REVIEW: A Duel with the Vampire Lord (book) by Elise Kova

A Duel with the Vampire Lord is fantasy romance. I bought my copy new.

Review:

Floriane is her village's forge maiden, the one to whom her mother will pass all of the family's secrets pertaining to forging the silver weapons necessary to fight vampires. Although Floriane's place is supposed to be solely in her family's forge, her twin brother, one of the village's vampire hunters, has secretly helped her learn to fight in case she needs to protect herself. On the night of the blood moon, when the village is most in danger, Floriane makes use of the skills her brother taught her. Unfortunately, she isn't able to prevent herself from being captured by the Vampire Lord Ruvan, a monster who badly, possibly fatally, injured her twin.

If Floriane can somehow manage to kill Ruvan, she'll have defeated the vampires once and for all. It's not an easy thing to do, however, and a blood bond between the two of them suddenly makes it even more difficult. As Floriane waits and hopes for the right opportunity to kill Ruvan, she learns that there's more to the war between humans and vampires than she ever realized.

This was a rough read for me, primarily because of one thing the book did really well, the "enemies" part of the "enemies to lovers" trope. I could fully believe in Floriane's hatred for Ruvan, considering her understandable concerns about her twin brother and the fate of her village. The transition from enemies to lovers, unfortunately, didn't work as well for me. 

It felt like Floriane went from hating and distrusting Ruvan to making out with him in an instant. Well, not entirely - there were plenty of moments in which she experienced some emotional backsliding and guilt over what her family and fellow villagers would think if they knew what she was doing. But man, that initial hatred was so strong and laser focused, it was really hard to believe that she'd suddenly be attracted to him, especially considering that she spent a huge chunk of the book thinking that he might have killed her twin.

Overall, although I liked the first book in this series, this one left me wondering whether I really want to go to the effort of reading the rest. As it is, the world-building kind of confuses me. I think all of these books take place in the same world, but for some reason the world is divided into areas where one or the other fantasy being (vampires, werewolves, elves, etc.) holds more sway?