I DNF'd this book at 35% because of the triggers. I was unaware of the TWs when I requested it, and while that is on me I am not comfortable continuing.
What I did read, I did not enjoy. The writing simply was not a style I enjoy and it did not flow smoothly.
This is by no means a bad book. It just wasn't for me.

SHADOW KISSED by Rebecca L Garcia

3.5 ⭐️

Before I go deeper into the review, thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an independent and honest review.


“𝔼𝕧𝕖𝕟 𝕕𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕟𝕤 𝕔𝕒𝕟 𝕒𝕡𝕡𝕖𝕒𝕣 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕥𝕒𝕝, 𝕝𝕠𝕧𝕖.”

This paranormal romance has vampires, political and family drama and a slow burn romance with enemies to lovers and one bed trope involved. Oh and a cliffhanger that makes you need book two straight away.

The first thing I want to mention is the cover! I think is stunning and immediately caught my attention. So yes, this was a cover pick.

The story gave me Vampire Academy and a bit of Vampire diaries or From blood and ash vibes and I was there for it!
However, I found the delivery of the plot a bit confusing, especially in the first half of the book. Everything happens so fast.
Olivia is a bit of a dull character and her development is quite slow but I’m hoping we will see a badass version in the rest of the books. She is a sorcerer and empath but she is not very good at it. She goes from one drama to the other and she finds herself alone, betrayed and in enemy territory.
Sebastian…he has all the things we can like about a morally grey love interest…he is a grumpy vampire, has wings, tattoos, he is hot and he is mysterious but the chemistry between them was really slow..like REALLY SLOW.
Just to mention another but…I’m not a fan of hiding information to “protect others” or miscommunication tropes so if you aren’t either be aware that we have it in this story and could be frustrating.

As I mentioned, the romance is a VERY slow burn and the spicy levels more on the low scale and in general was a bit tamed comparing with the dark romance books I’ve read recently. How we, I’m looking forward to see more of them together bin book 2.
The second half of the book is better and a little slowly paced than the first half and we can enjoy the characters better.

Will I read book 2- YES
Do I need to know what the future holds for Olivia and Sebastian? - OBVIOUSLY

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read and review this book!

While Shadow Kissed doesn't stand out and isn't going to be my favorite read of the year, it's good for fans of ACOTAR because you can really see a lot of parallels between the books. It has some fun tropes, like fate dating, sleeping in the same bed, and fake kissing. It's just the characters felt really stupid. I totally get that the main is 19, but really if there is this much on the line, please hold it together for 5 minutes. They also never kept their heads straight. Lots of weird agreesion that is not out of place in high school, but not appropriate with vampires who can rip your head off.

I really enjoyed Shadow Kissed! It was a quick vampire read with lots of tropes:

- one bed
- slow burn romance
- found family
- fake dating
- lost royalty
- enemies to lovers

To sum it up in one sentence, the MC Olivia is a sorceress and gets captured by a vampire. Pretty predictable and not super spicy (yet?) but the banter was great - though it comes with a cliffhanger so beware! I can't wait for the next one.

Thanks to NetGalley for the arc!

This is an amazing first book in the new Marked by Blood series!!! I love paranormal romance and this book will keep you turning the pages!!! I can't wait for the next book in the series!!! Read and enjoy!!!

Thank you so much for providing me an arc of this book.
4.5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(rounded up to 5)
1🌶️ (spice)
Very fast paced book involving vampire!
⚔️Slow burn.
⚔️Fake relationship trope
⚔️Fantasy world

Pros- very easy to read and very fast paced. Sucked me right in and finished in a few hours. It is a very slow paced spice so not much happens in this book. In that aspect it seemed more real than most romance type books.

Cons - a few times I got confused about who was speaking or who was doing what action, one time in particular Sebastian showed up suddenly and I had to reread that part another time and even then I didn't understand the flow.

This book ends suddenly as well.


Overall - I will continue on with this series.

