Review: “For Love and Blood and Fury”

Sapphic Paranormal Throuple Romance from One of the Best

I’m going to be honest, JJ Arias’ new paranormal throuple romance, For Love and Blood and Fury, is probably the hardest review I have ever written. This is not because this book is bad. Just as she always does, JJ delivers an incredibly hot romance filled with fantastic characters and a great story. The difficulty comes from the fact that there is so much to this book. You have three main characters with their own individual arcs as well as the story of how they become a throuple. Add to all that a paranormal mystery with excitement and intrigue around every corner and you get a book with so much going on. Luckily for us, though, JJ does a masterful job balancing this all out while pulling you in and making you hungry for more.

Elena is a powerful vampire and head of a vampire mafia that controls almost all of Florida. Her ex-girlfriend Zuri is a witch and member of a Miami-based witch coven that has seen better days. Despite their tumultuous history, Zuri reaches out to Elena to see if she can help. Before Elena can act though, she is attacked by a rival group of vampires and left for dead. When she comes to in a hospital, she is paralyzed and can barely remember who she is. It’s there that she encounters Marisol, a nurse who unbeknownst to herself has magical healing powers and can sprout ethereal wings. When an assassin comes to the hospital to finish the job, Elena, Zuri, and Marisol have to go into hiding to help Elena heal and solve the mystery of who is out to get her. During their time in hiding, sparks fly and these women discover that they are better together than they ever could be apart. And maybe together they can stop Elena’s killers and help Marisol figure out what she is.

Starting with our main characters, JJ Arias once again gives us some incredibly sexy and badass heroines that fit the trope of “competence porn”. Elena, our vampire mafia leader, just oozes powerful woman in a power suit complete with “step on me mommy” vibes (well, maybe more “bite me, mommy” but you get the idea). Zuri, on the other hand, is her perfect foil, a take no shit woman who, despite her thorny exterior, has a real soft and caring interior. She will do everything she can for those she loves, even if she complains the entire time. Then there is Marisol, our dedicated nurse and our quasi-surrogate character who leads us into this new paranormal world. In an almost exact opposite of Zuri, her soft and caring exterior belies an inner strength. All three women are incredibly attractive, well-written, and complex characters that you can’t help but fall in love with.

The dynamic between our throuple is also phenomenal. For starters, the chemistry between them crackles with pure erotic energy, leading to some incredibly hot sex scenes. Second, I love how they keep each other in check and balance each other out. For me, Marisol is the key to the entire throuple. From the outset it’s clear to see how Elena and Zuri’s relationship fell apart last time. Marisol’s introduction into their relationship helps not only through her ability to call them both out on their shit, but by showing them that there is another path beyond constant fighting. As a result, the dynamic between all three women both in the bedroom and in the story ends up feeling much more like a throuple rather than a couple with a third wheel.

When it comes to the plot of For Love and Blood and Fury, I really enjoyed the journeys that each of our heroines went on and how they supported each other through it all. Elena and Zuri’s arcs are all about confronting their past and learning to trust each other and Marisol, yet both feel different and unique in the best ways. Marisol’s arc was the most engaging to me. Not only is she being dragged into a paranormal world that she had no idea existed, she is also having to come to terms with her new powers. On top of all that, she’s also having to find her fit within the throuple as its newest member. All of our heroines' issues come up again and again, showing that the work that goes into a relationship never ends, and leads to some really sweet and tender moments between them.

When it comes to external threats and mysteries of For Love and Blood and Fury, I think JJ does a really good job giving us a thrilling story while also setting up interesting plot lines for the entire series. As soon as I finished the book, I was both satisfied with what I had read and so excited to see where the stories of Elena’s mafia, Zuri’s coven, and Marisol’s new powers go from here.

All in all, For Love and Blood and Fury is an absolute triumph in sapphic paranormal romance storytelling that will leave readers both completely satisfied and yet begging for more. Hopefully JJ will also decide to release the sequel early and save us from our hunger.