Beautiful, breathtaking enticing and wonderful in glad to have read this and miss the way reading this for the first time made me feel, thankyou for this chance and this world

Thank you to Orbit Books and NetGalley for the ARC!

3.75 stars

Lord of Ruin throws you right back into the middle of the political and fantastical mess our characters have gotten themselves into. I do enjoy the multi POVs we get in this book and I think Isaac really gets time to shine. The plot is one of the most intriguing parts of this book for me and I am so invested in finding out what happens next. We also get a little more of the Eternal King and how he is in more private settings.

The only reason this book is not 4 stars is simply because I don't think we get enough insight to really believe the love our characters have for each other. It is stated in their POVs and they mention it in their reasoning for their actions, but we don't really SEE it in their interactions. Everything is either a moment of intimacy ruined by someone keeping a secret or refusing to open up or a moment of deep and trusting intimacy that almost seems to come out of nowhere with the characters acting like acquaintances the next scene. I do think the characters and the roles they play are interesting and compelling, but I also see where they would be so much more fleshed out if they each had more time to interact away from the political plotting and rebellion.

Overall, I do love this series and I'm so excited to see what happens next. The Tagalog folklore was really amazing to see included and honestly was one of my favorite aspects of this book. I'm a sucker for vampires and a good, twisty, complicated political plot and K.M. Enright delivers beautifully.

4.5⭐ rounded up
Spice level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️.5/5
Six months after Isaac's failed coup of the Eternal King, Shan is struggling as the Royal Blood Worker with a blood shortage. Shan starts to consider darker means to increase the supply for a ravenous nation of blood workers. Meanwhile Samuel is struggling to navigate the politics as a Councilor to the King and turns to Shan's brother, Anton, for assistance rescuing Isaac. Through out this, Isaac is undergoing his own monstrous transformation that hints at a dark part and possibly previews a darker future.

Building on the world of the first book, I found myself pulled into the story faster with this one. The pace felt a bit faster and the stakes a bit higher as we see the effects of Isaac's work from Mistress of Lies and the Eternal King's reaction to this. There is another book coming so keep in mind that the ending isn't as tidy as you may like. Give this a read if you have read Mistress of Lies and you enjoy:
- near immortal rulers and the resistance rising up to fight them
- Filipino influence to the story
- a messy polyamorous relationship
- more blood
- vampire lore

Thank you to Orbit Books for an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. This book will be published on 8/12/25. I'll be posting to Instagram closer to publication

I loved the LGTBQ representation. One of the reasons I chose to read the second book is I really loved the idea that Issac uses magic/ blood working to help and maintain his transition.

I loved the gothic atmosphere.

I loved the refreshing Filipino take on vampires. Adding the lore to the western equivalent was very fun and made for an enjoyable read.

While Shan has the internal struggle of which side of history she wants to fall on. The flip flop gets tiresome.
Let’s be real, Shan wants power and that’s all she cares about. This back and forth was a little tiresome and anticlimactic when she finally chose her side, it would have been more fun to just watch her flourish as a villain.

A lot of time is spent on explaining to the reader WHY something happened or WHY someone said something. The author doesn’t need to point out that a character is doing this because of their plan to bring down the government every single time.that high society is cut through. This has been explained to the reader.

All you need to do is explain it once and set the tone of the book. leave the reader to their own conclusions. Bringing it up once or twice more throughout the point is fine at points I felt like I was being lectured like a toddler.


The sex scenes seemed unbelievable/unnatural. I’m sure the last thing someone would want to do after being released from torture is to have sex.



I really wanted to LOVE this series.
I loved Issac’s story arc, the gore and transformation were chefs kiss.
but I felt like it could have been a lot shorter if the author didn’t take so much time explaining every single action the main characters made.

Thank you orbit and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
It took me a month to finish book bc of life but during those 30 odd days I still kept having the same two questions over and over again every time I picked the book back up: will Samuel stop being a push over and have some development, and will Shan finally pick a side. The answers to those question is no and yes respectively. Unfortunately, the two questions and their answers are the major problem with this book in my opinion.

Samual at end of book one, is this powerful person and that is never brought up again until something happens towards the end of book and then it was convenient to bring it back up again. In this book he essentially becomes very one-dimensional with his personality trait of being a golden retriever boyfriend who likes pain and being told what to do. This is brought to our attention many times through dialogue (rehashed dialogue) and the sex scenes…. Lots of sex scenes. One might argue too many random sex scenes. Overall, Samuel becomes a very boring character who seems like he is only here to be a plot device and for sex scenes to happen. I want to see more of HIM in the next book.

Side tangent: look personally I was reading this book for the plot, not the smut. Some of these scenes just feel so random that it’s jarring at times.

