She may have a few odd quirks, a stolen identity and a rare blood disorder, but Ava Sykes is a mostly ordinary undergraduate student, highly skilled in martial arts, who also happens to work as a bouncer for the clubs of New LA. When the new, exclusive club Poseidon pops onto the scene and she’s personally approached and offered a position, the pay alone is enough to make her jump on the offer. Not to mention the owner of the club, Daniel Bane, has a mysterious charm about him.

Her first night on the job almost seems like it’s too good to be true and after accidentally stepping into the otherworldly VIP area, Ava is beginning to have her doubts. It’s not until she’s attacked on her way home from work that her world falls full tilt into the bizarre; her doctor has a sudden fixation on her blood disorder, her boss has turned his charm up to 11 and her best friend, a waitress at Poseidon, is beginning to act very strangely, gunning for a position in the VIP lounge. The same VIP lounge where Ava could swear she saw humans being offered up as snacks. Adding strange underwater hallucinations to her growing pile of problems, Ava is starting to feel like something bigger than she can imagine is going on behind the scenes of Dr. Rossi’s pestering and Daniel Bane’s creepy club and, as a girl who never knows when to quit, she will dig their secrets up no matter the cost.

Having read a few of Kim Falconer’s previous novels, I knew I was in for a treat when I picked this up but what I experienced whilst reading the Blood in the Beginning was much more than I was anticipating. Ava is a gutsy, stubborn heroine who’ll have you cheering for her from page one. Jam-packed with action, suspense and spine-tingling mysteries, the novel shakes secrets free left, right and centre that create a wholly unique universe that I, for one, cannot wait to delve back in to.