Review: King of Battle and Blood by Scarlett St. Clair

King of Battle and Blood by Scarlett St. Clair

Recommended: yes
if you’re fine with a TON of explicit sex scenes, but also it resolves into a pretty damn good story (that still has a lot of sex scenes)

Summary

Their Union Is His Revenge.

Isolde de Lara considers her wedding day her death day. To end a years-long war, she is to marry vampire king, Adrian Aleksandr Vasiliev, and kill him. ⠀

But her assassination attempt is thwarted and Adrian threatens that if Isolde tries kill him again, he will raise her as the undead. Faced with the possibility of becoming the thing she hates most, Isolde seeks other ways to defy him and survive the brutal vampire court. ⠀

Except it isn’t the court she fears most—it’s Adrain. Despite their undeniable chemistry, she wonders why the king——fierce, savage, merciless—chose her as consort. ⠀

The answer will shatter her world.

Thoughts

OKAY, first of all, I don’t know if all of the author’s books are like this and I just had no idea, but the first half of this book is basically just erotica with a light vampire theme. There’s several scenes of masturbation, filthy talk, sexual tension, and yes, sex. The word clit is said 13 times, starting as soon as chapter two. (Thrust is also said 13 times, but once is referencing a pivotal violent moment rather than sex, so look forward to that, too!)

So it’s a LOT of sex stuff (cough chapter six cough), but it’s also preeetty satisfying sex stuff. Jus’ saying — it wasn’t exactly a con for the book. xD But a heads up because this would have been real awkward had I been reading on public transport like I used to all the time.

The second half of the book expands a lot on the deeper story once you get past the post-coital haze of the first half. There are some intriguing hints along the way, but they really start to resolve towards the end. They become tantalizing — which is actually the perfect word to describe this whole book — and I will absolutely be reading further books in this series.

Characters are always fun to watch when they grow, and particularly when they have their world-view and prejudices challenged. Why else would Pride and Prejudice still be so popular? It’s a strong path to success, and the discoveries found along the way in the story were extremely satisfying. Plus they were often in a library, which is always a plus.

The one thing I seriously hated was a moment at the end when one character is unforgivably and immediately an idiot. Besides that, the conclusion was decent, but damn if this moment wasn’t predictable and still infuriating.

How stupid can you get? (Click for a spoilery rant)

Isolde is all like, there are only 3 people who know the secret to killing me / Adrian, so we absolutely CANNOT let anyone else know, because we can trust very few. And then she immediately tells her father, the person who has been encouraging Adrian’s murder from the start, and clearly hates him, and CLEARLY is also not feeling the same about his daughter now that he’s heard her sex sounds from banging an (in his mind) evil vampire. She immediately tells this one critical secret to a guy with every motive in the book to take advantage of it, and is then surprised when he immediately acts on it! Oi, Isolde, girl, what the fuck. You’re reincarnated, and you’re still naive as shite.

Overall, FABULOUS and dark though definitely much different than what I expected it to be. I’ll be looking up the author’s other books and continuing this series for sure!