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lisashelves 's review for:
Shadow Kissed
by Rebecca L. Garcia
⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 3 stars
Thank you to the author for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Shadow Kissed is the first in its series; Marked by Blood. It is a story about Olivia, a sorceress. When her guild is attacked and she is taken by the vampire, Sebastian, who says he is protecting her.
I am always down for a book containing vampires, as they are one of my favourite creatures and I have many books involving them. This book, unfortunately, didn’t quite meet the expectations I had.
The plot seemed okay, I liked the direction it went, but felt like it lacked a bit in execution. A lot of the world building was unclear to me. Two examples; Sebastian has wings, why? Do all vampires have them? It just seemed out of nowhere that he has them. The second which was just confusing and seemed out of place was the modern technology. While in the Vampire City there was hardly any technology at all, the little mentions of them seemed just out of place and weird. I think it would’ve been better for the story if this book was just written as fantasy and not urban.
Olivia, was someone I couldn’t really connect with. While I thought she would bloom into some kind of badass character who didn’t need others, that didn’t really happen. She did grow, but not in the way I expected. I would’ve liked to see more growth and more of her powers, which are also not really clear to me. Sebastian was a more developed character from the beginning, but his growth wasn’t really noticeable. Same with the side characters, they weren’t really memorable.
The chemistry between the two was good, but not really acted upon. The slow burn and one bed trope were not executed very good I believe, which made the chemistry good, but the romance which bloomed slowly not really likable for me.
The ending was quite unexpected, but since I didn’t really connect with the book it didn’t really make me excited or feel anything as other books have. It was written well.
Overall, the book had a lot of potential, but the way it was executed didn’t really make me feel anything. It felt a bit “meh” overall to me. I don’t know yet if I’ll be picking up the second book.
Thank you to the author for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Shadow Kissed is the first in its series; Marked by Blood. It is a story about Olivia, a sorceress. When her guild is attacked and she is taken by the vampire, Sebastian, who says he is protecting her.
I am always down for a book containing vampires, as they are one of my favourite creatures and I have many books involving them. This book, unfortunately, didn’t quite meet the expectations I had.
The plot seemed okay, I liked the direction it went, but felt like it lacked a bit in execution. A lot of the world building was unclear to me. Two examples; Sebastian has wings, why? Do all vampires have them? It just seemed out of nowhere that he has them. The second which was just confusing and seemed out of place was the modern technology. While in the Vampire City there was hardly any technology at all, the little mentions of them seemed just out of place and weird. I think it would’ve been better for the story if this book was just written as fantasy and not urban.
Olivia, was someone I couldn’t really connect with. While I thought she would bloom into some kind of badass character who didn’t need others, that didn’t really happen. She did grow, but not in the way I expected. I would’ve liked to see more growth and more of her powers, which are also not really clear to me. Sebastian was a more developed character from the beginning, but his growth wasn’t really noticeable. Same with the side characters, they weren’t really memorable.
The chemistry between the two was good, but not really acted upon. The slow burn and one bed trope were not executed very good I believe, which made the chemistry good, but the romance which bloomed slowly not really likable for me.
The ending was quite unexpected, but since I didn’t really connect with the book it didn’t really make me excited or feel anything as other books have. It was written well.
Overall, the book had a lot of potential, but the way it was executed didn’t really make me feel anything. It felt a bit “meh” overall to me. I don’t know yet if I’ll be picking up the second book.