What do you think?
Rate this book
Blood Drive #1
Blood Drive
Ride or die. Not that you have a choice. Christian and Evan are a pair of vampires on a mission. All they have to do is drive a van of stolen blood across the country in time for their High Council's annual gala. What could be easier? But thier path is lined with obstacles and enemies. Father Matthew, a trigger happy priest, is hot on their trail, and a couple of New Jersey mobsters are right behind him. Blood Drive is Daniel Aegan's first book. He proves in this comedic action story that vampires no longer have to sparkle. Christian and Evan have clashing personalities, and Bart, their werewolf compatriot, is anything but fluffy and cuddly. Even Father Matthew has a dark side. This coast-to-coast trip is full of the kind of adventure and violence you'd expect from such an uncanny cast of supernatural miscreants. Prepare to be treated to chases, blood lust, torture, kidnapping, firefights, and much more. You'll want to take another ride as soon as it's over. Just hope they all don't kill each other first. **This book has not been approved by the American High Council of Vampires
212 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 22, 2019
2 people are currently reading
5 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Aegan
26 books10 followersDaniel Aegan lives a private life in New Haven, Connecticut with his family. Other than writing, he practices reading tarot cards. He's a dark humorist who writes with a twist of fantasy, sci-fi, or horror. His first self-published book is Blood Drive, and there are many more coming. (source: Amazon.com)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 2, 2019
This book was alright. There was a lot of weird stuff that happened and made me feel like women were huge targets for this story, but I did very much enjoy the vampires and the priests. It was a well-written wild ride and I would love to see what Aegan does in the future.
November 1, 2020
Blood Drive is a fun and dynamic take on an action based vampire buddy style road trip.
That's a bunch of words together that I never thought I would write.
Quick, funny, and with great banter between the vampire leads - multiple POV's are woven throughout a story that keeps you guessing at what will happen next. Fun use supernatural lore, good action and a well rounded and interesting cast. It has a delightful kind of nineties style about it, and the story is definitely successful in its goal to provide a fang filled race against time adventure.
Be aware of content including lots of violence (though not too gruesome) and reference to domestic abuse and rape.
That's a bunch of words together that I never thought I would write.
Quick, funny, and with great banter between the vampire leads - multiple POV's are woven throughout a story that keeps you guessing at what will happen next. Fun use supernatural lore, good action and a well rounded and interesting cast. It has a delightful kind of nineties style about it, and the story is definitely successful in its goal to provide a fang filled race against time adventure.
Be aware of content including lots of violence (though not too gruesome) and reference to domestic abuse and rape.
June 9, 2019
Just a bunch of Anti-Vampire Propoganda.
Blood Drive, by Daniel Aegan, stunned me with its creativity, wit, and dry humor. It's satire, but it's not on-the-nose satire. You could easily read this book thinking it's deathly serious with its approach to vampires, but just beneath the surface lies subtle social commentary, boundless movie and tv allusions, and solid writing to boot.
Within the first few chapters, I immediately found myself reminiscing to evenings with my family as a kid watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You've got your religious vampire hunters, sassy bad boy vampires, and crazy werewolves. Throw in a few weird behaviors of the vampires, actions sequences straight out of the Boondock Saints (yes, I know, not Vampires) or even Blade.
And the true charm of the book is that it's self-aware. It knows how ridiculous many vampire films and stories are . . . and then plays with those ideas and subverts them in creative ways.
In the end, the book ends up feeling like a classic B 90's Action Film; one of those movies that you know isn't a masterpiece, but it wasn't intended to be a masterpiece. It's entertainment value is what matters, and if you pick up Blood Drive, I promise you'll be entertained . . . and maybe think about what it means to be human, too.
On to the scores!
Writing: 7/10. Generally solid writing, there were a few scenes that fell flat in execution and some minor typos throughout. The author occasionally slips into third-person omniscient while the story is primarily told through third person limited of a different character in each scene, which is always a slightly jarring experience when POV shifts. However, nothing detracted from the narrative nor distracted me.
Characters: 9/10. Every character on the page plays a role, and many, even non point-of-view characters, find growth throughout the story. The story loses a point, though, for its lack of a significant women playing a role. There are a few side-characters that are women, and many of the victims of the vampires are women, but none of the drivers of the story are women. Now, given the story being told (and some of the underlying social commentary of the narrative), it does make sense that the main characters are all men. However, the fact that the lack of women stood out to me is worth noting.
Plot: 9/10 The characters, and their choices, are the blood of this book; and they're driving the whole way. I know, I crack myself up. Evan, Christian, Father Matthew, The Russo Brothers, even Pete; it's all about agency in this book, and they all make choices that push the story toward its action-packed climax.
Setting: 9/10 The story just takes place in America; but behind the veil of the modern day United States, Aegan actually develops a complex hierarchy of vampires, werewolves, and even Papal interactions with this "evil" underworld of bloodsuckers. In only 230ish pages, that's impressive!
Overall: 8.5/10 Argh! The 8.5s are always hard. I'm going to lean toward 4 Stars on this one, but it's more like 4.5 stars. I can't give it a 5 because I don't think it compares to my other five star reviews, but it's incredibly close. Well done, Aegen!
Blood Drive, by Daniel Aegan, stunned me with its creativity, wit, and dry humor. It's satire, but it's not on-the-nose satire. You could easily read this book thinking it's deathly serious with its approach to vampires, but just beneath the surface lies subtle social commentary, boundless movie and tv allusions, and solid writing to boot.
