to close the door or not stand out in the open staring at Elizabeth's corpse, there are apparently bloodthirsty wolves out there.

Now, we will digress a little and say that the wolves are eventually mentioned again. Camillia uses them as a convenient excuse to give Prince Albert about what happened to her mom. It just seems weird though. Like, one moment the wolves are there raising hell, the next moment it's like they're an afterthought or don't even matter.

There are several really awkward, weird, and unnatural-seeming moments like that. For example, after Camillia gets bitten/attacked, and another bout of drama gets stirred up between Elizabeth, Camillia, and Eros, Camillia suddenly starts having visions and says something along the lines of, "Oh, my God! I see your world and your people. Oh, my God! There are these big, scary clawed monsters! Oh, Eros!" And then the three of them go from all this tension, arguing, and fighting to peaceful and calm all of a sudden. And it wouldn't be half bad if we didn't just have a scene in which Eros already bit Camillia and the three of them already had a similar argument. It feels redundant and unnecessary, like the author was trying to buy time to figure out what he wanted to write about next.

Things like that happen between Linda, Christine, and Laurie. It's like a repetition of the same drama in a different dress. Same drama, different day.

There's a conversation that Eros has with Laurie that is pretty much the same explanation and information we've already been given about a half-dozen times.

Like, why?

There are a bunch of things like that in this book. Like, for example, what the heck was the point of Eros being an alien and having vampiric alien enemies called Scorpius led by an evil alien brother named Caleb? It doesn't seem to fit or play into the rest of the story at all.

And what happened to Dr. Tula and Caroline? They're there, then they're gone. And Caleb? Evil alien brother Caleb? Where is he? We hear briefly about crop circles and some alien stuff, but...

If that whole section about the extraterrestrial stuff was omitted or removed, almost nothing would be different about the rest of the book. If the author wanted to have that be Eros's backstory, it would've been better to save that and slowly reveal it later in the book. You know like how we eventually learned that Goku was a Saiyan later in Dragon Ball Z after a load of hints were dropped in Dragon Ball (like his super strength and having a tail)? It would've preserved the mystery aspect of this story. It would've also saved us from the painfully bad and awkward opening chapters, which might scare off readers who would otherwise love the Eros-Camillia arc. We'll talk later about why we disliked the opening chapters so much.

Oh, and by the way, Caleb threatens to tear Eros's ship apart piece by piece, then come aboard and take what's left. Think about that for a moment... if you tear a spacecraft apart piece by piece, how are you going to come aboard it? It's a serious lapse in logic.

Imagine if someone told you they were going to tear your car apart piece by piece, then carjack it and try to drive it. What sense would that make?

Eros also says "we're sitting ducks out here!" despite the fact that they've never been to Earth and would have no idea what ducks are.

So much of this book seems really off. So many times we found ourselves asking ourselves:
Who would do that?
Who talks like that?
What sense does that make?

And a lot of that can probably be explained by the effects of Eros's venom and plot convenience, but some of it just seems like sloppy or poorly thought out writing.

For example, if Eros feels like he weighs 15 or so pounds and his venom gives others (not himself) superstrength and pseudo-magical feelings/benefits, then how does he so easily overpower Prince Albert? He doesn't just overpower Prince Albert, he absolutely dominates the fight and busts open his arm like he's Superman all of a sudden. And keep in mind that Prince Albert should probably be feeling the strength-boost from the venom.

What makes this even more awkward is that Camillia seems oblivious throughout the beginning of the fight/beatdown. She still thinks she's engaging in lovemaking with Albert with her eyes closed or something. Like... she doesn't hear the two dudes throwing down and struggling? That doesn't seem to make much sense.

Another thing that doesn't make sense are the anachronisms and speech, elements, figures, and events that just don't fit the time periods the book is supposed to be taking place in.

Characters in Medieval Romania talk about blood transfusions, which weren't invented yet. There's a very specific reference to the guillotine (to be used on the doctor and Nicoletta), which wasn't invented until the late 1700s. Elizabeth oddly talks like a modern woman a lot of the time, saying thing like, "Can you two, like, not sit so close to each other?"

There's a scene in which Linda says (regarding Eros), "I've never seen him so unresponsive before," which is actually a really weird thing for her to say, logically, because she has known him for years and has almost definitely seen him cold, unconscious, sleeping, and hibernating probably dozens of times by now. This statement is probably not true, and, like a lot of this book, just seems to be there to fill space and buy time for other things to happen.

And speaking of Linda... when you really think about it, other than maybe Caleb (and the random people who randomly shoot Eros, and the random husband who randomly shoots Jessica), Linda is the main villain of the book. She's like Dr. Doom. She's a mad scientist who becomes possessed by ambition. The author may or may not have intended it, but Linda has very villainous/antagonistic tendencies. She clearly manipulates Eros to advance her research. She tries to force herself on other female characters, albeit under the influence of the venom. You could consider her an anti-hero/anti-villain.

