Arranged marriage + vampires + enemies to lovers + reincarnation - yes, please.
I couldn't stop reading this book - after I got past the first chapter or so. Don't get me wrong, King of Battle and Blood started out deliciously spicy. I especially appreciate Isolde's fiery, independent spirit and the fact that this wasn't an all-too-typical "quiet virgin princess falls in love with and has mindblowing sex with the first man she sleeps with" story. The characters are mysterious and likable from the start and only get more interesting as the story goes on.
And while I appreciate a sexy romance fantasy tale, I truly fell in love with the book when the actual story got going. Scarlett St. Clair shows off her world-building skills in this book, but that depth and intrigue are held back for a bit too long in favor of more (still hot) sex scenes. We get it, Adrian and Isolde have explosive sex every time (good for them), but I only started to actually care about them and their future together when I got more context to their world.
Still, King of Battle and Blood is a juicy page-turner and perfect for all fantasy romance fans. I'm looking forward to book 2!

Isolde de Lara will do anything for her people, even if it means marrying the Blood King. When they are attacked moving Isolde to King Adrian’s castle, she knows she has to be the future queen the country needs.

I loved this enemies to lovers, forced proximity dark romance! If you love vampires, STEAM, and monsters, you’d love this. I highly recommend it!!

I was not a big fan of the main character, she came off cold at times but I do enjoy a good vampire book.

I’m weak for an arranged marriage trope, so I was of course excited to read this after enjoying this author’s previous Hades/Persephone retelling. While I’m not sure the action/plot of the book was always quite to the level I wanted, the romance and tension between the two was as entertaining as I could’ve asked for and definitely made up for it. All together a steamy and entertaining read.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

Have we ever discussed my favorite tropes? No? Let’s go over them really quickly. They are: arranged marriage, enemies to lovers, and although it isn’t technically considered a trope, I love it when a woman can fight. Now, let’s talk about King of Battle & Blood. The main character is Isolde, a warrior princess, who arranges a marriage with the Blood King, Adrian, to save her kingdom. They’re enemies…I’m pretty sure at this point that Scarlett St. Clair wrote this book for me specifically. Honestly.

OH, did I mention the vampires? YEAH THERE ARE VAMPIRES. AND they don’t sparkle. Again, this book was freaking written for me.

I loved the world created, and the writing was so easy to read for a fantasy novel. It was the perfect combination of world building and steady pacing. I learned about the kingdoms and politics without feeling at all bogged down. Between the map and the explanations given in the book, I feel as though I have a pretty steady grasp over the world and can’t wait to learn more in the next book.

How’s the spice, you ask? FREAKING FIRE. The spice scenes are hot, frequent, and start early. The chemistry between Adrian and Isolde is absolute fire and leaps off the page.

The only reason that I gave this a 4.5 instead of a 5 was because I did guess the major plot twist at the 40% mark. Although this was a bit predictable, it was entertaining as hell and that was what I was looking for. I can’t wait to continue this series.

For some reason this book showed up in my kindle unlimited recommendations so many times in the past few months. When I finally investigated and found out the book wasn't out yet I was super upset because I am a sucker for vampires and fantasy and didn't want to wait until the release date. When I saw the book on netgalley I got so excited and jumped at the opportunity to read the book early! I am so glad that amazon knows what kind of books I like because omg this was a great recommendation. The marriage of convince trope is always an interesting one. This trope was super well executed in this book because there was a valid reason for the marriage and there was a strong political subplot in the book. I appreciated that there was no insta love and while I kind of predicted the plot twist I still enjoyed it. The only major critique I have for this book would be that the ending was a little rushed and could have had more detail and or a few more chapters of depth. I really liked both of the main characters, Adrian in particular. Fantasy lovers, more specifically new adult or adult fantasy lovers as well as romance lovers, paranormal or otherwise will love this book!

Until next time...

The book opens as Adrian, the vampire king conquering the protagonist Isolde's country of Lara. Isolde doesn't realize who he is when she unexpectedly meets him in the woods as she is battling a monster, but there is an immediate sizzle of chemistry which she can't understand, especially since she was raised to fear and hate all vampires. Adrian ends up marrying Isolde to unite the two countries, but unfortunately, the author uses sex and violence as the main drivers of the plot, which means that character development isn't what it could be. The most developed character is Adrian as his backstory slowly emerges throughout the book. This isn't a bad book, but it is not anything special. There will clearly be a sequel, as there are a number of unresolved issues by the end of the book, but I'm not sure I'm interested enough in the story to continue reading it.

WOW. W O W.

