A review by keandrews95
Blood of the Lotus by Sade Louise

4.0

I received this free ARC in exchange for an honest review. I stumbled across this book through an Insta ad and was drawn to such a gorgeous cover. The plot was also intriguing, but rather than a straight up fantasy like I was expecting it turned out to be an urban paranormal fantasy (that's not a knock on the book, but something that threw me when I first started reading because I was expecting something else). The overall premise of the book reminded me a lot of the Shadowhunters series with the struggle between angles, hunters, demons, and magical artifacts. Lance and Rishi turned out to be my favorite side characters. The half demons were cool and there were a few I wanted to know more about and see more of. There were a lot of cool concepts in this book, but there was also almost a bit too much squished into it that made it hard to untangle the plot. I struggled with liking Nova at times and her relationship with Luka. There were points in the story where Nova wasn't asking the right questions or getting the answers she maybe should have been searching for, which was a slight frustration for me while reading. Parts of the dialogue were repetitive where characters would keep saying the same thing only slightly differently and the conversations didn't always flow smoothly. I would have also liked to have seen more of the world building to really ground me in it because I struggled to get a real feel for everything in the beginning. While the beginning of the story dragged for me, the second half really picked up. If you're a fan of paranormal fantasy stories, this is the book for you. I give this book a 3.5 rounded up to 4 stars.