Blood and Bitcoin

Blood and Bitcoin is one of L.A. Witt’s contemporary romance or romantic suspense novels, working in the territory she has explored across her wide ranging catalogue. Witt has been one of the most prolific writers in modern queer romance for over a decade, with a catalogue spanning contemporary, military, paranormal, small town, and various other subgenres, and the Blood and Bitcoin title points to the kind of contemporary thriller flavored romance that combines current technological themes with the kind of high stakes plot that the genre rewards.

The Blood and Bitcoin premise hints at the kind of cryptocurrency and digital crime setup that contemporary thriller fiction has been increasingly using. Bitcoin and the wider cryptocurrency space have created new opportunities for criminal activity that the traditional law enforcement community has been slow to develop the tools to investigate, and romance novels in this corner often involve characters whose work brings them into contact with these emerging digital crimes. The romance develops alongside the technological and criminal investigation, with the central pairing having to navigate both the danger of the case and the slow recognition of what is developing between them personally.

Witt is good at this kind of premise because she takes both halves of it seriously. The technological and procedural elements are convincing, the danger feels real, and the romance has to be earned through choices the characters make under pressure rather than just through proximity. What distinguishes Witt’s work from a lot of the broader genre is the prose discipline. The pacing stays tight, the action sequences land, and the heat scenes serve the relationship rather than just provide fan service.

Witt writes with discipline. Her prose is clean, her dialogue snaps, and her plots move without filler. She has a particular ear for how men actually talk to each other in vulnerable moments, with the deflections and the half admissions and the slow build to the things that need to be said. That ear gives her romances their distinctive quality and is one of the reasons her readers return.

Readers who enjoy K.A. Mitchell, Cordelia Kingsbridge, Lisa Henry, or the harder edge of Garrett Leigh’s catalogue will find familiar territory in Witt’s work. Her output is large enough that picking a starting point can feel daunting, but most of her standalones can be picked up in any order. Blood and Bitcoin is a comfortable entry into her catalogue and a fair sample of what she does best in the contemporary thriller romance corner.