💬: N/A

📖Genres: historical fiction, vampires, romance, historical

📚Page Count: 368

🎧Audiobook Length: 11:06 

👩🏾‍🏫My Rating: ⭐️⭐️ - 2/5

The Dangerous Ones takes place during the civil war, where vampires are working with the confederates to continue enslaving Black folks. Jerusalem is a Saint and Satins have demi god strength and power and they use it to fight vampires. She is a former slave who fought against her slave master and killed him resulting in what she believes to be her whole family being slaughtered. Jerusalem gets word that her brother might be alive so now she's searching for the vampires from her past because they might have him. Alexi is a 300 year only vampire working with Jerusalem, a group of Saints, and the union to fight against the confederates. This definitely reminded me of Ring Shout but I don't think "The Dangerous Ones" reaches it's full potential. 

There were a few problems with this story; including confusing time jumps and flashbacks, to misplaced romantic banter, little to no world building and character development, and one dimensional characters. The time jumps were continuously confusing, I don't think they were very helpful in terms of story telling, they actually seemed to detract from the main story. I know that love is supposed to be part of the plot but it really felt like it didn't fit right in the story. It felt like I was reading two different stories, one where the main characters were in an enemy to lovers romance and one where there's action and the civil war with death and vampires. The two genres didn't really mesh well.

Overall, the audiobook narration was okay but, the pacing felt off, the flashbacks were more confusing than anything, the characters were one dimensional, there was little to no character building, the romance didn't really work in this story,  little to no world building, and the author used current and modern language instead of historical language from the times (seeing as this is a historical novel). I'm giving this 2 stars out of 5.
⭐️⭐️ - 2/5 Stars

Thank you [NetGalley.com], Lauren Blackwood (the author), and Macmillan Audio (the publisher) for the arc audiobook (advanced reader's copy.)

In a world where vampires exist and some humans have special powers that make them Saints, an epic confrontation takes place against the backdrop of the US Civil War. Jerusalem is a Saint and an escaped slave from a plantation run by equally horrible humans and vampires. Alexei is a vampire, but he fights on the side of the Union. They must work together to defeat the South and the vampire that they both have history with.

Vampires in the civil war is a great concept. The author instills this book with her trademark banter between love interests and antagonism that yields to something deeper. Fair warning if you are a historical purist—while the author has clearly done her research, in tone the story owes much more to urban fantasy than historical fiction. Sometimes that annoys me, but as I’ve read her other books, I expected more of that voice from the characters. I think it best to think of THE DANGEROUS ONES as a paranormal/urban fantasy set in the past rather than historical fiction with supernatural elements.

But I mean, Jerusalem fights with a spear. That’s pretty neat.

CWs for lots of language, and slavery and death and blood, and more things that have slipped my mind, but the author has a list on goodreads and her website.

Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for this ARC. The Dangerous Ones comes out May 14, 2024.