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King of Battle and Blood (Adrian X Isolde Book 1) by [Scarlett St. Clair]

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Scarlett St. Clair

King of Battle and Blood (Adrian X Isolde Book 1) Kindle Edition

by Scarlett St. Clair (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

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An instant USA Today bestseller! From fan-favorite Scarlett St. Clair, the bestselling author of the Hades & Persephone series, comes a new fantasy filled with danger, darkness, and insatiable romance.

Their union is his revenge.

Isolde de Lara considers her wedding day to be her death day. To end a years-long war, she is to marry vampire king Adrian Aleksandr Vasiliev, and kill him.

But her assassination attempt is thwarted, and Adrian threatens that if Isolde tries to kill him again, he will raise her as the undead. Faced with the possibility of becoming the thing she hates most, Isolde seeks other ways to defy him and survive the brutal vampire court.

Except it isn't the court she fears most—it's Adrian. Despite their undeniable chemistry, she wonders why the king—fierce, savage, merciless—chose her as consort.

The answer will shatter her world.

Print length

402 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Bloom Books
Publication date

30 November 2021
File size

5469 KB
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Product description

Review

Outstanding...St. Clair has a masterful hand with the couple's slow burn, balancing banter, contention, and highly charged moments. Readers will be chomping at the bit for the next installment. -- Publishers Weekly STARRED Review

St. Clair's vampire mythology and magical systems, are sure to pique reader interest. -- Booklist --This text refers to the paperback edition.

About the Author

Scarlett St. Clair is the bestselling author of the HADES X PERSEPHONE SAGA, the HADES SAGA, KING OF BATTLE AND BLOOD, and WHEN STARS COME OUT. She has a Master's degree in Library Science and Information Studies and a Bachelors in English Writing. She is obsessed with Greek Mythology, murder mysteries, and the afterlife. You can find pictures of her adorable dog Adelaide on her Instagram at authorscarlettstclair, and updates on her books at www.scarlettstclair.com. --This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09B1NMGLQ
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bloom Books (30 November 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 5469 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 402 pages

Best Sellers Rank: 1,572 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 31 in Dark Fantasy Horror
- 34 in Vampire Romance
- 47 in Dark Fantasy (Books)

Customer Reviews:
3,616 ratings

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Scarlett St. Clair

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USA Today Bestselling author Scarlett St. Clair is a citizen of the Muscogee Nation and the author of the HADES X PERSEPHONE SAGA, the HADES SAGA, KING OF BATTLE & BLOOD, and WHEN STARS COME OUT.

She has a Master's degree in Library Science and Information Studies and a Bachelors in English Writing. She is obsessed with Greek Mythology, murder mysteries, and the afterlife.

If you are obsessed with these things, then you'll like her books. You can find pictures of her adorable dog Adelaide on her Instagram at @authorscarlettstclair.

Scarlett St. Clair
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Customer reviews

5 star		53%
4 star		27%
3 star		16%
2 star		2%
1 star		1%

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Top reviews from Australia

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Kristie Wyatt (Aussie BANGers)

Enthralling and captivating

Reviewed in Australia on 3 February 2022

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This book was everything. The plot was incredible. It enthralled me from the first page and I read the whole book in one sitting. Adrian is captivating, his fierce love & protection for Isolde made me swoon. Isolde is strong, she is fiery and I loved her.
I cannot wait to read the next book.

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Consuming, Powerful and Intriguing - Absolutely loved this book!

Reviewed in Australia on 22 March 2022

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This book came to me highly recommended and I was NOT disappointed! The chemistry between Adrian and Isolde was beautiful, intense and I could not put the book down.

Isolde is strong, independent and powerful in her own right and shares an all consuming love for her father, her kingdom and her people. Contrary to all that she stands for, she is even willing to marry the Blood King in order to protect her kingdom and bring peace to her kingdom. Princess Isolde knows her own mind and this is maintained throughout the entire book; making an even stronger Queen. There is a plot twist that made my heart skip a beat and everything came together perfectly. I cannot wait for the sequel! This book is definitely my favorite read for the year, so, naturally, I went and purchased all of Scarlett St. Clair's books.

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Leah Atkinson

So much unfulfilled potential

Reviewed in Australia on 8 December 2021

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I think there was a lot in this book that could have done with expanding. So many things were also just extremely frustrating, like Commander Killian talking over and interrupting the king and Isolde. It just doesn’t seem realistic, nor does it give justice to a lot of things.

One person found this helpful

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Nicketa

looooooove

Reviewed in Australia on 30 November 2021

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Love this book! Read it within a day and will be thinking about it and what’s to come in the next one!,

One person found this helpful

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Gemma

Not what I was expecting

Reviewed in Australia on 4 December 2021

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It was a good read but not on par with the quality and polish of the Hades X Persephone series and other books from the Scarlett St. Clair range. Isodes’ written character ark towards the end of this book has left me annoyed. I look forward to the next book in the series being better.

One person found this helpful

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Simone Kiem

Vampires taking over the world for the greater good

Reviewed in Australia on 22 January 2022

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When this was announced I was disappointed that Scarlett was diverting from her Hades X Persphone series. But man it was a good thing she did. This vampire smut has excellent world and character building and I cannot wait for the next one.
Scarlett is fast becoming one of my favourite authors.

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Grace Wong

GIVE. ME. MORE.

Reviewed in Australia on 2 December 2021

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And she does it AGAIN.

ISOLDE is my new favourite MC.
A badass that can fight, is born, raised and ready to be queen AND has an insatiable sexual appetite!? My. Girl.

Will be in hibernation until the next book.

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Kindle Customer

So good!

