BOOKS | Review: Blood Mercy by Vela Roth

Name: Blood Mercy (Blood Grace series #1)

Author: Vela Roth

Publisher: Five Thorns Press

Date published: January 2022

Genre: Fiction, adult, fantasy, romance

Pages: 648

Rating: 4/5

 

When Cassia seeks out a Hesperine, he could end her mortal life in a heartbeat. But she has no fear of his magic or his fangs. She knows the real monster is the human king, her father. If he finds out she’s bargaining with his enemy, he’ll send her to the executioner.
As a Hesperine diplomat, Lio must negotiate with mortals who hate him. Cassia is different, but politics aren't why she captivates the gentle immortal. He wants more than her blood, and if he can’t resist the temptation, he’ll provoke the war he's trying to prevent.

- From Goodreads.

This was a really fascinating story with a very detailed world and a lot of interesting characters. This is definitely a book for anyone who is a fan of a slowly paced story that carefully builds up a mystery of interweaving plot lines. It was exciting to unravel the mystery and see all the plot twists revealed. The only downside to the way the mystery slowly became revealed was that sometimes we were left a little too much in the dark and could have used a little more context to understand what was happening, or sometimes there were scenes we were told about that had happened off-page that would have made the story easier to follow if they were on-page. But mostly it was a great plot to follow and I was excited to see it through to the end and find out what happened.

I loved the way Lio and Cassia's romance was built slowly over a lot of deep and thoughtful conversations, it was lovely to see how their bond grew and how they came to understand and trust each other and it was very believable that they felt such love and attraction to each other. It was also lovely to see how they comforted each other and helped each other grow and gain confidence in themselves. Lio really helped Cassia to believe in herself and it was wonderful to see her develop over the course of the book, how she came to realise she was not alone in the palace and that she had friends and allies there too and she did not just have to survive, she could live and find her own power and start to change things.

I will definitely be reading the next book to find out how their story continues, this book left off at an exciting place and I am curious to see how all the threads resolve.