4.5/5

I think this book found me at the right time. I was in desperate need of a trope-y, page turning, romantic fantasy adventure. And not the crap book tok loses its mind over but like a decent quality story. And I’m surprised to say it delivered.
I also think my bar for such books has dropped so low in recent years due to the overwhelming flood of “popular” but terrible books on book tok, so I’ve lost a lot of trust in recommendations from that forum. This one was the surprising exception though.

It has its flaws, things that irk me a bit, as all books do, and it was a little predictable as these trope-y fantasies typically are but still I ravenously read and enjoyed every moment, more so than I have any book in quite a while.

One thing I wanted more of was more side character development but it seems like that might come more in the next book. The character development of the two MCs was decent but I’m also hopeful that will expand more as the story unfolds.

The writing was surprisingly good, at times even beautiful. It was artistic and elemental. It reminded me that there are still books being published by authors who actually care about the art of writing and that some books do actually go through editing processes.
The worldbuilding was a bit slow and there are components that still haven’t been fully fleshed out but the ending made me realize there’s a lot more to come on that front. Overall though, I really like the premise of this world, the political system and challenges and the ethical dilemmas the characters face.

I also really enjoyed the challenging perspectives of being a fragile human vs an all powerful immortal vampire and how Oraya, pulled out of her human life so young and forced to live amongst the vampires, never felt like she belonged with either. The inner turmoil over who she is and her perceived powerlessness motivating her to become this ruthless force of nature is really intriguing and made for some great character development.

One of my favorite parts was the complexity of Oraya and Vincent’s relationship. There are so many layers to it and it’s such a challenging dynamic to wrap your head around but it makes for such an interesting component of Oraya’s motivations. I’m interested to see how things keep playing out with this in the next book.

I think there will be a lot of interesting pieces of the story that unfold in the next book. I’m left with a lot of questions and internal conflict which is what keeps me intrigued and reading.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and haven’t been this excited by one in a while. I think it’s a refreshing read when our bookshelves have been inundated with literary crap from booktok trends that glorify smut and bad writing, and publishers who forgo editing to rush to publish crappy books to make a quick buck.

Very excited for book 2!

Content Warnings