Reviewed in Australia on 1 December 2021

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Absolutely inhaled this book in under 24 hours!
Such rich world building and dreamy but realistic characters. Isolde is the badass we all want to be at times. Amazing work, Scarlett ❤

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Top reviews from other countries

purpleskye

Poor pacing, characterisation and world building- offers nothing new to the genre

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 December 2021

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I hate to say it but I’m a little disappointed in this book.

The pacing and characterisation and ultimately the story just wasn’t there for me.

Isolde hates Adrian because he’s a vampire and is destroying the kingdoms. Fair enough. But that hate passes awfully quickly for the single reason that Isolde is basically horny. In the span of four days this warrior Princess who wants to kill Adrian and hates everything that he is, is jealous of other woman, is overly possessive of her ‘husband’ and thinks maybe he’s really not a monster after all because he saved her a few times and promised not to attack her people. Four days is apparently long enough to determine that she trusts her lifelong and most hated enemy. I just don’t buy it. The story needed slowed down a lot to let a relationship and trust truly develop in a way I believed.

One of the problems was that I just didn’t know enough about Isolde. All I know is she’s been trained to fight and likes sex. Oh and she’s a Princess/ queen which she likes to remind everyone of all the time. That’s it. She would do anything for her people apparently but we never got to see her relationship with her kingdom because we jumped into this story and world so quickly with no build up and very little world building or back story. Overall I found Isolde to be quite unlikeable. Yes you can write a strong female character but the author seemed to forget that as the main character she has to be likeable as well. She was ruthless, killing anyone who even slightly offended her and seems to be irritated and think herself above everyone around her. She showed no compassion, no warmth, had no redeeming features, no interesting qualities, nothing that was even remotely relatable. As a reader it was ready hard to empathise with or really buy into her reasons for marrying a vampire to save her kingdom.

Also I get this author likes to write a sex scene but about 90% of the encounters the main characters have, they have sex. Where is the build up? The tension, the will they, won’t they aspect. There’s no progression in the relationship when they’ve jumped in at literally 3 chapters in and continue in the same way for the majority of the book. The author seriously needs to learn about the benefits of delayed gratification. Part of the excitement of reading a story like this is the build up of which this has none. The sex scenes became boring because they were so repetitive. I’d rather have a book with one or two well written sex scenes that are worth the wait than have the same tired tropes rehashed again and again.

Once again with this author, this idea is fine and intriguing but the execution and story telling just let it down as she favours repetitive sex scenes over a compelling and well told story. For a vampire/ secret identify story, Jennifer L Armentrout ‘From Blood and Ash’ or ‘A Shadow in the Ember’ have much better world building and characters that kept me excited, kept me compelled and ultimately kept me reading.

3 stars is generous as this offers nothing new or original, I’ve literally read this story so many times before in various guises only told so much better so I’d probably have to say 2 1/2 stars.

16 people found this helpful

C Geller

Confused most of the time...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 January 2022

Verified Purchase

I finished KBB three days ago and I'm still trying to process my feelings.

Overall, did I enjoy it? I'm pretty sure my answer is yes. However, I have some problems with the plot pacing. A lot of it felt, fast. Like, really fast. I don't want to give anything away but there were a couple of parts that I felt we needed to dig into deeper. And we may well do so in the next instalment but it left me feeling a bit out of touch with the story and characters.

I did really enjoy Isolde as a MC and I believe there is a lot of growth we will see in the next one. Adrian, well, he's pretty damn cool even if he is blonde!

I do love Scarlett's writing and I will definitely be reading the next one. I just, need some slower pace.

3 people found this helpful

Vik_reads_books

Amazing right mix of story and spice

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 19 May 2022

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I really enjoyed this book. Not only was the spice *chefs kiss* but the story was brilliant to so good in fact I preordered the second book when I was half way through and A Touch if Darkness will most definitely be moving up my TBR list.
I loved the tension between Adrian and Isolde and the spice 🌶 there was plenty of it and no waiting around till the end of the book Scarlett was straight in there no messing about. (Just what we like to see!)
But I also loved finding out about the history and how it isn't always what it seems! And how although Isolde wasn't exactly shy and unconfident to begin with I loved how she grew and became more comfortable in her own skin! I can't wait for book 2 in December when I can find what happens next

Poetryinmotion

Hmmm. I don’t hate it but I don’t love it.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 February 2022

Verified Purchase

🌟🌟🌟

This is about a Princess Isolde who agrees to marry the vampire king in exchange for peace between her people and the vampires.

I love the idea with the plot however I was expecting more. I felt the plot of the story was rushed on purpose to get to the smutty scenes. I didn’t feel like I liked Isolde as much as I wanted and should do as the main character. The author tried to put across Isolde as this strong warrior princess yet there weren’t many scenes to make me the reader, believe or perceive her like this other than being told so. I want to hear more about her past and get to know her.

Adrian I actually really liked. But Adrian and Isolde together? I don’t know. My reasons for this is that it all happened so fast. The smut was okay but it would have been better if there was more of a build up of tension between the characters first.

Overall, I didn’t hate the book but at the same time I didn’t love it. This is an enemies to lovers trope but I didn’t see it that way maybe because it all happened so quick?

Yes, it all kind of comes together in the last few pages but again it was rushed. It didn’t send me into the frenzy where I needed to know what happens in the next book.

I will read the next book because I have so many unanswered questions which may be explained later and be part of the plot? Maybe the development of the characters and tension building will be explored more in the next book too? I just hope that there will be more world building and there be some big twist in the plot. 🌟🌟🌟

2 people found this helpful

Francesca

Lost potential

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 February 2022

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The blurb sounded pretty good. However the story began sinking as soon as Isolde came along. Her arrogance, her cruelty,jealousy,temper and vindictiveness spoilt the book.
She had no redeming features at all..
Adrian was much better as were his friends and they pretty much carried the whole story.

I wouldnt recommend.

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