Oh how much I wanted to absolutely love this novel. "Mistress of Lies" was a really anticipated read of mine, but sadly, it couldn't quite give me what I wanted from it.
I did like some of what it was doing. The characters are generally interesting, the setting and its politics very on the nose but still intriguing, and the writing style is easy to read. There are some great aestheticts, too. The themes are important, be it the racism two of our main three characters have to endure or the abuse of power by an authoritarian regime, headed by a godlike dictator.

Sadly, I feel like none of these themes were explored fully or with any nuance. The main conflict between the powerful ruling class, the Bloodworkers, and the poor and abused Unblooded seems superficial, mostly because the Bloodworkers are almost comically evil. There is much more nuance to systems of power like these, but it isn't explored at all. There's barely any world-building. The central plot is basically a murder mystery, but it never really felt important at all. Much more time was spent on the relationship between the three big characters, Shan, Samuel and Isaac. And sadly, the romance between them is just... not good. It's incredibly instalusty from all sides and there is no emotional, romantic chemistry between any of them. This is partly to blame on the pacing and the book's probably biggest issue: it's incredibly heavy on the tell-don't-show.
We are told constantly how brilliant of a spymaster Shan is, but her actions very much show otherwise. If you want me to believe a character is so terrifyingly good at something, you have to show them being terrifyingly good at that thing or I just don't believe you.
We are told constantly how Samuel's training progresses, but because there are time jumps of a few weeks like every next page we see none of it.
We are told constantly how the relationship between the three has developed but we aren't shown any of it because of aforementioned time jumps and all-over-the-place writing.
We are told constantly how abused the Unblooded are and how the ruling class treats them, but we feel very little of it because we are only shown very few scenes in between of how they actually live and what the Bloodworker rule means for their lives and how all this anger they feel developed.

All of this means that I didn't feel any emotional attachment to any of the characters nor was I emotionally involved in what was happening. There's more I didn't enjoy, but these come down to very personal dislikes and wasted potential. All in all, I really had high hopes for this one, but stark pacing and plot issues, easy but simplistic writing that I just personally didn't vibe with, forgettable characters and an overabundance of telling instead of showing made me just not enjoy my time with it.

DNF @ 20%

I found this book incredibly intriguing, after all, Shan (the FMC) offs her own father in the very first chapter. It kicks things off with a bang. This book has trans representation, Filipino roots, has vampires, a love triangle, an aristocratic FMC with a spy network, a poor MMC who stumbles upon a murder - basically everything to make this a gripping read.

I‘m really sad to dnf this, but I couldn‘t stand the FMC and knew that this would drive me to distraction. I don‘t mind an unlikeable MC, but very early on, two things really grated me the wrong way, so much so that I had to eventually put this down because the story didn‘t pull me back in enough:

In her own POV, the reader learns that „Shan wore it with a graceful elegance, the kind that moved people to shamed deference“ which I found really odd. It‘s likely not intended that way but because it‘s in her chapter (and thus her own POV), it seems really arrogant and aloof. Sure, POVs can change, but it still felt strange to me mainly because we don‘t know whose POV this sentence is.

Also, she kills her father for her brother the latter is angry at her when finding out, but then she thinks that „eventually, Anton would come crawling back to her. He always did“. This seems really despicable to me, as if her brother‘s beneath her.

I‘ve seen that lots of people have enjoyed this, so please don‘t get influenced by my dnf. It wasn‘t my cup of tea, but reading is subjective, so you might love this, which would be great.

Thank you to NetGalley and Litte, Brown Book Group UK | Orbit for providing me with a digital review copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

I had a great time with this book! Political intrigue, murder mystery, and scheming. Wonderful trans representation. I wanted more development on the characters and their relationships, but hopefully that will come in the sequel. I'm very much looking forward to the sequel and seeing how the story progresses.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.

So mutch potential, but not what i hoped it would be

2.5 /⭐
2/🌶️

ARC Netgally

#vampire #darkfantasy #murder #detective

In a world of bloodworkers and royalty we follow both Shan and Samuel in alternating chapters.
Shan is a bloodworker, from an old powerful family who inherited her father's estate and has to live with the fact that she is different from the other bloodworkers
Hiding behind her schemes

Samuel is a unblooded, living in the poorest regions of the city
And somehow their world collide into this story

What i loved:

The beginning:
The first chapter is captivating, murdering your own father in the beginning of a book sets expectations

The alternating chapters:
The view from the different perspective is interesting
It keeps you drawn into the story

The plottwist:
Although i am not sure i liked the plotwist because i wanted so badly that it ended well for Isaac but i must say i did not see this one coming !

