A Quick Bite (Argeneau, #1)

by Lynsay Sands

That hot guy tied to Lissianna Argeneau's bed? He's not dessert - he's the main course!

Lissianna has been spending her centuries pining for Mr. Right, not just a quick snack, and this sexy guy she finds in her bed looks like he might be a candidate. But there's another, more pressing issue: her tendency to faint at the sign of blood ... an especially annoying quirk for a vampire. Her mother thinks she has the perfect solution, and serves up the therapist on a silver platter (or at least a wrought iron bed). Of course it doesn't hurt that this psychologist has a delicious looking neck.

What kind of cold-blooded vampire woman could resist a bite of that? Dr. Gregory Hewitt recovers from the shock of waking up in a stranger's bedroom pretty quickly - once he sees a gorgeous woman about to treat him to a wild night of passion. But is it possible for the good doctor find true love with a hemophobic vampire vixen, or will he be just a good meal?

That's a question Dr. Greg might be willing to sink his teeth into ... if he can just get Lissianna to bite.

• ISBN10: 0061192899
• ISBN13: 9780061192890
• Publish Date: 27 June 2006
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[nitzan_schwarz]

2.5 stars - not bad, but also... not great

So, this was mildly disappointing.

There was the regular things--the insta love, the choosing the girl over everything else after three fucking days of knowing her, the actual lack of getting to know each other explained away by magic mind-melding that allowed them to "see into each other's mind" and know basically all there is to know about the other as a person, instead of actually giving us what we want which is see them fall in love as they get to know each other. I swear, it's like romance authors sometimes have no idea about the reader's basic needs in romance???? Am I alone in this?

Then there was the retconning to the lore that seemed to take place sometime between this book and books 18 and forward, which are the ones I've read (kind of out of order, but you hardly need to read this series in order). The ENTIRE read I was confused by what was going on, from the symptoms of life mates to the turning of vampires--everything was slightly different. Enough that it was really glaring that at some point Sands decided to change things up. The thing is, this is supposed to be the same universe!

Points in case:

1. Turning People - in later books, Sands introduced the rule of "turning one person" not as a rule of "populace control" but of nano evolution. She makes it sound like you CAN'T physically turn more than one, while here it's very obviously "allowed". It makes everything super weird because honestly, I don't see someone in love with a woman simply not turning her as she's dying just because he already turned his brother's mate into a vampire (not an actual example, I'm just saying). Like, if this was just a rule, people would break it. I also don't believe no exceptions will be allowed.

2. Having one child every 100 years - literally was never mentioned in the four other books I've read in the series lol

3. The Lack of Hunger - in this book, the lack of hunger is introduced as you growing bored of food when you don't need it to sustain you (I can definitely understand Greg's outrage at this lol). However, in the other books, food loses it's taste. In fact, it's so dramatic that when you meet your life mate, you begin to be hungry again and enjoy food. While there is a hint of it here, it is not explained by life-mating and Lissi is never shown as hungry, she simply eats what Greg makes her and find it tasty.

4. Fainting when having sex - okay, so this is a BIG one. In all the other books, life mates transfer each other's pleasure while having sex, causing for an extremely heightened experience that leads to the couple passing out from the intensity. Like, yes, it's one of the most ridiculous parts of this series, but the other books make it to be such a big deal that the lack of it here was extremely glaring.

Like, there is a hint of everything in here, but definitely not the extreme reactions that happen in the later books in the series. It's like Sands wanted to make this whole life mate deal more important so she super enhanced every small details and made a mountain out of it. Having come into this series from the later books, it was so odd!

Also, I rolled my eyes a lot.

Definitely not Sands's best

[Berls]

Despite an extremely silly start and me feeling like it was going to become a DNF, something happened around the halfway point that got me really interested in the book and I ended up enjoying it. The characters, despite being hundreds if years old, are fairly childish and kinda dumb sometimes - hence the almost DNF. But the story and the vampire mythology was interesting. I probably won't read any more of the series though.

[Angie]

A Quick Bite was so fun! It's Lissianna's 202nd birthday and her mom has gotten her the ultimate present: a man. Greg was looking forward to his first vacation in years, but next thing he knows he's climbing into a stranger's trunk, then is tied to a bed. He's convinced that he's being gifted as a sex slave (which isn't so bad, really), while Lissi believes he's dinner. Actually, Lissi's mom chose Greg because he's a psychologist who specializes in phobias, and her daughter has a debilitating one. Lissi is hemaphobic, which is quite the problem when you're a vampire.

I loved the way vampires were presented and explained in A Quick Bite. They're human, but not quite superhuman, and definitely not dead or undead. Vampires are a kind of new strain of human which came about kind of by accident. A combination of nanotechnology and bioengineering created a way for damaged tissue and other ailments to be reversed. The nanos ended up being able to multiply using blood, essentially allowing humans to remain in peek condition for centuries or millennia. None of the vampire myths are true, except that they must consume blood to keep the nanos replenished. I adored this scientific take on vampires, but I had to wonder how this technology came about if the origin of vampires is in ancient times? Specifically at Atlantis...

Of course there's a romance between Greg and Lissi which I really enjoyed. There was a mutual attraction at first, but they did get to know each other while Greg was held hostage. Then some "true mate" stuff comes into play to speed things along, which is fine. But my favorite part was Lissi's family! Her birthday party is in full swing while Greg is tied up and he gets to meet everyone as the night went on, since they're all concerned about Lissi's phobia. It all made me smile and giggle, since it's clear how close the family is, and they've all got their quirks too. I'm definitely looking forward to getting to know them all better.

A Quick Bite was a great introduction to the Argeneau series! It's very light and doesn't take itself too seriously. Some bits are kind of cheesy, but in a fun and silly way rather than eye-roll inducing. I do wish more time had been focused on Lissi's phobia, but our couple manages to get themselves in quite the predicament when someone stumbles upon Lissi's secret identity as a vampire. That plot was quite predictable, but I still wholly enjoyed it.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[Linda]

This was a fun, light and a little bit different vampire book. The vampire who's afraid of blood was definitely a novel idea when that was written!

I figured out in the very beginning who was 'after' Lissi, though, and thought that the fore-shadowing was a little too bright.

Lissi and Greg are both wonderful people, and Lissi's family is a tight-knot group. I look forward to reading more in this series.