Scan barcode
A review by ericderoulet
Blood of My Heart by K.P. Burchfield
4.0
I received a free ARC of this book, and this is my candid review.
Romantic fantasy—or perhaps Blood of My Heart is better characterized as epic fantasy with a hefty dose of romance—isn't my usual cup of tea, frankly, but I wanted to give this a fair chance. I'm glad I did. While a few lines of prose felt somewhat canned and a few elements were a tad tropey, this book has a lot going for it, and I can see things improving as the series goes on. A few merits in particular:
While an opening with a fight scene can often be done poorly, this book's opener gives us a good helping of characterization and sets up genre and subgenre expectations really well. By the end of the first chapter, there's a promise that we'll be following a flawed antihero(ine) and that there will be steamy scenes.
I almost thought the pacing starts out a bit slow, but it worked for me. Characterization (both of the MC and those close to her) is arguably the first priority in a story like this, and there's a lot of worldbuilding that Burchfield weaves in gradually and naturally. Even the parts providing backstory on specific characters and their relationships didn't feel like info-dumping to me. Crucially, Burchfield doesn't leave us waiting too long before making the stakes of this story clear.
Overall, I'd certainly recommend this to friends looking for a dark and steamy read. For readers with tastes like mine, leaning more towards epic fantasy and grittier fiction, it's about as palatable as romantasy can get.
Romantic fantasy—or perhaps Blood of My Heart is better characterized as epic fantasy with a hefty dose of romance—isn't my usual cup of tea, frankly, but I wanted to give this a fair chance. I'm glad I did. While a few lines of prose felt somewhat canned and a few elements were a tad tropey, this book has a lot going for it, and I can see things improving as the series goes on. A few merits in particular:
While an opening with a fight scene can often be done poorly, this book's opener gives us a good helping of characterization and sets up genre and subgenre expectations really well. By the end of the first chapter, there's a promise that we'll be following a flawed antihero(ine) and that there will be steamy scenes.
I almost thought the pacing starts out a bit slow, but it worked for me. Characterization (both of the MC and those close to her) is arguably the first priority in a story like this, and there's a lot of worldbuilding that Burchfield weaves in gradually and naturally. Even the parts providing backstory on specific characters and their relationships didn't feel like info-dumping to me. Crucially, Burchfield doesn't leave us waiting too long before making the stakes of this story clear.
Overall, I'd certainly recommend this to friends looking for a dark and steamy read. For readers with tastes like mine, leaning more towards epic fantasy and grittier fiction, it's about as palatable as romantasy can get.