Isolde has no interest in marrying. To love is to lose and given she hasn't met her equal, she has no desire to wed. That doesn't change when Adrian, infamous Blood King, comes face to face with her and bargains the safety of the people of Lara for her hand in marriage. As a future queen, she agrees to save her people and much to her father's dismay, Adrian whisks her away to the land of those who she has been taught to hate and fear since she was born.

Adrian may be a vampire, but there is a lot more that lie beyond the walls of her home and the longer she is away, the more she learns. Isolde has the opportunity to take down her people's enemies from the inside but there is a lot she does not know and as much as she'd like to fight it, Adrian surprises her again and again. What happens when the monster you're supposed to hate to no end, ends up being the man you marry?

WELL, I'LL TELL YA WHAT HAPPENS. YOU SWOON OVER HIM. Adrian was a fineeee specimen, let's just call a spade a spade here. What a wonderful character who just seemed to have heart eyes for Isolde from the start. I loved his character and I also loved Isolde and honestly.... pretty much all of the supporting characters as well. They built this story into something so much more enjoyable as they all circle each other throughout the book. I can only hope that our next addition to this duology? Series? will be just as enjoyable as this one.

Isolde was hardly as annoying as I thought she would've been. She just had the ingredients of one of those female leads in denial and one that was impulsive and hot-headed. While she was in denial over Adrian and their people, she most definitely wasn't the latter two. She thought like a queen and acted as such, holding her head high with confidence as she did what she needed to do.

I was so happy that I loved this. I've put of A Touch of Darkness to let TikTok die down a little bit and this just made me want to head back and read that finally (but I ordered it, so we'll wait until it comes in). Overall, an excellent read. I can't wait for this one to come out so I can buy it.

A few months ago, I really got back in to wanting to read vampire books. So when I saw this on NetGalley, I was sold. Little did I know that this book was spicy vampires. I mean. SPICY (for me. I'm new here). BUT. I. Am. Not. Mad. At. It. I love this book.

This is an enemy to lovers story. Isolde is forced to marry Adrian, the Blood King, in exchange for the protection of her father King Henri, and the people of her kingdom. She hates him but is willing to make the sacrifice for her people. She even tried to kill him a few times. As she spends more time with him and other vampires, she's learning that they aren't all that bad. As their vampire history comes to light, she realizes that maybe everything she has ever heard is a lie.

This book has:
-a powerful female MC (I love her)
-a sexy vampire who is into consent (I love him)
-political intrigue
-spice
-witches
-humor
-more spice
-queer rep

Did it have it's flaws? Yes. I fell some scenes were cut short when they could have been longer to provide more information. Isolde's inner conflict of love and hate drove me insane towards the end. But did I have a good time? I had a BLAST! I had the best time reading this and I'm sad that I have to wait who knows how long for the next one!

Thank you to Scarlett St. Clair, Bloom Books, and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

First, a very special thank you to NetGalley for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

If you like enemies to lovers, arranged marriage, instant sexual attraction, SPICE, vampires, gods, witches and magic - then you definitely do not want to miss this one.

I am a huge fan of Scarlett's Touch of Darkness series, and while I did not end up loving this one quite as much as Hades & Persephone's story, I am HOOKED. The first few pages I found to be very choppy and poorly written (sorry Scarlett, the writing just felt lazy), but as I continued with the story I felt much more immersed and interested in the characters and the plot.

I absolutely loved the romantic quotes peppered throughout the book (get those tabs out guys, there's some good ones in here), and the beautiful/tragic romance undertones. Scarlett typically has a way of making her readers feel very sentimental and deeply tied to her characters and their stories, so I was pleased to see that this book did not fall short in that category.

I would've loved to give this book 5/5 stars - but there were very important parts to the story that needed further explanation (i.e., the reincarnation storyline, the bloodletting/fates tie-in, etc.) I hope that Scarlett fleshes these out in more detail and proves further explanation in the next books; ideally though, we should've seen that here. The lack of explanation and detail here prevented the book from truly living up to its full 5/5 star potential.

Overall, this was a great read- I blazed through this book in a little over one day, and I loved every minute of it. While I wish Scarlett gave us more details and explanations to deepen the story, I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who loves a good fantasy romance with some sexy spice.

