“Maybe this place made all of us that way. Taught us to hide love in sharp edges”

“My anger made everything certain and easy. My love made everything complicated and difficult.”

From the second I started this book, I took it everywhere with me! It was so beautiful and perfect in so many different ways. This is one of my top reads this year and I never thought I would say this about a book themed around Vampires but this made me love that trope again!!

What did I think about it?

OH MY GOD. That’s the only way to describe this beautiful book. Broadbent really outdid herself with this book, it’s so beautiful & captivating in ways that I couldn’t have thought it would be before starting this book.

This is like Hunger Games but with vampires & different form of politics. This book starts off with talking about adoption & how the Nightborn King adopts a human, who are mainly seen as prey in this book. From the very beginning, I’m thinking: Why did Oraya stand out? Why is she known as the Serpent? I had so many questions & I started carrying this book everywhere with me, including to read it during my lunch break at work. The way this book ends is amazing & I’m so glad I didn’t have to wait for book 2 to start it. I’d recommend this book to legit anyone as it was beautiful & perfect in its own way.

Some of my favourite themes/Quotes in the book: (WARNING: SPOILERS)
Oraya & her self-growth:
I loved getting to know Oraya and I loved how you get to see an insight into the who she is, get to go through her personal growth & deal with the theme of self-growth & learning to accept ourselves as we are. Oraya did not choose to be human & growing around her father makes her think that being one is a weakness. When she meets Raihn, he teaches her how to love & accept herself AND how being a human is not a weakness.

This book addresses many themes: self-growth, learning to accept oneself, learning to grow & seeing life beyond the rose-coloured glasses we grow up with, or in Oraya’s situation, hatred-stained glasses.

“I loved it — really, truly loved it — when they underestimated me”

“No, I wasn’t a vampire. That much was abundantly clear, every second of every day.”

“When you’re young, fear is debilitating. Its presence clouds your mind and senses. Now, I had been afraid for so long, so ceaselessly, that it was just another bodily function to regulate — heartbeat, breath, sweat, muscles. Over the years, I’d learned how to hack the physicality of it away from the emotion.”

“There are problems that need to be solved here. I’m not running away from that. This is my home. Maybe it’s a home that hates me, but it’s my home.”

Vincent & Oraya:
This story focuses heavily on the fatherly relationship between Oraya & Vincent. Here are some quotes that shows what their relationship is like:

“The King of the Hair vampires — conqueror of the House of Night, blessed of the Goddess Nyaxia and one of the most powerful men to have walked this realm or the next — saw a fragment of himself in this child”

“Hundred of years later, historians and scholars would look back upon this moment. This decision that, one day, would topple an empire. What a strange choice, they would whisper. Why would he do this? 
Why, indeed.
After all, vampires know better than anyone how important it is to protect their hearts. And love, understand, is sharper than any stake.”

Raihn & Oraya:
Two people that fit together in a way no other fits them. Two people who have been broken because of who they are, things they cannot change in themselves. Their relationship and how they both view their selves hit close to home for me & I can anticipate it doing the same to many other people as how many of us have felt we don’t fit in this world due to things we cannot control or change?

“Raihn. He was on his knees, staring up at me. And that — the way he looked at me — was the first thing that felt real. Real and raw and … and confusing. Because he looked at me in sheer awe — like I was the most incredible thing he had ever seen. Like I was a fucking goddess.”

“My eyes lifted to his. I had never looked at them at such a distance before. I realised they looked red because they were comprised of so many different threads of colour — near-black and honey-gold and coffee-brown and even little glints of bright crimson. SO many disparate pieces that shouldn’t fit together. Just like him. Just like me”

“I had human blood and a vampire heart. He’d had a human heart and vampire blood. The world left no room for either.”

“I know grief," she said, voice soft. "I know what it is to lose half of one's soul.”