Contract of the Crown

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This book is the first in a 5 book series that is dark/fantasy romance. For the quick and short of it, Iris is sold off to the Caed kingdom, specifically Roman. In order for her to gain access to the Academy, she has to serve him, in all the ways you can think of. She has daily chores and then “nightly” chores. She is given over to this ruling family to help pay off her father’s gambling debts.

First, I want to start out on the things I was not a fan of. While I get this was a short story, sometimes it was hard to keep up with how much time had passed, or did not pass. There seemed to be a massive jump between the time she is plotting their demise and her in bed with Rowan and the two falling in love with each other. I thought maybe something had gotten cut out or I missed it, but I felt lost during those parts. This is also true in the scene with Alex, and the level of anger Rowan had felt. I was a little confused there to, everything happens so fast. Also, the language used at first was incredibly flowery. I have ADHD and I found myself really struggling to get through the sentences, especially with words that are not entirely common ways to describe things. However, with that said, given the type of fantasy setting this book is referring to, the over descriptive words seems appropriate. It changes a bit throughout the book and is not a problem after that.

I like Iris, though I am a bit confused by her. She is a spitfire, a little bratty, but also really confusing. I am hoping as the story continues through, we will get more backstory on her and Rowan to understand them better. There is plenty of spice, some was fade to black (which is why I thought I missed something, because it is not clearcut fade to black). The scenes are not very long, but still spicy. I like how the BDSM elements are not overbearing. Sometimes the “Doms” in the book are incredibly toxic all around, and even though these Vampires are incredibly toxic, I feel like this is acceptable in fantasy romance novels that include the paranormal.

The book ends on a cliffhanger, but the books are set to release weekly, so if you pick it up, you should not have to wait long 🙂 I look forward to seeing the trajectory of the overall story. At this point, I am not sure where it is going…but I definitely know who the bad guys are!