The cover:
This is so beautiful
It is wat made me want to read the book in the first place


What i did not like:

Identity crisis:
To me this book wanted to be too much
It wanted to be a romance, a dark fantasy, a detective story,...
This means that there was too little world building and too much time spent trying to put in extra story lines. It works a bit distracting

Because of this a lot of the things were left unexplained.
We have a seposibly brilliant Shan but we never really see how her mind works, how her network of information was built, how strong her relationship with her brother was, why plot to murder your father now ? ...

To little world building:

We only see parts of the world, and to little is explaoned for the story to make sens to me
For example the bloodtax Vs the other ways the get the blood, why not do this differently
Why is the king the only one who has had the chance to experiment with bloodworking while half of the population can do this ?
...

Romance:
Although i did not mind the love triangle
It was to fast and to little


Overall I did not really love it, would not recommend it
There was a lot more potential than eventually was used

It started so so so so so well
And then…… it went downhill
It had a very promising first part but after that not much made sense for me
We had a lot of talk about samuel s power but there was never a lot shown?? The mmf part of the book never made sense. Im sorry but in a fantasy i dont think it makes much sense
I really like the fmc she had a very well developed character

Thank you Little, Brown Book Group UK and NetGalley for providing me with this arc in exchange for my honest review.

Release date: 15/08.

This e-arc contained an author letter, which really added to my reading experience. The author is Filipino, queer and trans and I felt his pain and anger about the injustices in the world, throughout reading this book.

I liked this book but didn’t love it. I think mainly because apart from the start and some parts near the end, very little happened. And the licking and lapping up of blood and some parts of the spicy scenes were just too weird and even disgusting to me.

I usually don’t start with the things I disliked about a story but there’s just not much to tell about this book.

So the story does start with a bang. Shan kills her awful father. She got her vengeance but she feels like a monster. She did it to protect her twin but honestly, not much of their supposed bond is “visible” throughout the story. Shan is a bloodworker, in a town where bloodworkers are seen as better than unblooded and they rule the country. Bloodworkers have certain powers tied to blood and use their own or blood from others.

Shan pretends her father died suddenly of a heart attack. Very handy that he had an incinerator in his mansion, where she disposed of him.. But nobody cared I guess. He wasn’t loved or probably even liked by anyone anyway.

Shan becomes the head of her line and she supposedly wants to replace the king who is also awful. She has this delusional idea that she can replace him with someone better and it will fix everything. That someone being Samuel. Nice to have his POV too. He has a darkness, an evil power inside him that the king wants to use and not for good. But Samuel would rather be rid of it.

There is romance in this story but it’s a love triangle that isn’t well done.

Shan is a master at playing games and using people as pawns to get what she wants. But it didn’t really lead to anything.

There are mysterious killings happening and the unblooded start to revolt against the current politics and ruling caste but there isn’t much of an investigation and it was pretty easy to guess who did it.

Mistress of Lies by K.M. Enright is a dark and captivating debut that plunges readers into a world of Vampire, blood magic, political intrigue, and morally grey characters.

Enright’s writing is richly atmospheric, immersing readers in a meticulously crafted world where magic and danger lurk around every corner. The characters are multifaceted and morally ambiguous, particularly the lead character Shan, whose ruthless ambition and cunning make her a compelling antiheroine.

The themes of power, desire, tension and betrayal are expertly woven into the narrative

Thank you to Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
🌟✨/5
Mistress of Lies leaned more towards romantasy than I expected. Unfortunately, as is often the case with romantasy, logic, worldbuilding and character development were thrown out of the window in favour of the romance (which was...not great).

To begin with, this is very much a more telling, less showing kind of book. Also, whatever is told often contradicts what it shown on the page. We're told that Shan is a highly skilled spymaster but we are never told how she became the Sparrow and built her network of spies. The decisions she makes are stupid and lack clear motivations. I was expecting to love her character, especially because of the fact that the first chapter starts with her murdering her father. Samuel is one of the blandest, most one dimensional MCs I've ever come across. His character arc didn't really make sense. The 'romance' is just insta lust (not even love) in a wig. There was no chemistry between the characters, especially Shan and Samuel. I also hated Isaac with a burning passion because of what he did.