Shan ,unlike Samuel, is a very interesting character. The scenes between her and Tristian are awesome. My problem with her is that I felt like the scene which portrays her tipping point into picking a side is lackluster. It just leaves me with the question of why now and not at the beginning of the book when we see what happened to Issac?

Overall I enjoyed the book and I will read the next one when that comes out because I am interested to see where this is going.

Did this book suffer from second book syndrome yes a bit. But it still has an amazing continuation of the political intrigue world-building from the first. It felt the characters dynamics were more central in this book, i enjoyed that and kept me intrigued all throughout the book. Definitely darker and building to a great end.

Thank you to Orbit and NetGalley for an advanced digital copy for review!

LORD OF RUIN was definitely more plot based than MISTRESS OF BLOOD, which really set the stage and characters for the events of this and the next book. The author handles the three POV format well, and connects the individual endeavors of these characters beautifully at the end.

I love their take on vampires, how one is made, how they may become a gruesome beast, and especially how different characters react to it (see Samuel, who’s scared *and* horny)

The characters were strong, but again, I felt like the plot dragged. This book was dry at times, and I really had to push through to the end (which was well worth it).

Maybe the third book will really kick off the plot, especially with the wild ending of this one.

Picking up 6 months after the end of Mistress of Lies, Lord of Ruin continues to follow Shan, Samuel, and Issac as they attempt to change their country for the better in their own often competing ways. Overall, this book moves the story forward, but it was not as strong as the first book. I wanted more of the political machinations, particularly Shan's, to better understand what was happening in the official government realm. I also wanted more actual revolutionary acts so that the actions at the flowed better. I also got really frustrated at the lack of communication between our three main characters. So much of the plot is driven by "I wanted to protect you so I didn't tell you and now you're pissed and acting in equally bad ways" and it got a little redundant. Personally, I also wanted less of the romance and more of the plot (romantasy fans will likely disagree). The twists are also "user milage may vary." I guessed several of them, but they are well done so I still enjoyed them when they happened. Where the plot goes and how the book ends are interesting enough, though, and I'm still curious to see what happens in book 3.

I think this follow up definitely builds on the first in a positive way, but at the same, I'm still left with the same feelings about the characters asking why. The world building was expanded on in some aspects, but the 3 main characters don't really get any new motivations, and the ones they do get sort of make them worse people?

I don't really understand the purpose of having this be 3 POVs. This story felt like it went from being about Shan to primarily being about Isaac, but still giving Shan chapters in which she basically does nothing. Shan is so selfish that it's hard to really understand why she's pretending to act like her embracing her job is about overthrowing the king when it's obvious she only cares about gaining power. I suppose that could make her morally gray, except she's just contributing to objectively evil things in-universe?

Samuel still somehow has zero agency and only exists to be babied and used as a sex toy even though he has the strongest power out of anyone in this series. Book 1 literally ends with him being OP, but in this he immediately reverts back to getting nothing done and being coddled by everyone around him. He wants to stand up so badly, and he just doesn't. Why not?????

Isaac......is the main character of this story somehow and is using his turning into manananggal as justification to overthrow the oppressive monarchy but....I didn't get why he had to do that to make that particular stance. He's already been arrested and broke out, and he's been contributing to the resistance. I didn't understand why he had to further sacrifice his humanity and turn into a monster to accomplish that? Sure, he was draining ~evil politicians, but like, the whole point of this movement being created was to stop the full body draining of unblooded? So he drains the blood workers instead and willingly turns into a monster?? Drains them and actively gives the oppression ideas on how to create NEW MONSTERS to oppress the unblooded?? It didn't seem smart.

In addition, it felt like the author was trying to add new lore with the manananggal and I could infer that it was Filipino lore (and that Isaac/Shan/Anton are Filipino), but it didn't make sense that Isaac was the only manananggal that existed while everyone else that drained blood in the same way was turned into a vampire. Is it because he's Filipino? What exactly are even the differences between the 2 besides manananggal being able to split their bodies in half? It wasn't explained at all so you're just seeing him splitting in half while other people are vampires that don't split in half. He didn't have any specific powers that warranted making this a noticeable difference.

The romance remains confusing as well. I don't know what either of them saw in Shan, and this was really a romance between Isaac and Samuel who somehow fell in love with each other after communicating not that often in book 1. The scenes also felt randomly placed. Like every time one happened it was like...hmm okay I guess? I will say, that the romance between Shan/Tristan was way more interesting to me. I think we need to let of Shan being a good person and just let her be diabolical. Her pretending she didn't want to be queen even after spending this entire story doing everything in her power to actively oppress people alongside the king was a choice. Just be evil girl.

Idk. This one was better than book 1 in some ways and worse in other ways, but I'll keep reading because I'm still interested to see what happens in the end.

I received an arc from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you Orbit and Netgalley!

