Warning: This is a book that I sacrificed sleep to stay up reading. As a mom of four children, including a nursing infant, "stayed up all night reading because I couldn't put it down" is the highest rating I can give a book. If you also have an addiction to well-written, fast-paced, highly entertaining books, you may want to start this one first thing in the morning so you don't lose *too* much sleep when you find yourself unable to put it down when bedtime rolls around.

Another warning: This is the first book in a series. When you read Exsanguinate, you're going to want to read the next book in the series, that's pretty much a guarantee. I hope you have more patience than I do, though, because the next book hasn't been published yet. So the good news is that this amazing story keeps going; the bad news is, you've gotta wait to get your hands on it.

Cheyenne O'Cuinn is the girl-next-door - if the girl-next-door is a role-playing game-developing wiz. Cheyenne is a sweet girl who's totally devoted to her dog, her two sisters, her online boyfriend, and her job as the lead developer for ExsanguiNation, an online role-playing world reminiscent of Second Life. Cheyenne and her two sisters are strong and realistically portrayed- each girl has her own quirks, strengths, and weaknesses. These are definitely not cardboard cut-out female characters!

One of the features of this book that I really enjoyed were the links to the secret bonus content - it's like when you get a DVD of a movie you really like and can access the deleted scenes that were cut from the final film. You can read and understand the book without them, but the fangirl in me squeed with delight when I realized there were extra surprise goodies to be had that gave me more story to read.

I got this book (Kindle version) for free during a promotional event, and I LOVED this book - the characterizations were spot-on, I cared about what happened to each of them (even the bad guys, in the sense that I was interested to know how Cheyenne and her pals were going to make them pay for their misdeeds). The storyline is intriguing, with lots of thrills and chills and laughs and love. As I mentioned, I literally stayed up all night reading this book, because just when you think you're reaching a part where you can set the book aside for a few hours, the author throws another curveball at you. The ending does leave you hanging a bit - the book ends on an amazing cliffhanger, ensuring that I'm going to be first in line to pick up World of Blood #2 when it's released!