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Sunday, May 31, 2020

ARC Review: Of the Blood by Cameo Renae

Title: Of the Blood
Author: Cameo Renae
Series: Heir of Blood and Fire #1
Genre: Fantasy/Paranormal
Publisher: Victory Editing NetGalley Co-op
Publication Date: May 14th, 2020
Edition: Kindle Edition, 432 pages
Source: NetGalley
Purchase: Amazon USBook Depository | BAM




Synopsis:
One malicious prince. Two rival kingdoms. And an innocent girl caught in the crossfire.
   Raised in a war-ravaged continent, temptation comes to Calla Caldwell in the form of a charming and mysterious stranger. Giving in to his intimate seduction, her world is forever changed by a single bite.
   Calla quickly learns the handsome stranger is a vampire prince, Trystan Vladu. His bite was an attempt to claim and save her from a plot of vengeance generations in the making. However, the claws of that ancient vendetta are scraping ever closer.
Thrust into a new nightmare by the Prince of the corrupt kingdom of Morbeth, Calla is captured, tortured, and starved in the dank confines of his dungeon. While in captivity, she takes part in a séance with a witch of light where she contacts a departed relative—a Princess of Incendia—who bequeaths a gift to Calla that will tip the scales of good and evil . . . if she can learn to harness it.
   With a dark tapestry of secrets, lies, and murder unraveling around her, Calla must learn to embrace the power roiling through her veins, or be snuffed out by the strangling fist of a malevolent darkness.



I am on the fence with this book. There is a lot to like, or even love, about this book. Vampires have fallen these past few years, with so many trying, honestly failing, at trying to cash in on the success of Twilight. This book is not that kind of Vampire.

This book takes Vampires back a little to what they used to be. A little scary, and dangerous. While I can't speak fully on Tristan, since he's really not in this book much, Roehl is that dangerous and scary Vampire. He's a decent villain, but at times he comes across a little, for lack of a better word, cartoonish in his villainy. He's clearly unhinged.

I like that witches also are part of this book, Witches and Vampires actually have a lot of ties in mythology and it's nice that this book acknowledges that to a degree. I look forward to finding out more about this world in future books. 

I really like Calla as the main character. She is smart, headstrong, and resourceful. She's also selfless and kind. It's nice and rare that a character has all these traits. 

There are a lot of characters introduced in this book who are mostly only briefly on the page, and I wish they had more page time to get to know them better. Also, there was a lot of information given very quickly, that felt a little like info-dumping, and took me out of the story a little. It didn't feel that organic, just people standing there explaining things to Calla when they just mentioned time was short, and it wasn't made clear they were walking or running while anything was being explained to her. 

This series has a lot of potential to be great. I would love for Vampires to have a comeback. 

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