DNF 20%
Honestly, i should have listened to the other that reviewed this one.
It is bad. Do not waste your time, like i did mine.
NOPE.

M/m romance, Ancient Egypt, a touch of cannibalism, murdered, secrets , that set apart from any other m/ m romance that I've ever read , which in this case it actually worked and giving the type of atmosphere the author was going for it made it feel a big more dark and twist which is why I enjoyed it so much .

I received a complementary advance reading copy of this book from Riverdale Avenue Books via Netgalley for a fair review of it. The comments about it are my own.

On one level, this is an imaginative man on man romance involving a young gay man Jamie Dunn and a creature/being called Dr. Danilo who is the human form of an ancient Egyptian god but with the traits of a vampire. On another level, it's a shocking story, with an atmospheric background and a continuing threat of imminent harm. It also has a theme of repressed gayness and self-hate. At the beginning Jamie encounters and befriends several young gay men struggling with their orientation; one such closet case turns violent with his repressed rage, killing Jamie's roommate.

A redeeming feature is that Jamie and Danilo take a grand tour of London, Paris and Berlin before ending up in Egypt. In the European cities they visit the museums featuring Egyptian artifacts, such as the head of Nefertiti in Berlin. Their Egyptian visit starts at Alexandra and includes stops in Cairo where they visit the pyramids at Giza before travelling up the Nile to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. This is the best part of the book. The rest is a disturbing dark and creepy story.

There's plenty of blood, gore, and gratuitous violence which makes it an unpleasant read. As to being erotic, the sex scenes are often violent and disconnected from the core story. My rating: needs improvement.

I felt this book was not that bad there were questionable scenes that included cannibalism and necrophilia but those sections could be skipped. I really wanted to like Jamie but as the story went along his character changed a good bit. The plot was very interesting but the development was slow and it was easy to guess where it was going.

Thank you Netgalley for letting me read this book.

A steamy queer romance, The Blood of Kings follows Jamie as he falls for his Egyptology professor - only to realize that the man harbors a few secrets! This book has everything you could possibly want: an angsty romance, age difference, and historical accuracy! With a fluid writing style and sympathetic characterizations this is a must read for fans of m/m romance.

A special thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book is a bit different, the ancient Egyptian overtones sounded really interesting and I don’t mind an age-gap (although I wasn’t expecting one that big!).

The story is interesting. A dual swimming and piano prodigy gets involved with his Egyptology prof and gets a lot more than he bargained for. The book could have been written as erotica, or much darker than it was. It started out with several mysteries going on and kept up with some action scenes sprinkled throughout. The romance was a bit heavy-handed at times, I thought. We never really know why Jamie is so special that a guy breaks 3,000 years of habit to finally be with “the one”.

On a positive note, I enjoyed the traveling, I really felt like I was there! The locations were so different and the details just made it all seem so real.

This book deals with a lot of heavy subject matter but the overall tone is matter-of-fact and doesn’t overdo the angst. It was an entertaining read.

I read the updated version which I believe addressed some editing issues others had pointed out previously. There were a few rough patches and a typo or two that slipped through but nothing that ruined the flow.



Rating: 3.5 stars

I received an ARC of this book via NetGalley and the publisher and am voluntarily leaving an honest review.