I really enjoyed this magical realism story! It comes vampires, enemies, and a fun adventure with an ending that leaves you wanting more! It is easy to read and comes with a diverse cast of characters. I really enjoyed the dual point of views, but I do wish that I got to read more of the male main character’s perspective. This book starts off strong, then slows down in the middle, then picks up again. This is the first book in the series and I think that the author did an excellent job at capturing the reader’s attention! This is a slow paced read that is character driven. It definitely had mysterious and dark vibes to it, which I really enjoyed. I do think that there were some plot holes, it jumped from scene to scene without explaining how it got there.

It comes with lovable and unlovable characters. The main characters do change and grow throughout the story. I wish there was more romance in the book, but it is only the first book in the series. I definitely think the author did a great job of writing this book and I look forward to the next one in the series! This is an enemies to lovers, fantasy romance novel that I do recommend! Especially if you love reading a good vampire and human love story! Overall, I give this a 3.5 star rating!

I think readers of the series “Twilight” and the book “A Land So Wide” will enjoy reading this book! Content warnings include fear, death, use of weapons and murder.

Thank you to NetGalley and author Kay Marrie for this digital advanced reader’s copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

This book is expected to be published on June 15, 2025!

4⭐️
2🌶️

Thank you NetGalley and the author, Kay Marrie for a copy of this e-arc!

A Court of Blood and Sacrifice is a fast-paced dark romantasy with humans, vampires, and other monsters. The world is divided. The Queen’s magic keeps a protection barrier around the human lands to keep out the vampires and monsters. Sometimes though, they slip through. When Lilah was 12, vampires came into her home and murdered her father. From that day forward, her single ambition became to join the Sunfire Court guard so she could one day enact her revenge against the vampires who killed her father.

Fast-forward 10 years and Lilah is brought on a mission into the Dark Wood, the place she’s always been told to avoid. Monsters attack and Lilah is saved by an unlikely savior: Nyx, a vampire himself. He’s captured her because he says he has to and he has many secrets of his own. Lilah begins to learn there has been more to her life and her kingdom than she ever knew. But Nyx isn’t who she expected him to be: a simple blood thirsty vampire. He cares for her and protects her, even if she is his captive. Tensions boil over between the 2 and it’s hard for them to fight their attraction for another. But secrets are everywhere and everyone is out to capture Lilah. Can she truly trust anyone around her?

Again, this is a super fast-paced, shorter (under 300 pages) book that I really enjoyed. We dive right into things and while we get world building, it’s not overly dragged on and on. I really loved Nyx and would love to get even more background on his life in the next book. We were introduced to a few characters that I’m hoping we get more interaction with in the next book, to develop more characters into the story; mainly Ryker and Damon. I need a Ryker, Nyx, Lilah interaction scene with jealously and manly measuring contest 😜 haha.

For a shorter book, the spice 🌶️ was well written! I was afraid we were going to get a paragraph or 2 but the author gave us what we needed and it didn’t take away from the story!

For some, this might be a little too insta-lust/love, but honestly, for me, I sometimes enjoy that. It’s still enemies to lovers but I don’t need 600 pages to do it! The story progressed well and I truly fell in love with Nyx and Lilah ❤️

The book ends on a cliffhanger and I’m excited to see where the next book takes us! 😊

I will preface this by saying that I dont like YA books. So far, I've been okay with NA books, so i gave this one a chance. This read very YA. It felt like the FMC was crying every other chapter over absolutely nothing. I'm still kind of confused about the pacing of this book because it doesn't fully match to the book synopsis. Our MCs don't actually meet until around the 50% mark, so the entire first half of the book was just providing context, outside of introducing Sadi. I'm sure we will hear from the other Hunters again in a later book, but they were inconsequential to the plot, so im not sure why we needed almost 200 pages that mostly didn't matter. I felt similarly to the hinting of a triangle between the MCs and Ryker; why was that needed as it serves no purpose emotionally and doesn't advance the plot?

Overall, I think the magic system was interesting and I want to know more about the queen, but this was too YA for my tastes.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kay Marrie for the free eARC.

Vampires, magic, and a bit of spice made for a fun storyline! I really loved the concept, but the momentum wasn’t very consistent and made it hard to really connect with the main characters.

The opening really drew me in. I feel like we missed a lot of potential by not exploring more of her journey becoming a huntress. The middle was harder for me, it felt like she bounced back and forth in a way that felt repetitive.

Towards the end we got a lot more context and things had me on the edge of the seat with each new twist and turn. The cliffhanger left us all wanting for more! Thankful to NetGalley for the ARC.

The pacing of this book made this read a little difficult for me. It was fast, then slow, then fast, then slow, then even slower, then too fast. I was lost and having a hard time focusing or keeping up throughout.

I also felt like the plot was very repetitive and could’ve been cut by about 100 pages to make the story feel more consistently sped up.

Finally, I had a hard time relating to the main character. She felt very flat and stereotypical to me, making me yearn for a different character to appear in the plot to take over.

Thank you to Kay Marrie, Kailey Reidel, and NetGalley for an ARC of this book. All opinions are honest.

This was my first read by this author and also my first vampire based romantasy. From the beginning I was hooked, there was good pacing, suspense and the classic tension that goes with the enemies to lovers story. World building was good, at no point did I feel lost and there was plenty of action to keep me interested. Great cliffhanger ending and can’t wait to read the next in the series!

A GOOD 3.5 this was such a good, fun, quick book!! I loved the vampire/magical elements and it was all around just such a good time! Cannot wait for the next one now! What a cliffhanger !!
Thank you so much net galley for this arc!