Tag Archives: dark fantasy romance

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Book Review: Bride of Brutal Hearts, by Kate Stevens

I received a free copy of Kate StevensBride of Brutal Hearts.bride of brutal hearts cover

Two vicious kings. One captive bride. Their magic should have destroyed me.

Instead, it made them mine.

When my sister’s name is called for the vampires’ harvest, I step forward. It’s a death sentence, but she has a family, a future. All I have is a dusty bookshop, an ailing body, and a fate that always ends in fangs.

As the only volunteer, I’m claimed as the newest Mortal Bride—a living sacrifice to their two wicked kings.

The Conqueror, ruthless and imposing, his icy demeanor concealing his fiery intensity.

The Butcher, charming and capricious, his divine beauty disguising his cruel desires.

The kings intend to drain my lifeforce to fuel the spell securing their reign. But when the ceremony goes awry, we’re all ensnared in an obsessive bond… one not even death can break.

The Conqueror and the Butcher now hunger for more than my blood. They want all of me, forever.

I should resist them. I should hate them. They are the monsters who devour my people.

But no matter how brutal their hearts, I crave them just as fiercely.

my review

I enjoyed this. At almost 800 pages to tell a fairly straightforward story, it’s far too long (and then ends on a cliffhanger to boot), and I have a few complaints. But overall, I enjoyed this. I liked Jules’ evil golden retriever routine, the dark and brooding Luc, and their relationship with each other. Nessa is pleasantly plump and has a backbone, though she isn’t really able to utilize it here. I’m hoping future books will allow her to grow in ways that allow her to find some agency for her internal fortitude. I appreciated the diversity and representation of endometriosis.

Here’s my main complaint. Stevens sets up a whole soulbond, fated mates kind of scenario that is supposed to bind people together. Each takes half the other’s soul. Or, in this case, the three share thirds. That makes them equal within the bond. Now, obviously, this is dark romance, and I’m not complaining about the dark themes. Nessa isn’t socially equal. Outside of the soulbond, she would have been a slave. (This is very much a master/slave dynamic.) She’s physically smaller. So, she’ll never be an equal in strength. She’s new to the whole scenario, while the men have been companions for 500 years. She’s not an equal there either. All par for a dark bride of brutal heartsromance course. However, the soulbond is supposed to bind them as equals within the bond, and it doesn’t. The individuals might not yet have it in them to treat each other as equals, but the internal demands of the bond should be balanced. Nothing about what the bond seems to make Nessa want and do is balanced between her and the men, and, according to the lore Stevens created, it should have been. Plus, I was so sick of them not trusting anything she said when they are supposed to be in her thoughts.

Despite that. I’ll be looking for book two when it comes out.


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Bride of Brutal Hearts (Bloodborne Court #1) by Kate Stevens

 

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Book Review: The Pale Court Duet, by Liv Zander

I picked up a copy of Liv Zander’s King of Flesh & Bone as an Amazon freebie and then purchased Queen of Rot & Pain.

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Worse than a ruthless king… is a king obsessed.

Isolation, darkness, and rotting flesh,
Surrounds me, suffocates me,
But I am the vile ruler who controls it all.

I long for warmth,
Yet, all that I touch,
Is cold.

Then, she stumbles into my domain,
Lost and frightened,
Alone and confused.

And I terrify her even more.

She calls me the devil,
So I show her pleasure,
Like only the devil can.

I am the heat that stirs her flesh,
The longing that trembles her bone.

She begs her body to refuse,
To escape my embrace,
But I am her master,
The puppeteer of passion.
I am the King of Flesh and Bone.

Welcome to my court, little one.

My Reviews

King of Flesh and Bone:
I went into this one knowing it’s a dark romance, so I won’t do anything more than warn readers to check their triggers. The whole first half (more, really) is full-on non-con—not dub-con dressed up as non-con, but full-on non-consensual in every way. It’s not gratuitous, but it is what it is.

Having said all of that, once the relationship moved past that (which it does quite abruptly), I enjoyed the last half enough to purchase book two. I’ll grant that there really isn’t anything new and exciting. If you read any number of darkish romances, you’ll likely be able to predict the plot points. He’s not likable on the outside, but his internal monologue is. She has a backbone and seems bright enough, but I don’t feel like we got to really see her as much more than a victim until toward the end. Then the whole thing ended on a cliffhanger in the middle of what I would have otherwise called the third-act breakup.

pale court duet

Queen of Rot & Pain:

Well, I dragged myself through to the end of the series. I accepted, during book one, that rapey is the name of the game. It’s non-con-central over there. But by the end, you get a sense of Ada as a woman, respectably clawing out some agency in a bad situation, and Enosh starts to show his soft underbelly. (He really wants to be a sweet, loving guy.) So, when the book ended on a cliffhanger, I decided to continue to the end. Unfortunately, there’s the big misunderstanding trope, and Enosh goes right back to rapey, but this time, angry rapey. I mean, it’s a dark romance. It’s not like I’m on some high horse about this. It just got redundant and harder and harder to root for the characters. By the end, I was kind of just shrugging at it all. It’s an entertaining enough read, but I’m kinda happy to be done with it, too.


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Recent Reads Reviews 📚 King of Flesh and Bone & Queen of Rot and Pain

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Book Review: Kingdom of Blood & Salt, by Alexis Calder

I accepted a review copy of Alexis Calder’s Kingdom of Blood & Salt through Rockstar Book Tours. The book was also featured over on Sadie’s Spotlight. After spending years training to defend my people from our enemies, I never expected that my enemy would be the one keeping me alive.

Athos is the last human city. A treaty with the Fae keeps the fae, the vampires, and the wolf shifters at bay, while we fight against the dragons at our border. Being a human in this world is dangerous and we all make sacrifices to survive.

When the delegation sent by the Fae King arrives to claim the human tributes required by our treaty, I never expected to forge a connection with their leader.

Ryvin is as dangerous as he is handsome. I know he’s my enemy, and I know I’m supposed to hate him, but with each passing day, he’s more difficult to resist.

But things are changing in Athos. Humans no longer want to bend to the Fae King.

Alliances blur and centuries of lies begin to unravel.

And I’m faced with a choice.

No matter how much I hate him, Ryvin might be the key to preventing war.

But it may mean sacrificing everything….

my review

I’ve read several of Alexis Calder‘s books now. I pretty much knew what to expect going into this, so I was neither pleasantly surprised nor disappointed. The book was largely as I expected. Ara was as combative and strong-willed as any of the other Calder heroines I’ve read. Ryvin was as smug and domineering as any good alpha a-hole. The wring was just as readable.

While I did have complaints (which I’ll address in a moment), where this book shined for me was in the illustration of navigating complex and conflicting relationships with gray characters. (It’s one of the book’s themes, in fact.) There were several points in the book where a character was faced with having to decide what to do about loving someone who betrayed them (and being loved by them), protected them despite being an enemy, or had understandable reasons for abhorrent behavior. I enjoyed this aspect of the book a lot.

blood and salt photoI did think that the book felt a little rushed and simplistic in the sense that the world is sketched out but not embellished. People exist, but the important cast is small. Emotions emerge, but the reader doesn’t get to see what they’re based on.

All in all, however, I’d happily continue the story. But I suspect, as has been the case with several of Calder’s books, I’ll probably forget before I manage to get my hands on the next book in the series.


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