Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I was excited after hearing this was the book to read after watching Sinners, but this shocked me /neg. Very little time was spent on the history of the vampires. The prologue included a singular scene focusing on the history and that was it. A very large majority of this book was inflicting pain on the slaves, especially the women and children. There needs to be content warnings because I was not expecting to read multiple graphic rape and torture scenes. None of the violent scenes contributed to the plot or character development, in my opinion. The revenge scene was lackluster and too short. The native rep was lazy, and I wish the women had been listened to throughout the story as they warned the men (including our main character) of the hubris of listening to the vampire. The writing style was fantastic, don’t get me wrong, and the story was well paced and compelling, in an odd sort of way; however, I think the plot was too focused on torturing the slaves and looking down on them (there’s a scene where it’s insinuated

that the vampires become enlightened and that’s why they no longer speak like slaves

) instead of the interesting vampire lore or the freedom of the slaves.