Blood Mercy

4.5 rounded up
This was excellent! I loved everything from the immersive writing and world-building to the depth of the characters. It was empowering to see Cassia's progression of a demure bastard princess to a strategic and cunning rebel of the crown. Lio's ability to not only guide but assist her in this was amazing. I can't wait to read book 2!!

So good I could not set it down, started a little slow and picked up towards the middle of the book. The world building is long and admittedly difficult to get through, lots of characters are introduced to provide depth to the story, and the interesting part begins right around the middle of the book. It was such an easy read tho that despite that I got sucked into reading and finished it up in a day, it didn't even occur to me it was such a long book until the very end.

The character development for both Cassia and Leo is outstanding. The book doesn't have the usual “man who comes to save the day” narrative, but instead focuses on Cassia finding her voice, standing up for herself, and Lio being in her corner and available the offer the support she needs when she requests. I also have to say that normally even the slightest bit of spice makes me uncomfortable, but this was so beautifully written throughout that it made those scenes extra perfect.

Went ito it thinking I'd just be starting a quick series I could knock out towards my 2023 reading goal, came out the other side with a new favorite book.

This should have been a hit, I love slow burn romances.  However, I was so confused.  The writing style made it hard to understand what was going on at times.  It wasn't just slow burn romance, everything was moving slowly.  I had no idea Cassia's motivation.  I felt so seperated from everything.  This being a 10 book series with super long books, I decided it's not worth continuing.