Secondly, the worldbuilding is non-existent. The setting had no clear boundaries and defining characters. We are told that other countries prosecute blood workers but it is never clearly explained. A little bit of history would've worked well. The magic system doesn't make sense. For example, we are never told how the Eternal King became immortal and why other blood workers cannot. I was expecting this to be a well developed high fantasy with lots of court intrigue, but...no. The Filipino rep isn't really well done. Besides a couple of mentions regarding food, we don't get to see much of Shan's Tagalan heritage. I know this is on me, I should know better and check if a book is romantasy. (It was marketed as a dark, romantic fantasy, though. The publisher should know that there's a difference between that and just romantasy). The middle was a huge slog to get through and the plot twists were predictable and quite lame.

Overall, this was a huge disappointment. If you, like me, are particular about fleshed out characters and we'll developed worldbuilding, better stay away from this one. I hate being so negative about a book, but I really cannot help it if it's this poorly written. I will not be reading the sequel.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an ARC for this!

This was an anticipated read for me this year, but sadly I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I’d hoped I would.
That said, I did enjoy the first ca. ¼ of the book. The introduction into the characters, the political intrigue as well as the possible murder plot made for a really good and interesting start.
Sadly that changed around half of the book when everything seemed to evolve around the romance subplot. I really don’t mind the romance, but I enjoy it much more when it is sprinkled throughout the story, rather than halting the plot to have the romance happen.
The plot does pick up again, however at that point I had stopped caring about most of the characters to be honest.

I think had this book focused more on the political intrigue and the murder mystery, I would have enjoyed it much more. For me, the romance took up too much space in a story with a lot of other more interesting things going on.

That said I really liked the magic system, blood magic is a cool concept in itself and I think it was executed really well here. The world building on the other hand could have used some more time. We are told that other countries do not condone blood magic for example, however we are never told as to why. Especially in a story about political intrigue, I think it would have done well to dive further into Aeravin’s relationship with it’s neighbouring countries.

Tldr: Interesting premise with political intrigue and a murder mystery to solve. The characters are interesting with each having their own intentions and purposes, and I loved how queer the cast is.
The blood magic system is really cool, but to me the story focused too much on the romance subplot.

The premise of this book was intriguing and there was so much that interested me when I read the blurb; a vampire king, blood magic, a network of spies, a magical serial killer, polyamory and queer/trans representation - of course I wanted to read it!

Unfortunately, the book didn’t deliver and ultimately I was left disappointed.

Let me start with the vampire king point. He’s not a vampire king at all, blood magic is used in this world but they are not vampires in the true sense of the word. I’m not sure if I’m the only person that was misled into thinking this was a vampire book but if that’s what you’re looking for, you won’t find it here. The blood magic itself was interesting enough that I didn’t think the comparison was necessary so left me feeling a little duped.

The network of spies and magical serial killer were also promising but sadly these parts of the story were overshadowed by the political elements and power struggle which became tedious and I’m sorry to say, boring.

The polyamory and queer/trans representation were good and could have added so much more to the story but the slow build up and lack of character depth didn’t allow that to happen. I had such high hopes for the relationship but you never really get to see the three of them together in that way which was a real shame and a missed opportunity in my opinion.

As always, this is just my opinion and I’m sure there are elements of the book which will appeal to lots of other people, such as the world building, political intrigue and murder mystery, but sadly it didn’t hit the mark for me.

2.5 stars ⭐️⭐️💫 rounded up.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher, Littlebrown Book Group, for my early copy.

A wonderfully crafted story with enough darkness and blood and romance to make it something special. It's interesting from the first page and pulls you in despite it taking a while for it to really get going, But the plot is worth following and there a lot of complex political intrigue and characters that is as morally grey as they come.

The writing is great and feels well suited for the story as is the world and the lore surrounding it.

My biggest downside is that it was a bit hard to get into despite it having lots going for it. So give it a little time and stick with it and you most likely won't regret it. These characters are worth the wait.

Thank you NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for an advanced copy

Shan LeClaire is the daughter of an incredibly powerful but abusive and fallen-from-grace Blood Worker. Her strength lies in her blood magic training and the network of spies she has built over the years. Her takes a turn when, after killing her father for vengeance, one of her informers makes a groundbreaking discovery; there had been an atrocious murder against a vulnerable member of society. Not only is she set on finding who committed the vile murder, but in doing so, she discovers a lost living member of the Aberforth family, a Royal family line thought to have died after a tragic event.

A witness to the murder's discovery, Samuel Hutchinson, a member of the lowest class, becomes entangled in Shan's life. His life will change forever, along with everything he thought he knew about the world.

Interesting premise, decent world-building. The story starts strong, but the middle is long and I found it a little boring to be honest. I didn't feel any connection to the characters, they didn't have a lot of depth to them and that meant I struggled to see any real chemistry in the romance. I think there was just too much going on in this story and all the good ideas got buried by eachother.
2.5/5 stars.

