Book Review: A Kingdom of Blood & Betrayal

If you live in the northeast of the US like me, I hope you’re doing okay with all the smoke and haze from the wildfires in Canada! It was really bad here yesterday and has improved a lot today. Hopefully most of it clears out today and the weekend starts to get back to normal.

Anyway, a few days ago I wrote my review for A Kingdom of Stars & Shadows by Holly Renee and talked about how much I liked the book and how it was such a fast read. The second book in the series, A Kingdom of Blood & Betrayal was just as quick!

This post will have spoilers for A Kingdom of Stars & Shadows!

This book picks up where the first book left off. Adara is with Evren in the Blood Kingdom and is mad and feels betrayed. She knew that he was half fae and half vampyre, but he never told her that his mother was the Queen of the Blood Kingdom! All he had told her was that he was the bastard son of the fae King and his mother was from the Blood Kingdom and he wasn’t allowed to see her. She is feeling all sorts of emotions. She loves Evren, but she’s mad at him and feels betrayed. At the same time, she doesn’t want to go back to the fae kingdom to Gavril and his evil mother. She is also confused because everyone she has met in the Blood Kingdom has been kind and friendly and she was raised to believe all the vampyres were blood thirsty, evil people.

As Adara works through her feelings about everything going on, she does befriend Evren’s best friends Sorin and Thalia and continues to get to know Jorah, Evren’s other best friend who was also one of the guards in the fae kingdom – apparently Evren brought him with him when he lived in the fae kingdom. Thalia is also Starblessed and helps to train Adara in both fighting and controlling her magic while Evren returns to the fae kingdom, pretending that Adara has been captured. This only adds to Adara’s inner conflict because she’s angry with Evren, but she fears for his safety if Gavril or the Queen finds out he betrayed them. But ultimately she knows she loves Evren, he loves her, and Gavril and the Queen will stop at nothing to get her back.

I really liked this book, but loved it a bit less than the first book. The reason was because I felt that Adara spent too much time being mad and stubborn about not wanting to get over it. I just wanted her to move on already! But once she does accept things, the story starts to pick up and I really loved the last 1/4. I still liked her, despite her stubborness, and I still love Evren. I really like Sorin and Thalia and am happy they got introduced in this book. I’m also excited because there is a book on Sorin and Thalia coming out next month!

The book ends on a heartbreaking cliffhanger and I’ve already started the last book in this original trilogy and hope to finish it by tomorrow, if not tonight (if I’m not too tired to get a bunch of reading done tonight).

Read this series if you want a spicy fantasy romance. Book 1 had the forbidden romance and one horse trope. This one has the found family trope!

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