This is an interesting one.
On the one hand, it's not that good on the surface.
But on the other hand, there is clearly a deeper underlying understanding of the genre and its tropes that keeps the story interesting in a meta-way.
It's immediately clear from the blurb that there is some sort of genre meta-writing going on but it goes far beyond just being the hook to draw the reader in.
It feels like it was written for people who already understand the patterns in urban fantasy and it at least seems like there is a lot more depth to it than at least 98% of books in the genre have.
I am not sure if I am just projecting my own experience with the genre into the story but it very much feels intentional.

One repeating theme is that the author tries to depict a sort of shocking realism in terms of learning to cope with being a vampire and all the things which this might entail. A lot of innocent people die. Quite a few were accidental by the MC's hand.
And in the moment the author does a stellar job of delivering the emotional impact of many different traumatizing events that a typical heroine would just shrug off (or justify poorly or something of the sort).
But she fails at following through with this in the long run. The almost indifference towards these traumatic events has a kind of delayed onset but ultimately ends up causing the exact same loss of suspension of disbelief anyway.
But because of the implied promise of realism, the negative impact on my enjoyment ended up being much worse.

Definitely worth a read if you are a bit tired of the same old same old urban fantasy/pnr vampire story but be aware that the technical competence is lower than the ambition of the series.

I very much hope she didn't give up on her writing career (as the last publishing date I could find was 2016) because I very much love to see more unique and interesting stories like this and this has potential but I expect she just has to acquire the technical skill first to live up to her ambitions. ( )

I love a good vampire story and this one hit the spot. I stayed up reading it most of the night (it is 4:23 am)

Great characters, amazing plot and writing that flowed well from start to finish. Can I give more than 5 stars? I'd really like to! If I wasn't so tired I'd jump into book 2. ( )

Ashley Hawn's life is far from glamorous, even if she has written a couple of novels about hunky and romantic vampires. But when her date with Issac ends with him biting Ashley, and she wakes up in a strange place, she is about to learn that everything she thought she knew about vampires was just plain wrong. An ancient vampire named Nick is assigned the task of keeping an eye on Ashley as she adjusts to life among the undead, but when every supernatural being begins gunning for Ashley, she must do everything she can to survive. Can Ashley adjust to her death in time to save her afterlife from sucking even more than it has already?

Charissa has a very good character in Ashley, and we get to experience all of her fears, desires, and WTF moments as Ashley comes to terms with being a vampire. I like that Charissa takes the time to show how Ashley struggles with the need to feed, and the guilt that she feels when her need to feed causes death to regular humans. Ashley is struggling to retain her humanity, and coming to grips with her new reality is quite a shock. Since the story is told from Ashley's perspective, we only get glimpses of the other characters and their perspective on the events taking place. I think that is one area that the story is weakest as getting into the heads of people like Nick and Josh - the two vampires protecting Ashley - would have added a nice balance to the story, especially to see Ashley from their perspective. I also thought there were a couple of contrived scenes, where a plot point or a future story arc was being flagged, but the way it was done seemed out of character for Ashley - or at least something so rude (barging into another vampire's apartment uninvited) that even normal human common decency would scream that it was wrong, but Ashley does it anyway. That whole scene felt forced to me. Otherwise, I enjoyed the book and Ashley's struggle to adjust to her new...death.

If you like urban fantasy with a twist, and stories about vampires that certainly don't sparkle (boy, did Ashley get that wrong in her own books - lol) then I recommend picking up Sucked In.

I listened to the audiobook version available from Audible. I did have some problems with the production of the story as the narrator often gave long pauses where there really shouldn't have been any pauses. I don't think there were extra commas lying around, but I got the impression that as the narrator got to the end of a line she'd take a pause instead of reading through the end of the sentence naturally. It was a bit distracting. Otherwise there was no problem with the audio production. ( )