Review: Crown of Blood and Duty by Laura Greenwood

Crown Of Blood And Duty (House Of Blood And Roses #0.5)
by Laura Greenwood

My Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Fantasy Romance
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: m/f

Blurb:
The duty of any princess is to do what she’s told, but when Agnes is assigned a new bodyguard, all of that goes out of the window.

The last person Agnes ever expected to be employed as her sworn shield is the man she left behind when she was forced to become a vampire, but now he’s not only in her life, but always there, reminding her of what they once shared. And what they can no longer have.

Hector never thought he’d see Agnes again, and now fate has brought them back together, he’s not sure he’s going to be able to let her go, even if he knows he should.

With the King determined to find a political match for Agnes, time is ticking and the two of them have to decide what’s more important to them – love or duty.

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Crown Of Blood And Duty is a standalone connected to the House Of Blood And Roses series. It is a steamy vampire romantasy featuring a forbidden second chance m/f romance, vampires, and vampire royalty.

My Review

I received a free copy from the author through Booksprout and voluntarily reviewed it.

I was excited to hear about this new series by one of my favorite authors and jumped on the chance to read this prequel. Crown of Blood and Duty is set before the first book in the series and tells the story of vampire princess Agnes who realizes her new sworn shield is the man she loved and never thought she would see again after she became a vampire. Now they are both vampires and Agnes has to marry someone else.

I liked seeing a bit about this world of vampire politics and the bit of world building involving dhampirs and how vampires are created. Agnes has to marry for political reasons, but she’s still in love with Hector. I liked the second chance type of romance with how they fell in love 4 years ago and only now meet again when they’re both vampires and he’s assigned as her guard.

I liked reading about Agnes and Hector. It was clear how much they cared for each other and it was fun to see them rekindling their romance. I also liked the glimpses I got from how they first fell in love. It was sad how Agnes has to marry someone else and I was eager to see how they would find a way around this. The ending is well done and I liked the resolution. It also made me look forward to the first book in the series and more of this world.

To summarize: This was a great prequel to the series, I liked reading about Agnes and Hector and seeing them rekindling their romance after 4 years apart and thinking they would never see each other again. I was eager to see how they would find a way to be together as Agnes is supposed to marry for political reasons. I liked the ending and how things got resolved. It was a nice introduction to this world with vampires and politics among the houses and I look forward to the first book!

Links:
– Goodreads
– Bookbub
– Amazon
– B&N
– Kobo

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.