When I started this book, I was genuinely convinced it was going to be my new favorite thing. It has a lot of ingredients I enjoy in fantasy books; a cool magic system (blood magic!), a magical murder mystery, a central queer polyamorous romance, a trans love interest written by a trans author, and a group of people working to take down systems of oppression. Unfortunately, I didn't end up vibing with the way the book was written.

There are two central POV characters in this book. The first one is Shan, who steps into the title of Lady after murdering her father. She's a member of a disgraced aristocratic family, but also secretly runs a spy network as the Sparrow. The second is Samuel, a normal, poor citizen, whose life is suddenly upended when he comes across a murder scene through a series of events following that discovery, finds out he's the heir to an ancient bloodline. This also leads to the main characters crossing paths.

The country these characters live in, Aeravin, is divided into two classes: those with blood magic, the Blood Workers, and those without, the Unblooded. The latter class are oppressed and treated horribly by the former, especially because they don't have anything to match their blood magic. The worldbuilding was fine, nothing groundbreakingly original, but it served its purpose for this story.

My main problem with this book lies with the characters and the central plot. I couldn't stand Shan in the slightest. We're constantly told she's very perceptive and smart, but instead of focusing on the murder mystery she's supposed to be solving with Samuel, she's distracted by Bridgerton-esque high society balls and events, as well as her love interests. She also believes that the Eternal King, who's of course *very* evil, should be replaced with another king in the form of Samuel, who turns out to be a distant descendant of the Eternal King. She's a monarchist who believes the Unblooded should get more rights, but still wants a new Blood Worker king. Yeah. Many of the side characters challenge her monarchist beliefs and her blindness to the true suffering of the Unblooded, but we're still as readers forced to spend an entire book watching Shan realize how blind and privileged she is. Mind you, this woman runs a spy network full of Unblooded spies who tell her about the things happening to their class. I simply couldn't stand her character arc, nor the way we were told she was very perceptive, even though she was incredibly blind and privileged.

Then there is Samuel, who does want to reform the entire country, but is instantly obsessed with Shan and does literally whatever she asks of him. He becomes exactly the Lord that Shan wants him to be and also loses track of what actually matters—finding out who's killing Unblooded and standing up for their rights. I couldn't stand the way his entire personality seemed to vanish at times, purely because of his feelings for a person who doesn't even share his ideals.

Then there's Isaac, the king's Royal Blood Worker, basically his personal assistant, but also much more, as we discover towards the end of the book. He's the third person in the central polyam triad, yet also the only one without a POV. I understand, for plot reasons, why he didn't have one, but I still was disappointed by that, because he was by far the most interesting character to me. There's a kindness and dedication in him that was refreshing to see, but it was also incredibly clear that he had a lot to hide.

The central plot is a mix between romantic buildup and the characters going to various places to find out more about who's killing Unblooded. The problem for me was that neither storyline managed to capture my attention. No progress in the murder mystery investigation is made until the final portion of the book, and the romantic buildup felt somewhat empty to me. My favorite bonding scenes were those between Samuel and Isaac, but we didn't nearly get enough of those compared to scenes between Shan and both men individually. I didn't personally like Shan's dynamic with either Samuel or Isaac, so that was a great disappointment to me.

I would like to give credit where it's due; I really did like Shan's twin brother Anton and his scenes with Shan and Samuel. I almost wish he'd also gotten a POV, considering we find out he has his own (very interesting) hidden agenda and an interesting dynamic with several of the central characters. I also would've loved to learn more about his boyfriend, Bart, who also happened to be Shan's second-in-command within her spy network.

All in all, this book was a massive disappointment for me. I didn't like the POV characters, the central romance, or the magical murder mystery. I considered giving this book more than 1 star because I believe craft-wise, it's genuinely not a bad book, but unfortunately the way everything came together was a big disappointment to me personally, hence the 1-star rating.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I enjoyed the world-building in this novel and the way we are introduced at a point that might be the ending of another story. Shan, Samuel and Isaac are interesting characters, though I wish we'd had more time with Isaac in this novel. Polyamory is an area of romantasy that isn't as well explored so good to have rep there as well, and the discussion of class privilege was good. However, I found it a slog in places and wasn't fully connected with the narrative.

I struggled with getting into this book, possibly due to the writing style.
It’s not exactly bad – but it was way too flat in my opinion.

