Of Wicked Blood by Katie Hayoz and Olivia Wildenstein || Review

I received an eARC from Netgalley, that doesn’t affect my opinion of the book, all my thoughts are my own and honest.

No rest for the wicked... or the cursed.

Slate is a very successful con man but when he steals the bloodstone from De Morel’s crypt, he gets more than he bargained for. Unless he can lift the curse that is placed on him, he will die. Painfully.

Cadence was raised in a small town that is said to be the birthplace of French witchcraft. When Slate walks into her life, wearing a ring he stole from her mothers grave, she burns with hate, but as she gets to know him, something else starts to burn inside her.

The book was intriguing, it was set in modern time but the town it was based in didn’t feel modern. The atmosphere made me appreciate the cold and the town sometimes felt a bit creepy walking through the night. The plot was different, refreshing and the book was easy to fly through once I got into it.

Slate is cocky, arrogant, sly and a con artist. He’s the type of person that hides his true self beneath a different persona but when he meets Cadence she starts pulling back the layers without Slate even realising. Throughout the book you discover that Slate isn’t as he first seemed, he just needed the right person to bring out himself.

Cadence worries about her Dad, works at a library and has an unrequited crush. At first glance, you would almost say she is pure and innocent. But again like Slate as you read on you peel back her layers and see that what we thought isn’t true.

The side characters were also well done and fleshed out, there were characters that made you question whether they were good or not.

One of the things I liked the most about the book was the romance between the two main characters. I felt like it was very well done. It was developed at the right pace for my liking.

Overall I really enjoyed my time reading this book, but the ending let it down for me a lot. Hence the rating. I felt like the ending was rushed and ended abruptly and I was left wondering what happened. It just didn’t feel like there was a build-up to the ending it just ended. I would recommend to fantasy romance with slow-burn.

3 ⭐️

Thank you to NetGalley, Katie Hayoz and Olivia Wildenstein and the publishers for approving me a copy.