For readers who enjoyed From Blood and Ash and A Court of Thorns and Roses!
I enjoyed the book, it’s a found family, enemies to lovers with slow burn and very little spice but that is usually to be expected in the first book along with the one bed troupe.
Olivia is an empath and a sorceress who has weak powers and isn’t the usual badass who gets stolen away by Sebastian, who is a vampire. She finds out more about her past and who she really is as the story goes along. I’m very curious about what happens in book two and am hoping it gets much more exciting!

Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2022
I received this book as an ARC via Net Galley and I'm so excited for the rest of the world to read this! If you love vampires, royalty, romance, scheming, one bed tropes, who did this to you moments and lightly spicy scandalous ball moments- then this is for you. I'm excited to see what next! I hope book two comes out soon! I need to know how it continues!!

This book had vampires, the fake dating and one bed trope; all things that I love but somehow this story fell short for me. The characters and writing were just okay and the plot was very predictable. In the end I just didn’t love this the way I thought I would.

Thank you NetGalley for providing this ARC!

- Winged vampire
- Sorcerers
- Fake dating

This book really intense at first and go slowly after that. I like the plot, because this book is part of series the plot has a great development in this first book. We got a good vision to what will happen in the next book. And the cliffhanger! Omg can't wait for the second book!

For the characters I really love Olivia, she's not really has strong power in this but with all the damage she got a great mentallity. And of course I love Sebastian! Our mysterious bad boy who always has a great banter with Olivia. Can't wait to see their chemistry on the next book with how this book end. I also love Seb friends, they're good with Olivia and I love how they protect each other!

I've been wanting to read Rebecca's work for a while now and I think Shadow Kissed was a solid option to start with!
I am always intrigued by variations in the vampire dark romance genre and I think that the book had a really cool storyline. When Olivia is taken to the vampire kingdom, I think we were fed bits and pieces about the vampire history and society at a solid pace. Clearly we know there's something deeper going on here and the idea of a vampire "royalty" and court influencing society really added to the world building.
Sebastian and his family were easy for me to connect with and I found myself wanting to know more about their backgrounds and what drives them as the story progressed. Olivia, unfortunately, I was not much of a fan of which may be what pushed this story closer to 3.5 stars for me. I found her too naïve for the majority of the book, sometimes to the point it was slightly annoying. I saw some growth in the last 50 pages or so and I'm hoping that she will come into herself more in Book 2. Overall, plot and side characters carried the story for me and I'm definitely intrigued enough to read book 2!

Thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for the chance to not only read but review this book.

4/5 stars
I'm really going to start checking to see if books are apart of a series, and if said series are completed. This whole ending on cliffhangers aint for the faint of heart and I'm not one of god's strongest soldiers.

Actual Review:
Wow.
That's it. That's the review.
Just kidding.

The thing with fantasy novels, is that there needs to be world building. You have describe the environment, the rules, ranks etc the whole things. Because of that, sometimes the book can be a bit drawn out and I'll lose focus or interest.
So for the beginning, that's how I felt.
But as soon as our FMC met the MMC, it slowly started to pick up and wow. Their dynamic, the banter, the feelings that started brewing even though 'they don't like each other' (psshh when have that ever worked). The way how he pushed her to believe in herself, to be confident in her powers. The way he opened her eyes to the fact that she's not meant for faint of heart, she's meant for so much more than that.

I stayed up until 3am fighting sleep so I could read as much as possible. But as I said, I'm not one of god's strongest soldiers so I fell asleep. Just finished it and WOW.
I'm in awe of this story and I HATE that book 2 isn't out yet because I want to see what Olivia (Seraphina) is going to do now. I want to see how her relationship with Sebastian (and Draven) grows. Hell, how she grows into her power and how she stands up for herself and becomes a badass.
I JUST WANNA KNOW!!!

so if the author sees this. I'm waiting with bated breath. My heart is in my throat, so please put me out of my misery.

P.S: I saw the one bed trope, and I can't say I'm disappointed.

I really wanted to like this book. Reading the synopsis, I thought it sounded interesting. It seemed like something I would like. However, I couldn’t finish this book. I read up to 30% and could not finish it. The writing style wasn’t for me. I also disliked how the characters felt lifeless.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

There were a lot of things which appealed to me when starting this book, the vampires and one bed trope definitely being the main things which excited me, and thankfully this lived up to my expectations. Something I definitely wasn’t expecting to hit as much as it did was the found family aspect, and I think this is because of how likable the side characters were, I would LOVE to see more of them in the sequel.

