Court of the Vampire Queen

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This review has content that is inappropriate for anyone under than age of 18. 

6 Min Read

Hi hi!

Where do I begin? This was not my first time dabbling in dark fantasy, but this is the first time writing about it. I just finished Court of the Vampire Queen by Katee Robert. Let’s get into it.

Quick Synopsis:

Mina was born half a vampire and half human - called dhampire. Her father is one of the most ruthless bloodline vampires still alive. He gifts Mina to another bloodline vampire, Malachi, as a pawn in his latest political move. Over time Malachi and Mina begin to trust each other with more than just their lives, their hearts. Malachi opens Mina up to a world she never thought she could have…including the love of Malachi’s two closest friends. Now surrounded by these three men, Mina finally has the power to take down her father, take the crown, and take back her own life.

Non-Spoiler Review:

Before I really dive into this review, I feel like my rating is unfair simply due to the fact that I am not a big fan of Dark Romantasy. Did I love the love story part? Yes. Did I love what little world building there was and the characters? All the yes. In the words of Mina, “more!” 😏
I wanted more character development, more back story, more action at the end. This is my struggle with spicy novels in general…they are great stories, but the spicy scenes make up more than half the book and you’re left with so-so characters and underwhelming plots. This has so much potential, it just fell flat for me. I wanted to dive deeper into each of their stories and the history between them. Even more into the actual fantasy world they belonged. So overall not a fan, but I loved the writing.

Unfortunately, that is all I can offer without spoiling any part of the book. I have so much to talk about. So here we go.

BEWARE: Spoilers Ahead, 18+ only:

We start off with Mina arriving at Malachi’s mansion and within the first 30 seconds of her being in the house - Malachi attacks her and starts to drink her blood. This is when we learn that when bloodline vampires drink from you, you get orgasms. Yup. It turns you on as they are draining you.

For the first few days or so it plays out like any other “enemies to lovers” trope. They can’t stand each other, but there’s just something about her that Malachi is drawn to. Other than her being feisty and knowing full well as to why she was sent to Malachi’s home, there’s nothing exciting about her. I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve read it so. many. darn. times. But I am starting to get annoyed at the whole, “this girl is ordinary in every way but men are just drawn to her” thing. It’s played out way too much. But I still gave this book the benefit of the doubt. It’s a smutty novel, take it with a grain of salt…

Skipping over several spicy scenes and countless orgasms later - we are then introduced to Malachi’s friends and “sometimes more,” (his words, not mine), Wolf and Rylan.

These three men are all the very dangerous bloodline vampires. Each of them have special abilities along with all the perks of being a vampire. Wolf can control blood, in or out of the body, Rylan can shape shift into any animal, and Malachi can control fire. If you’re asking yourself if those things come into play in the bedroom, yes they do. In small doses.

One thing I did like about the spicy scenes, was the emotions that Katee Robert wrote into them. That was the time you were able to learn about the men a little more. She did make sure to include lots of consent in every single thing. These may be ruthless vampires, but they still wanted to make sure Mina was on board with anything they wanted to do. The aftercare was really sweet too. You can see just how much these men truly care about her and each other. I liked that a lot.

In the beginning when we meet Malachi, we learned that he is actually trapped in his own mansion by Mina’s father. It’s some kind of “blood ward.” Rylan thinks they can break the ward by unlocking Mina’s untapped power. How? “We do that by boosting Mina’s power with our blood and then making her come so hard, it overrides the blocks in her mind.”
Really? A giant orgasm is gonna save the day? Please. I know this is fantasy, but when I read that my eyes rolled so hard I thought they were going to pop out of my head.

Moving on… They did accomplish that but in doing so we learned that Mina is not only half vampire, but half seraph. An angel so to speak. In this world seraphs are pretty much extinct. They were these super powerful beings that could control vampires, so they killed them off a long time ago. I think. We don’t get much about what they really are, what powers they actually have, and so on. We also learned, that during that earth shattering love making, the three men were bonded to Mina. Meaning they can’t physically be apart from her or it causes real pain. I like that trope. Reminds me of the bonds that riders and dragons share in the Fourth Wing series.

I am going to jump really far ahead in the story, because it’s just sex. Lots of it. Like I said before though, we do learn a lot about what the vampires and Mina are feeling in their current situation, so it’s useful to the story.

Throughout the story there are a few more characters I WISH we got to know more about. At one point Mina is getting help from this woman, Grace. We learn that her family has a history with Rylan and they owe him a debt. We don’t get much more than that. There is also a demon introduced, Azazel, who seems like a very interesting character as well. To the author’s credit, she did write a spin off novel (series?) about Azazel and the demon realm, I believe Grace is in that story too. I won’t be reading that one though, I can’t go into a story knowing I will be disappointed and left wanting more. Something Mina never had to deal with while being with her vampires.
We also get introduced to Wolf’s sister, Lizzie. I guess she has the same powers he does, but she’s just a stronger and better version. There was a moment we learned that Wolf and his family don’t get along. Lizzie I guess caught Wolf on fire, and Malachi had to save him? Again, I don’t know. But this would have been a really good backstory to help understand more of where Wolf came from.

When we reach the ending where the vampires and Mina overtake her father and his kingdom, it’s such a let down. The whole fight scene, if you could call it that, lasted maybe a page and a half. Everything ended rather quickly and was wrapped up with a pretty bow.
I forgot to mention, that at one point they wanted to break the bond they all shared with Mina, hence calling the demon, Azazel, to help, but that never got resolved. I think they all just decided they liked it too much to really fight to get rid of it.
Oh and Mina got pregnant.

The final chapter jumped 4 years into the future where all 4 of them are living together as one big happy family. They have a 4 year old son and a couple of 3 month old twins. It’s cute honestly. I’m glad to see they got their happy families.

Maybe I’m just not the target audience. I picked up this book knowing it was spicy, but it was the story that intrigued me. Then once I started reading, and the amount of spice grew, I just couldn’t fully appreciate the story anymore.
If this was re-written with about 75% of the spicy scenes removed, and about 50% more back story/plot added in, this would be a 5 star read.

Guess I’ll keep my books like I like my food, with very little spice.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3/5 Stars