Within the first few chapters, I immediately found myself reminiscing to evenings with my family as a kid watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You've got your religious vampire hunters, sassy bad boy vampires, and crazy werewolves. Throw in a few weird behaviors of the vampires, actions sequences straight out of the Boondock Saints (yes, I know, not Vampires) or even Blade.
And the true charm of the book is that it's self-aware. It knows how ridiculous many vampire films and stories are . . . and then plays with those ideas and subverts them in creative ways.
In the end, the book ends up feeling like a classic B 90's Action Film; one of those movies that you know isn't a masterpiece, but it wasn't intended to be a masterpiece. It's entertainment value is what matters, and if you pick up Blood Drive, I promise you'll be entertained . . . and maybe think about what it means to be human, too.
On to the scores!
Writing: 7/10. Generally solid writing, there were a few scenes that fell flat in execution and some minor typos throughout. The author occasionally slips into third-person omniscient while the story is primarily told through third person limited of a different character in each scene, which is always a slightly jarring experience when POV shifts. However, nothing detracted from the narrative nor distracted me.
Characters: 9/10. Every character on the page plays a role, and many, even non point-of-view characters, find growth throughout the story. The story loses a point, though, for its lack of a significant women playing a role. There are a few side-characters that are women, and many of the victims of the vampires are women, but none of the drivers of the story are women. Now, given the story being told (and some of the underlying social commentary of the narrative), it does make sense that the main characters are all men. However, the fact that the lack of women stood out to me is worth noting.
Plot: 9/10 The characters, and their choices, are the blood of this book; and they're driving the whole way. I know, I crack myself up. Evan, Christian, Father Matthew, The Russo Brothers, even Pete; it's all about agency in this book, and they all make choices that push the story toward its action-packed climax.
Setting: 9/10 The story just takes place in America; but behind the veil of the modern day United States, Aegan actually develops a complex hierarchy of vampires, werewolves, and even Papal interactions with this "evil" underworld of bloodsuckers. In only 230ish pages, that's impressive!
Overall: 8.5/10 Argh! The 8.5s are always hard. I'm going to lean toward 4 Stars on this one, but it's more like 4.5 stars. I can't give it a 5 because I don't think it compares to my other five star reviews, but it's incredibly close. Well done, Aegen!
May 31, 2019
While I struggled to get into the story and characters until chapter four, I'm glad I powered through to finish the book. At no point after chapter 4 did I want to abandon the experience. The characters were interesting but even though I wanted to connect with them on different levels, I found them to be underdeveloped and not as multifaceted or complex as the plot drove them to become. The most significant downside was the unpolished quality of the written word. (I learned later that I didn’t have the most recent version that includes additional editing. Some of my observations and criticisms that follow might no longer exist in the newer version.) Noticeable albeit small grammatical errors (missing words, homonyms, missing letters/punctuation, comma overuse) riddled the pages and drove me to distraction. Often the unnatural dialogue and phrasing forced me to reread sentences upwards of five to six times to dissect and reconstruct the thought into something meaningful. As I neared the end of the book and noticed the frequency of the errors increasing, I became aware of the slight but observable changes in writing and editing throughout the book, almost as if it was written in different stages with varying levels of attention to details and style, and without a thorough editing job to pull everything together cohesively. Unnecessary repetition was an unpleasant constant leaving me wanting to assure the author that I pay attention to what I’m reading and don’t need to be reminded of the same information. Overall, I’d recommend this book for its original storyline and for entertainment but with a disclaimer not to expect a polished product.
March 18, 2025
What I Did Like:
+Excellent opening. You’re drawn right into the premise and understand all the players well.
+Good set up for a series. There’s a lot of vampire lore started in this one as well as some good characters introduced that will all make for a fun series. You get plenty of answers in this one to satisfy you but you also want more of the world so you’ll absolutely keep reading. It’s basically exactly what you’d want in an opening book.
+Evan turns out to be a great character. We get a deeper understanding of some parts of the vampire culture through him, he has a sort of redemption arc, and he has morals we appreciate. In a book full of characters I liked, he’s a favorite.
+Multiple POVs used well. You are head-hopping but it adds to the story, never detracts. It’s not confusing when you swap between POVs and each one does have a clear purpose.
+Well written action scenes.
Who Should Read This One:
-Fans of vampire stories are going to like the way this one sets up the series and handles the lore.
My Rating: 3 Stars
With another proofreading pass to catch those errors, this would easily be a 4 star book.
For Full Review: https://alltherightreads.com/2025/03/...
+Excellent opening. You’re drawn right into the premise and understand all the players well.
+Good set up for a series. There’s a lot of vampire lore started in this one as well as some good characters introduced that will all make for a fun series. You get plenty of answers in this one to satisfy you but you also want more of the world so you’ll absolutely keep reading. It’s basically exactly what you’d want in an opening book.
+Evan turns out to be a great character. We get a deeper understanding of some parts of the vampire culture through him, he has a sort of redemption arc, and he has morals we appreciate. In a book full of characters I liked, he’s a favorite.
+Multiple POVs used well. You are head-hopping but it adds to the story, never detracts. It’s not confusing when you swap between POVs and each one does have a clear purpose.
+Well written action scenes.
Who Should Read This One:
-Fans of vampire stories are going to like the way this one sets up the series and handles the lore.
My Rating: 3 Stars
With another proofreading pass to catch those errors, this would easily be a 4 star book.
For Full Review: https://alltherightreads.com/2025/03/...
January 11, 2020
Zany and action-packed, with surprisingly likable characters!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews