A review by michellefromsomewhere
To Bleed A Kingdom by Ella Dawes

2.75

The author fell into a common "trap" of forgetting that the readers have not spent the same time or energy with her characters and story that she has. The characters are meant to be likeable, and much of the dialogue is banter, but readers don't know or care about the characters yet, so it falls flat. It's clear how much the author loves her characters, and I kept reading hoping I would too, but I don't feel that the foundations to make me love the characters were there. I never felt like I understood the characters on a deeper level, and the slim promise of a mystery and secrets was supposed to keep me hooked. The secrets and mystery were mentioned constantly, but it took way too long in the book to get any progress/answers and by that point I had lost interest. Very little plot development happens in the book, in favor of establishing the characters, but that wasn't enough to keep me hooked. Three stars because I think the writing is solid for a debut novel, thought it could use more editing as there were many typos, and the ground work is set that the rest of the series could be interesting and improve.


Thank you Nerd Fam for the gifted ARC.