Kiss of the Rose Book

Content warning: (mild) spoilers & gifs.


This book had an awesome premise. Seriously, folks -- vampires manipulating Henry VIII's court via his plethora of wives & political troubles? A romance that smacked of Colleen Gleason's Gardella series? Pretty clothes & plush fabrics from the Tudor era? Sounds great.

But then I tried to read it.



Re: the overall story arc, I was prepared for First-in-Series Syndrome. But this skipped beyond any expected wobbles & blundered headfirst into WTF IS THIS. The vampires' plan for world domination was...er, well...okay, they were trying to...

They were trying to DO THINGS, dammit! EVIL-TYPE THINGS. VAMPIRES ARE EVIL. DOING EVIL THINGS. And there's this family of Druids that have hunted the vampires because of a pact with the English monarchy. See, THE DRUIDS HUNT VAMPIRES. THEY DO HUNTING-TYPE THINGS. And there's this mysterious Vampire Council that bosses the other vampires. And the Druids hate the Council, but randomly decide to cooperate because an EXTRA-EVIL VAMPIRE has been doing EXTRA-EVIL-TYPE THINGS. And there's a prophecy about marriage. Or semen. Nobody really knows. IT'S COMPLICATED, OKAY??



Such an aimless Cunning Plan(tm) deserves condescending Dracula gifs. But speaking of Vlad...

There's very little fanged action in this book, nor is there any real sense of the Tudor era -- the setting & antagonist could've combined any era & paranormal critter. Everything was secondary to the schmoopy romance between insipid Buffy-wannabe Rosalind & her Emo McWhinge enemy/bf Christopher. And let's not forget Rosalind's trainer Rhys, who repeated the same three lines with only slight variation: (1) "I love Rosalind." (2) "Emo McWhinge Christopher is dangerous." (3) "I'll hurt anyone who hurts Rosalind."

From the beginning it's obvious that Rhys is placeholder series bait -- aka those secondary heroes who exist to show everyone how the heroine is a Speshul Snowflake who can't settle for the I've-known-you-forever hottie. No, she needs Emo McWhinge speshulness to match her snowflake status. How romantic! Well, Rosalind can have no better match than Christopher. The stud wouldn't STFU for ten seconds straight. I can't imagine having to sit next to him at a dinner party, let alone prance around a Maypole with him blabbering about his painful childhood & familial duties. (Yes, that's an actual scene.)




1.5 stars. I'm not sure why I rounded up -- maybe because it put me to sleep, as opposed to yanking my hair in agony. It's the little things in life.