Looking at the characters – in theory, all of them were interesting. Shan, merciless and determined, Samuel powerful but tortured, Isaac torn in two.
But if I’m being honest, only Isaac actually interested me.
Shan may have had an interesting base, but I really didn’t like her and really couldn’t empathise with her. She made stupid decisions, she was selfish and I didn’t see any kind of character development.
Samuel was nice enough, but he was too much of a chosen one for me. That trope really should’ve been left in the last decade. He also made stupid decisions and despite his difficult life he seemed incredibly naïve in some instances. He trusted the wrong people without a second thought. He was also incredibly passive. Yes, he has no idea how to behave in his newfound reality, but he literally just did everything the others told him to, no matter whether he thought it was wrong. He didn’t take any kind of initiative and it really frustrated me. Here he is, with all this power and he ends up simply being a pawn. Is it realistic? Perhaps. But it was also boring.
The relationship between Shan and Samuel was also way too constructed for me and I didn’t feel it at all.
Isaac was the only one with at least some kind of layers. From the first page on I was unsure whether he was going to be good or bad, whether he could be trusted or end up as a traitor. He was the only one whose goals weren’t entirely out in the open and I kept waiting for his agenda to be revealed.

As for the plot, it could’ve been interesting, but it was something that has been done hundreds of times before (one part murder mystery, one part lost heir found again, one part monarchy is evil and must be destroyed) and there wasn’t enough that stood out for me. The bad guys were bad. The vampiric world building could’ve been good. It was an interesting idea, something different. But there was barely any world building. It seemed like a very generic city, the magic was barely shown and didn’t do anything spectacular, I have no idea, what was supposed to make this different. It simply felt flat. All of it felt flat.
I don’t mind clichés in general, I don’t mind reading things I’ve read a hundred times before, but it has to be interesting and this book failed to capture me.

I also kept waiting for something to happen, but for the first three quarters of the book, it didn’t. It just kept going and going and they kept talking about what they should do and what they could do and they didn’t do anything. It was so frustrating. The rebellion was basically some demonstrations and a lot of politics about how to stop them. No escalations, no interesting ideas. Once in a while, a new murder would pop up, but there were never any kind of leads, so that part of the story was also boring.
It's fine if a book is slightly slower. But I still need at least something interesting to keep me going.

When the big finale finally came around, I was already bored out of my mind and simply wanted it all to be over.
Which is a shame, because the finale was good! There were some plottwists and things happened and it actually started to be interesting! If this had happened 200 pages before, I might’ve given this book 4 stars, but the build up was way too long and simply unnecessary in parts.

Thank you, NetGalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The book has a really strong start, setting up a cruel world of blood magic and power abuse, and a trio of wonderfully morally grey characters. Shan, Issac and Samuel get woven into each other in this game of lies, power and attraction - so much even that it becomes hard to tell who is playing whom.
It has a poly and trans rep that from my understanding is developed and portrayed greatly.
However, about 50% into the book I got the feeling that the plot basically vanished. Things get muddled and the pacing is weird, so much even that I lost trust that the book knows what story it really wants to tell. There's the politics, but then somehow it became less important. There's the magic system, but there's not enough information to really get a grip on it. There's the murder investigation, which seems more like an excuse for our MCs to work together. And there's the romance, but I didn't care enough for the characters for me to matter.
I would have loved to love this book, but sadly this one wasn't for me.

3/5 stars

Thank you @netgalley and @littlebrownbookgroup_uk for the eARC!

#MistressOfLies #Netgalley #Bookstagram

A bloodthirsty heroine Yes
Vampires Yes
Morally Grey character, dark fantasy, political intrigue Yes Yes Yes
This book stared with a bang and kept me locked in.
Character driven and so much fun.
This was a great read and I'm so excited for the next.

A great book with an original take on vampirism. The tension and the love triangle were brilliantly written.
Full of political intrigue and morally grey characters, it grabbed me from the first page until the bittersweet ending.

Would recommend

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

2.5 stars

Mistress Of Lies sounds like an interesting world of politics, blood magic and a hint of romance so I was thrilled to be accepted for an arc of this book.

Realistically, the story has a intriguing beginning, a surprising end and an extremely long, boring, slow paced everything else. The romances felt contrived and lacking any real chemistry, unsurprisingly since the characters themselves lacked any real depth.

The world building was adequate and you did gain a sense of the inequality between the class systems but it certainly wasn't enough to draw you into the storyline. The magic system, though interesting, didn't really feel that important to the progression of the story.

Overall, whilst the premise was really good, the execution was disappointing. I was really excited to read this but have now cancelled my preorders for the book as I know I won't read it again.