King of Battle and Blood is the first book in the fantasy romance series about vampires and witches by Scarlett St. Clair. This book is perfect for fans of Blood and Ash and Crave series. It has great worldbuilding, interesting and compelling characters, and a very sexy romance. It also has an insta-lust trope which is not my favorite; I found the sex scenes to be a little bit "wham, bam, thank you ma'am", especially in the beginning. I prefer more build-up and foreplay in my romance. But I was very much intrigued by Isolde and Adrian's relationship, as well the fantasy world and politics that Scarlett St. Clair created in her book. Overall, I enjoyed King of Battle and Blood and I am looking forward to reading the next book in the series

I love a good Paranormal Romance, and this definitely fit the bill. I liked it overall, bit had a few issues with the plotting. It seemed the author really only decided what twist she was going to go with about halfway through the book, which made the tone and pace a bit uneven. Also, there was A LOT of sex, very graphically described, Way too much for my taste. And because it occurs so early on in the book, it becomes repetitive and loses the sense of payoff that I look for in a romance.
But I liked her take on Vampires and Goddesses. I just wish she spent more time on the mythology and world building and less time in the bedroom. Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced copy.

I can't get over how much I loved this book! This was everything I didn't know I needed. We have a fiesty heroine, a dark, sexy vampire king, an enemies to lovers romance, and everything set in the middle of a war. I loved not just the main characters but also the side characters; especially our fun and fabulous trio of guards. I am so intrigued to keep reading. I love how we were given just a small taste of where the story is going to go and with the addition of witches and the war that is happening, there is so much action (both inside and outside of the bedroom) that I am dying for more!! If you love fantasy/paranormal romance and are looking for a new read, pick this one up!

What I expected from Scarlett St. Clair - passion, steam, and some intrigue. This was just... okay. She is such a big name author though, I have no doubt it will sell very well! Wish the story would have been fleshed out more.

i went in wanting to love this book, and have been excited about it ever since i heard the Author announcing it's existence. Unfortunately it was not for me. Before i address this however i want to say, that i love Scarlet St. Clair's writing style and this is in no way a degradation of that.
I thought that her characters were for the most part interesting, and the banter was well exciting, the plot itself was enjoyable as well and for the fact that she wrote this book in 2 months time, it read very well.
I loved the conflict between Killian and Issi, and i was 100% squealing when she shut him down time and time again. I loved that her relationship with her father was a good one (can't relate- but very happy for her😅), i was excited for Adrian's intoroduction.
However, some of the more technical areas were a little bit lacking for me. Often times the word choice felt repetitive and by restructuring some of the sentencing, certain metaphors might have left more of an impact. It felt slightly rushed in some areas, like there was room for more information, for her to expand on certain ideas as well.
I was excited for the smut in this book, but wasn't as pulled in as i was with "A touch of darkness". The plot was strong, but sometimes the characters were lacking for me- i couldn't get into them like i wanted to. Issi was very strong willed, which is amazing- give us all the femme fatales- but her actions sometimes felt entitled (which i know is a complicated criticism and makes me look like an Alphahole).
Overall i think the book will do well with the public, and i recognize that my opinions often don't mirror those of the fandoms. However i wanted to be completely honest in my review.

Once again, this is not a reflection of Ms. St. Clair's abilities. I believe that she is a wonderful writer, this book just didn't quite resonate with me.

You wouldn't believe the hype for this book in the book circles/community! While I didn't quite enjoy the read (I never really got behind the protagonist), I'm happy that the author has such a devoted fan base. Anyone looking for a fast-paced, thrilling, enemies-to-lovers fantasy romance is sure to enjoy this.

3 ⭐️ If Bram Stoker's Dracula and JLA's A Shadow In The Ember had a baby…this would be it


If you like enemies to lovers, the arranged marriage trope, insta-sexual attraction, a feisty dagger-wielding female MC, and vampires/witches/gods, then you’ll probably enjoy this book. I am a sucker for all these things, so the story hooked me from the start. However, there were a few things that hindered my overall enjoyment.

The writing was choppy, there wasn't a lot of character development (but I could see it happening in the next book), and there were a few issues with plot continuity.

Also, the story is extremely predictable. I literally called every single ‘shocking’ revelation and plot twists because the foreshadowing is so obvious. This was frustrating because who doesn’t love that moment in a story when all the pieces come together and things finally make sense. But in this book, these plot twists are alluded to so frequently that when they finally happen, you’re not surprised. It was also really frustrating knowing what was going on before the main characters and watching them fumble around the truth.


I may have given this an average rating, but regardless of the flaws, it was an entertaining, quick read. And regardless of the book's flaws, I’m invested enough to continue on with the next in the series.


A special thank you to NetGalley and Bloom Books for this eARC in exchange for an honest review. As always, all opinions are my own.

This is the second Adrian who is also a vampire that I love: shoutout to Adrian Ivashkov form Vampire Academy. This was a really spicy books with quite a good story and I can't wait to see what Scarlett St. Clair does with this series.
Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for providing me with an arc for an honest review.

A thrilling enemies-to-lovers fantasy romance. Looking forward to the next book in Isolde and Adrian’s story!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. All of the opinions given are my own and have been given nothing for my review.