A review by neonfrills
The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

 

An Indie Vampire Romantasy that follows Oraya, the adopted human daughter of the vampire king Vincent, whom is forced to join a fight to the death competition that is being held in the honor of the patron goddess of vampires to gain a wish. While in the tournament, she forms an alliance with a vampire named Raihn, and (no duh) as they work together they learn to trust eachother and start developing feelings, which is bad news for Oraya since she needs to kill him to get the wish she’s always dreamed of.

What this book does well is its characters. It makes the vampires seem actually scary, and so inhuman in how they view humans as livestock. Oraya has a lot of trauma and insecurities related to being the only human in vampire high society. And then Raihn is a good foil for her as a turned vampire who misses his humanity.

The main flaw comes from bad pacing in the trials. The tournament is broken up into 5 smaller trials, so with each one there’s like a down period wherein we see Oraya and Raihn interacting and training. Which I think was supposed to help with character development, but I think made me just find the trials more boring because I knew they were like, requirements for us to move the story along over anything that interesting on their own.

Bottom line: I do think that there are good elements in this book, but I feel like the first 2/3rds get really weighed down in the minuta of the trials that I personally, for all the action, are pretty boring. I can see myself reading the second one, since Raihn and Oraya’s relationship is the most interesting aspect, and I feel the series is going in a more, court drama, political intrigue route which I do like in other series.