I truly had higher hopes for Lord of Ruin. Book one was good and usually the books keep getting better in a series. This was not the case in this series.

4.5 stars rounded up!

I loved Mistress of Ruin, so I was so excited for Lord of Ruin, and it more than lived up to my expectations! This was such a satisfying second installment. Lord of Ruin picks up six months after Mistress of Lies, and everything feels sharper, darker, and heavier. I often find that sequels sometimes don't live up to the writing in the first book, but KM Enright's writing style is noticeably stronger in this installment. The stakes felt higher, and honestly I'm still reeling from the fallout of the tensions in this series so far.

Even though there's so much going on (blood magic, failing monarchy, disappearing blood supply, and more), this book never felt overwhelming. There was also definitely more romance in this book, which I appreciated.

The pacing was slow in the middle and I really had to push to get through it, which kept this from being a full five stars for me. That said, I need book three EXPEDITIOUSLY!

Recommended for fans of political fantasy, vampires, and STRESS.

A pretty good sequel! I really enjoyed the second half of this book and seeing where the blood magic went. However the first half along with the characters lack of communication/ bad decisions really grated on me for most of this. It makes sense for the story and the world politics but they all just felt so stupid.
However I'm devastated with where things ended and can't believe I have to wait a whole year to see where all these dorks end up!! I'm so excited for where this goes and I feel K. M. Enright will continue to grow as an author and I'm excited to see what they write next!
If you like blood magic, messy toxic romance and some spice this most definitely is the series for you!

Book 1 was a masterpiece, this was it's little sibling trying to keep up with their older sibling. The pacing was painfully slow. There was supposed to be a revolution happening? Instead we got 'we should have a revolution' for more than half the book. It felt like we lost the plot for the entirety of the book. I really liked Anton LeClaire the most out of all the characters, and he's rarely involved in many chapters. However his motivations seen so much clearer than Shan's. Shan is supposed to be this perfect lady who knows everything whose plans are supposed to be flawless, and she gets manipulated by her boyfriend's dad?? Come on. A strong FMC would not be manipulated like that. Early on I hated Shan so much I couldn't be bothered to read her chapters. This felt like a total mess of a book and I just hope book 3 redeems itself.

K. M. Enright’s Lord of Ruin, the second installment in this dark fantasy series, is a compelling and skillfully crafted continuation that not only builds upon the foundation of the first book but deepens it in all the right ways. Where the debut novel introduced us to a vivid world of shifting loyalties (patricide!), ancient powers, and morally tangled characters, Lord of Ruin dives headlong into those tensions with greater intensity and emotional depth.

The stakes are higher, the characters more richly developed, and the consequences more harrowing. Enright excels at layering personal conflict with political intrigue, and in this second volume, the fallout from previous choices begins to ripple in unexpected and satisfying ways. Relationships evolve...sometimes explosively... and the plot advances with the kind of momentum that feels earned .. rather than forced.

One of the greatest strengths of Lord of Ruin is how it rewards readers of the first book. This isn’t a sequel that rehashes what came before..it expands it, exploring new corners of the "world" and testing characters in more complex (often brutal) ways. Enright’s prose remains confident and evocative, with a talent for weaving tension into even quiet moments.

Though the pacing lags slightly in the middle, Lord of Ruin doesn’t just continue the story ...it elevates it. For fans of layered world building, flawed "heroes", and slow burning tension, this sequel to Mistress of Lies is a what makes fantasy fiction fun and a worthy experience.

Thank you to K. M. Enright for transporting me into this story (again)! Orbit Books, you do not miss, thank you for allowing me on this journey!

Oohhh yes!!!! Give me all the books in this series now! While Mistress of lies started off slow, this one jumped right out of the gate. I can’t wait to see how these characters continue to develop.

Absolutely fantastic! I've been looking forward to this one and it didn't disappoint. Can't wait for the next one!

The scheming be SCHEMING in this one, this author does political intrigue very well its extremely compelling, loved it!

I loved this book so much! The political scheming and characters are written so well. You get a great balance of perspectives with the character's POV (written in 3rd person). I have high hopes for Shans' redemption arc in book 3 and can't wait (But I'm also secretly excited for her story with the internal king because I love the bad boys with no morals - we listen and we don't judge).

This is a great new take on vampires and blood magic with a beautiful gothic setting. Beautiful romance sprinkled in that doesn't take away from the overall plot or story.

The political intrigue and magic system are top
tier. Anticipation for the plot twists had me on the edge of my seat.

I continue to really enjoy this world and the way the characters navigate it. For me, this definitely felt like a middle book, much of it taken up with events that kept the stakes in stasis, though the deepening of the lore and the emerging of new monsters was entertaining, even if I wish the pace was quicker. And the ending more than made up for lost time! I'm excited to see what comes next!