Reading with teafortiffany

Hello friends!!!

I’m back! I have a handful of ARC’s to read this month! I didn’t mean for it to go this way, but here we are. I am also doing my “Read Every Day” challenge that I set for myself. I’ve decided that my reward if I manage to read every day will be a shopping spree where I can buy a book for each book I finish during this challenge. It’s my birthday month next month, so I feel like that lines up well for me.

Outside of that, let’s take a look at the review!!

Thank you to Netgalley and Entangled Publishing for providing me with a copy of this novel in return for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Welcome to a European town with a scary castle looming in the distance and a creepy Prince who is there doing the bare minimum to keep your town alive. Also, he’s a vampire. Add on top of that, he killed your mother, and now you’re being forced to be his bride. Sound good? Perfect, then you’ll enjoy Vow of Eternal Night.

This book was an ARC that I picked up during the Camp NetGalley event! I really wanted to participate in my first year, knowing it was a thing (I haven’t been doing NetGalley reviews for long), and this was the only book that stood out as one that might be in my wheelhouse. As a girl who grew up in the height of the Twilight boom, I love a good vampire story, and I haven’t read one in ages. I was excited to give this one a try and see how I liked it.

The story is based around Clara, the daughter of the town Mayor, and Prince Raleigh. Clara, who wants nothing more than to be married to the local baker, Yann, is thrust into a marriage with Prince Raleigh and forced to go to his castle. There, she finds that not everything is quite so black and white. There are pieces of the puzzle missing, and as she begins to unravel them, she finds herself getting closer to the one man she is supposed to hate more than anyone else in the world. 

This is a gothic romantasy in a historical European setting. The romance is enemies-to-lovers, and I don’t mean the kind where they’re enemies for about 3 chapters and suddenly in love. It takes a hot second. I really enjoyed the characters that Lily Crozier created for this story, although my image of Raleigh in my head is a bit different from the one on the cover, but that has nothing to do with her writing and everything to do with my brain. The banter between our characters is wonderful, but I think Moira is probably my favorite character. She is just a character who seems a bit fed up with it all but also annoyed that she cares. I would love to see her story, because it would be so good to see the person who could break down those walls properly.

One part of the story that I enjoyed the most was actually the bits of mystery scattered throughout. You get the idea pretty quickly that something isn’t quite right. This is reinforced throughout the book in little breadcrumbs left for the reader until finally we get the entire story. I’ll be honest, my mind was going absolutely wild with possibilities on what it could be. None of them were correct. I went in a very different direction with it, but it was still fun, and I enjoyed having that little puzzle in there. I was also happy to see that the book ended the way I hoped it would. Obviously, this might not be the same for everyone. 

The only thing I struggled with was the action scenes. I always have a hard time picturing those in my mind, so I don’t believe it was the fault of the writer in this instance. I think I lost it most towards the end, where there was the most action to read. This just might be a case of me needing to slow down when I get to those parts. I was able to visualize other action scenes in the book previously, which helps support my idea that it might be a me thing instead of a writer thing.

In the end, this was a solid read. It was pretty easy to vibe with, and it had been so long since I’d read anything with vampires in it that I got lost in the glamour of it all. That being said, these are not your Queen of the Damned or A Dowry of Blood vampires. This book, while gothic, is not a dark romance or anything along those lines. We do see the evil, but we also see the good. So, keep that in mind when you pick this up. There are trigger warnings at the front of the ARC, so it is likely that they will be there in the published copy as well. Always check your trigger warnings in case you aren’t sure. They are there for you. 

With all that said, I really enjoyed this. I went into it with almost no expectations, and let the story ride. I give this a solid 4-star review. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys the vampires of our youth in a historical gothic setting. Also, Moira. I’m not even sorry. She’s still my favorite.

4 ★

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That’s the end of this review. I usually like to try and post these before the book comes out, but I missed out on the opportunity this time. As always, if you do end up reading any of my recommendations, please let me know how you enjoyed it. I definitely would recommend this one, especially for the ones who grew up in the Twilight craze heyday!

Anyways, that’s it for this post!

Bye friends!!!