I will say that I was slightly disappointed with how predictable the plot was. I don’t think anything actually caught me by surprise in this book, the storyline itself felt fairly average?? Having said that though, the writing flowed well and it was entertaining to read, so I don’t really have too much of a problem with it. Can’t wait for the sequel to be released !!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this book in exchange for an honest review.

3.5/5 stars

A fantasy romance that will leave you wanting more. I enjoyed this book and look forward to what this author has next.

I requested this title because I loved the look of the cover and was intrigued by the synopsis. There were plenty of things I liked about this first installment in the Marked By Blood trilogy: a dark world with kingdoms of mortals and vampires, a sorceress with secret origins, a winged vampire coming to her rescue, a range of favourite tropes (enemies to lovers, one bed, fake engagement, found family).

For me, while I felt that there was plenty happening plot-wise, there wasn't quite enough room given to the development of the relationship between Olivia and Sebastian. Their initial meeting, when Sebastian rescued/abducted Olivia, was a snapshot scene, and once Olivia was in the City of Nightmares, the two spent a large portion of time avoiding each other. So in a way, this felt like an opening to their relationship that didn't quite get developed as much as I would have expected it to in this first part. It's 3.5 stars from me - the cliffhanger at the end guarantees that I will be picking up the second book in the trilogy...

Thanks to NetGalley and Victory Editing for providing me with an eARC in exchange for a review.

I was really invested in this book for the first half, but then the slow burn romance was introduced and honestly that ruined it for me. I just didn’t find a connection between Olivia and Sebastian and I really wished we just focused on the fantasy element of the plot instead of the romance. I always find that when romance is introduced the main females get highly and lose all sense of purpose, unfortunately I felt like that happened with old Liv here and it really just took away from the book. Nonetheless, liv is sort of useless.. there’s not much developmental to her character; if anything she waits to be saved which can be annoying and she was really weak.

I did like Sebastian - at times - as seperate people they’re great but together I just didn’t feel the spark. Nonetheless, Seb just didn’t get that development he needed to really fall in love with him.

I'll admit, I chose this book because of the cover. But as I was dropped into the world of the City of Nightmares, a vampire world where humans are treated like livestock, I realized it's so much more than a pretty cover. And the cliffhanger at the end is sheer torture! I can't wait for the next book!
Olivia, daughter of a sorceress, with no memory of her father, is protected at all times by the guild, an order created to protect humans from vampires. But one night, her mother and best friend are kidnapped during a vampire attack. Olivia is also taken to the vampire kingdom by Sebastion, who claims he's protecting her from the evil Nightshade group. As conspiracies converge and threaten to destroy everything she loves, Olivia must make a choice: escape with her life and let her new friends clean up the mess, or become what she fears the most.
I received an advance reader copy of this book. The views and opinions expressed in this review are completely my own and given voluntarily.

Ahhhhh so good! The books started out heavy immediately going into the talk of the MC loosing someone to possible suicide that I had to kinda take a break to get okay with that headspace so soon. Once I did I flew through this book! The characters are equal parts lovable and infuriating! Did I want more spice, yes, but the plot more then made up for that. Need book 2!!! The best tropes are in this book!

Will post review on instagram @bookish_megeen in story monthly wrap up. Then in full on grid once I get the special edition book delivered.

Posted review on Amazon under Megan is currently pending approval.

This review is a little hard to write because honestly my opinions about this book are a little hard to pin down? I really had trouble being invested in the story- sometimes world building can be almost "skipped" over in the sense that as action develops, you as the reader develop an understanding of the world. I don't feel like I "got" there by the end of the book, and I didn't really find myself believing the characters or their motivations. That being said, the ending was FRUSTRATING in the best way so I will be reading book 2 because I want to find out what happens! Glad I got to read this through NetGalley- it was a good way to figure out my interest in the series.