King of Battle and Blood: 1 (Adrian X Isolde)

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Another thing that got me popping my vein is this branding that Clair had for coming up with the most condescending, crude heroines. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Do you hate women so bad as to pit me against all these female characters ceaselessly? I hate to give all the encomium to a man that hardly exists in the real world today so WHY? No, cause I get the hidden message forth; women empowerment, strength, knowledge versus ignorance, war, and sacrifice, yada yada. When Adrian the blood king, goes to honor the surrender of the house of Lara, he asks for princess Isolde’s hand in marriage in return – a young maiden who had enticed him in the woods. As he’d expected King Henri puts up a fight for his daughter, but eventually he agrees because in truth, the house of Lara has no other option except war. Commander Killian She discovers everything she had built her belief system on is wrong. And I think we all go through that,” she continues. “I grew up in a small town and I had the beliefs of my parents so ingrained into me…and when I went to college, and I was like, yeah, everything they told me is a lie. You spend all this time trying to undo or figure out what you believe. It’s a tale as old as time, honestly.”

This sort of stigma attached to the romance genre is not new, whether those stories are set in fantasy worlds or in contemporary America. But St. Clair insists that the assumptions involved are way off base. I’m not above some good vampire smut books in the right mood but dear god… this was SO BAD. Even with the vampire/forced marriage tropes, there ARE ways to write them and pull it off, but this decidedly failed in every regard. I like how Isolde de Lara stands firm about her values. She knows what she wants and stands by them. She will value her people and then worried about her safety.The romance was good and I liked how the tried to avoid miscommunication as much as possible. Their chemistry was immediate and you could tell how much he loved her from the very start. It isn’t my fave romance of all time, hence the 4.5 star, but it has so much potential. I also loved that Adrian always cleaned her blade for her whenever she killer someone—so sweet of him. 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. ⠀ Let me describe this book poorly: woman gets new boyfriend, old boyfriend is jealous, woman is jealous of new boyfriend’s female acquaintance because he goes to her for his fix, but woman doesn’t want to help him, she just gets mad at the other woman. Oh and turns out new boyfriend was interested in woman because she reminds him of his ex. Oh and there’s vampires and witches and magic and stuff.

The world-building was pretty cool and added to my overall interest in the book. I mean most worlds filled with vampires and other creatures are not usually that hard to fascinate me. King of Battle and Blood by Scarlett St. Clair is about a young, cranky, and defiant woman named Isolde who lives in a castle where she is pampered by her maid and her father. Isolde’s father has recently surrendered the Kingdom to the Blood King to avoid a devastating war.St. Clair notes that her new series will be very different than her previous work, and she’s excited to see where the story goes. “The characters of King of Battle and Blood just erupted one day in my head and never stopped talking. That’s how I knew it had to be my next series. Isolde and Adrian are fierce and angry and passionate. Their world is dark, dangerous, and witchy. Every step with them has been a type of magic and I cannot wait to introduce my readers—and new ones—to this world.”