Chris Mooney’s Blood World is a sci-fi thriller that is bound to leave a positive impression on readers. Releasing on August 18th, Blood World takes today’s world and immerses the reader in a place where certain people’s blood (called Carriers) can reverse the ageing process and make people feel invincible; essential leaving them feeling like they are a superhero and like they have discovered the fountain of youth. This new world has created an underground ring of illegal activity that the police have dubbed “the blood world” where people are kidnapped and become blood giving slaves for the rest of their life so that the rich and famous can continue to live a luxurious life.
26-year-old Ellie Batista is an everyday patrol cop with the LAPD who desperately wants to prove herself as more than just a pretty face in the police force so that she can be taken seriously and get on the Blood Squad. One fateful day, Ellie’s wish comes true as she gets promoted to the Blood Squad after a series of unfortunate events and goes undercover as gambling addict turned stickman (someone who checks to see if people are Carriers) named Faye Simpson. When Ellie/Faye end up crossing paths with Sebastian Kane, a huge name in the blood world, Ellie/Faye finds that she is going deeper into the blood world than she ever thought possible and gets thrown into dangerous situations that will leave the reader holding their breath, hoping Ellie/Faye makes it out alive. As the story progresses, readers will get to follow both Ellie/Faye and Sebastian’s sides of the story giving the reader an inside look at both sides of this new world. Mooney does an excellent job at creating well rounded characters that are both likeable and realistic.
Mooney explores quite a few themes throughout Blood World including greed, vanity, human trafficking, and of course the ‘fountain of youth’ trope. What Mooney does so well with his writing is that he bleeds each of these topics into one another in such a way that they are continuously brought up throughout the story while maintaining a sense of wonder from the reader. Mooney slowly releases information to the reader while also upholding a fast-paced atmosphere that keeps the reader engaged and entertained throughout the entire novel.
Mooney has clearly put a lot of thought and research into his latest novel. The science behind the blood world is sound and he leaves no stone unturned when explaining things to the reader. Mooney does this effortlessly creating an incredibly believable world. The characters in Mooney’s novel are each flawed in a way to make them relatable and likeable. Sebastian is meant to be one of the villains in the novel however he has so many likeable qualities that it can be hard for the reader to see him as someone so evil, and Mooney has done this brilliantly. The ending of this novel leaves the reader with some unanswered questions which leads the reader to suspect that maybe this isn’t the last of Ellie Batista and the blood world.
Blood World is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of August 18th 2020.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
A drug that makes the blood of carriers a fountain of youth, a psychopath who doesn’t care how many bodies he leaves in his wake, and an LAPD detective hopelessly compromised by a dark secret. Together, they’re an explosive mix that’s going to shatter the city of Los Angeles into a million corpuscles.
The most valuable commodity on earth is the blood of “carriers.” These young people hold within them a virtual fountain of youth. Those with the right genes produce blood that, when treated with a new wonder drug, cures disease, increases power, and makes the recipient a virtual superman.
It also makes the carriers targets. Blood farms filled with kidnapped children spring up around the country, and Los Angeles is at the center of this blood-dealing world. The police are overwhelmed.
Ellie Bautista became an LAPD officer specifically to fight this evil as a member of the Blood Squad, but she has been consistently denied a transfer to the prestigious unit–until the day she and her partner are ambushed during a routine stop. The resulting events plunge her into an undercover world more dangerous than she could have ever imagined.
A madman has found a way to increase the potency of the blood to levels previously unimagined. As he cuts a bloody swath through the already deadly world of blood cartels, Ellie is the only hope to stop him before the body count rises.
