Last year, I picked up a copy of Callie Rose‘s Kingdom of Blood omnibus through Amazon. It includes Blood Debt, Dark Legacy, and Vampire Wars.

I picked it up to read now because I’m really enjoying paranormal Why Choose romances, and I’m trying to focus on reading only series that I already have all of the books. My fun reading time is so limited right now that I’ve decided not to give my attention to anything that I don’t have a guarantee of reaching a conclusion.

I’ve dedicated my life to slaying vampires. Now I’m about to offer up my blood. When my brother gets into some serious trouble with the Vampire Clan of Baltimore, there’s only one thing I can do to save his ass.

I decide to offer myself up as a blood tribute, infiltrate their underground palace, and find a way to get him out.

But playing the part of a simpering blood bag is harder than I expected, especially when my first impulse is to put a stake through the heart of every vamp I meet. To make matters worse, I’ve somehow caught the eye of three dangerous vampire men:

Bastian, an ancient prince with features as cold as ice and eyes that burn like fire.

Rome, a darkly sexy rebel who just returned from a hundred-year banishment.

And Connor, a newly turned vampire whose lopsided grin is so devastatingly human that I almost forget he’s the enemy.

Even though I want to hate them all, they keep getting under my skin in ways I can’t explain. But if I let myself lose focus for even a second, it won’t just be me who pays for it. My brother will suffer too.

I’ve danced with the devil plenty of times…

But this time, the dance might kill me.

I don’t usually use star ratings here on the blog. But sometimes, giving something a numerical score really is the best way to make a point. If I were going to rate this series, I’d reluctantly round it up to a three. The first book was weak. But I stuck with it, hoping it was just first-book syndrome and the series would improve. Book two coasted on about the same. But by the third book, I was skimming, at best.

I didn’t care about anyone or anything and only finished it to have finished it. If I were rating them individually, I’d give books one and two low three stars and book three a two-star rating. Not so much because the quality dropped any lower, but because the author just wholly failed to bring the series into anything worth having stuck around through all three books.

The world is barely fleshed out. The plot is simplistic and stretches over far more pages than needed. The romance is instant and doesn’t even particularly make sense. Three times, in fact, the romance is instant and doesn’t even particularly make sense. The sex scenes might have been considered fine if I cared about any of the characters. But I didn’t, so they didn’t have any emotional impact. The heroine is oh-so-special for no apparent reason, while the heroes are characterless cardboard cutouts. And the narration is overblown, though I’ll acknowledge that the mechanical writing is fine.

All in all, this was tolerable. I’m just glad to be finished.

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