Christine is a pleasant character, our vote for "Hottest Character" in the book. She's a gorgeous blonde lesbian who is encouraged by Eros to run for governor of the state of Florida for LGBTQ+ rights by Eros, which is one of the shining moments for Eros's character (acting unselfishly). Eros lavishes her with gifts include a free home (staying at the resort with her girlfriend, Samantha) and all the food and drinks she wants.

Laurie could be a pleasant character, sharing a special bond with Eros and appearing to be the reincarnation of Princess Camillia, but her redundant expositional conversation with Eros (as we alluded to earlier) is a low point of this book. And she comes into this book at the point where we were almost clocked out and our attention spans were fried.

By the way, this book is WAY TOO LONG. It's like 600 pages long. And so much of it seems fluffy, redundant, or unnecessary. It was really testing our endurance and patience.

Oh, and by the way, Jessica gets shot by her husband, and that's a whole thing that happened in the middle of this book for some reason... You could argue it was foreshadowing Laurie's domestic abuse, but... It kinda seemed like more fluff.

Anyway, back to Laurie... her conversation with Eros repeats so much information we already knew. For comparison's sake, at least when Eros talked to Christine for the first time, she told him (and the audience) a lot of the science behind why Eros is the way he is and why people (especially women) respond to his venom like they do. There seemed to be a point. It was technical and a bit overly long like the rest of this book, yes, but it had a point. There's something about Laurie that seems so tacked-on-in-a-later-draft.

And then we get these whole sections of the book about Christine, Linda, and Laurie's lesbianism/bisexuality. We are almost 60 chapters into this overly-long book and the women are having a hot and heavy lesbian moment over a medium rare steak. This book jumped the shark one too many times. Scratch that, it didn't just jump the shark, it jumped an ocean full of them. And then there's a whole sub-plot about how the venom and the oxytocin in the blood make the women "more lesbian" or more bisexual or something.

Like... 58-60 chapters in... shouldn't Eros be fighting Caleb and preventing a Scorpius invasion right now?

Instead, the book just keeps droning on and on with no end in sight. The last ten chapters or so is like when your mother-in-law visits "for the day" but decides to move in for the summer. Like, this book desperately needed to wrap up like 100+ pages earlier. It became tedious and cloying.

This audiobook narrator, Danielle LaRouf must have the patience of a saint. We commend her for it. She had to read a lot of this for like 30+ hours with a straight face, even when reading lines like, "We're going to tear your ship apart piece by piece, then come aboard and take what's left" and "More oxytocin equals more lesbian, right?"

LaRouf definitely deserves some credit for not giving up and sticking with it. Reading aloud for that long is the opposite of easy. We will say that she started this book off sounding really uncomfortable, nervous, and shaky. It's like she was wrestling and getting used to the wonky, bumpy content along with the reader. She definitely improved and picked up her game with time. In fact, when she started doing the accents for different characters like Linda (who has a southern accent), she really shined. She also did a pretty good job voicing Eros, a male character.

Now, there were times when Eros sounded different. There were times when he sounded like a gruff middle-aged man, and there were times when he sounded like a boy despite being 10,000+ years old. We think that's more to do with how certain lines and passages in the book are written.

One example we can think of is how the book says that a character "screamed" but what follows is a relatively flat "Oh, my God" from the narration.

Speaking of screaming, we still had a big laugh about the line: “...the woman screams so loud during orgasm the entire floor claps when it's over.”

That line never gets old.

Anyway, this book does have a lot of good things we want to highlight. We already talked about how Eros seems to be a better and more caring person this time around.

Another thing we really liked about this book is how seemingly bad, toxic, cruel, or villainous characters like Linda, Nicoletta, the King, Prince Albert, and others got opportunities to show their other sides. No one is purely evil nor purely good. They all exist on a spectrum.

Linda has the potential to be caring, and a part of her does seem to love/care about Eros. Nicoletta, who initially seemed to be a hated rival to Camillia, turns out to be abused and misunderstood. Her husband, the doctor, who once seemed friendly and benevolent, actually turns out to be abusive and also an adulterer. The King, who once wanted to have the doctor and his wife killed just because they couldn't cure his son, turns out to be a broken-hearted and desperate father who wants the best for his kid. He even saves the day at one point.

Prince Albert is a character we grew to appreciate and like. He really started off as a heel. He was very villainous and antagonistic, getting between Camillia and Eros, pressuring Camillia while seemingly trying to get rid of Eros. However, he undergoes this incredible character arc in which he sees Eros as a valued partner. In fact, he tries to keep his promise to Camillia to give Eros resources for his research and later helps Eros on his quest aboard the Opportunity (ship) to find a place with a warmer climate. That's quite special.

We really wish the book was just that story arc—the time between annoying Elizabeth dying and discovering Florida aboard the Opportunity. Unfortunately, it started off in the messiest way possible, then dragged on way too long in the second half.

______________________________________
SPOILERS END

______________________________________

If you're open-minded, patient, and love romantic, erotic, edgy vampire stories, this might be the audiobook for you!

Check it out on Amazon!