Review and Giveaway: Bloody Good by Georgia Evans

September, 1940. The plucky citizens of rural England have adapted to wartime life. Everyone uses blackout curtains, rides bicycles to save gasoline and takes in children from the cities or families whose homes have been damaged by bombings. Alice Doyle, the local doctor in the town of Brytewood, in Southeast England, administers what aid she can to the residents of her area. After having been up all night delivering twins, she comes across an injured man in Fletcher's Woods. She doesn't hesitate to bring him home with her, so she can care for him at her clinic.

Too bad the man she helps isn't a man at all, but one of four vampires employed by the Nazis and dropped into the English countryside to attack from the inside. When the ambulance that she has called finally arrives, the man has inexplicably disappeared. Alice's sweet Grandmother, who she lives with, invites the ambulance drivers in for a cup of tea. One of them is a nice young man named Peter Watson. Or he seems nice enough, but when Alice finds out that he is a Conscientious Objector she loses all respect for him. A healthy young man like him should be out there fighting, like her brothers are.

The disappearing man was the first odd occurrence, but there are soon more. Alice and her nurse, Gloria, have their hands full and desperately need some assistance. Their prayers are answered when a first aid assistant is assigned to them. It turns out to be none other than Peter Watson. Alice will have to find a way to work with the man, despite her personal feelings.

The vampires have their plans, and soon they are putting them in action. Fortunately for the citizens of Brytewood, there is some truth to the old folklore tales that everyone has been raised on. Magic still exists in England, though it has long since been dressed in a veil of normalcy. Take Alice's Gran, for instance. She is Pixie, a centuries old magical race and Alice is, too, though her rational mind refuses to believe it. And the old Sergeant in the village is a dragon. He rarely uses his dragon shape now, but he is still in command of his powers and is ready and willing to use them in defence of his beloved country.

If the Nazis think they have a monopoly on the supernatural, they are sadly mistaken. The vampires they have recruited are far from the only creatures in this war and they will find that their task is much harder than they had anticipated. The humans have far more help than they ever realized, but they will need every bit of it to defeat the greatest evil that the world has ever known.

This book is a wonderful combination of historical fiction, romance, fantasy and paranormal. I was immediately interested in the World War II setting and I loved the imaginative use of the folklore of England. I really enjoyed this one and am looking forward to reading the next two books in the series, Bloody Awful and Bloody Right. The only complaint I have is that the book should have been proofread more carefully. I received a finished copy and found quite a few typos and context errors that would have been caught by a good proofreader. Otherwise a very entertaining, delightful book!

Bloody Good is published by Kensington. ISBN 978-0-7582-3481-0

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