#florianeandruvan

[jessread-s]

✩🩸🗡Review:

Elise Kova’s latest book in the Married to Magic series is fang-tastic!

“A Duel with the Vampire Lord” centers around Floriane, a forge maiden who is kidnapped by her worst enemy—the vampire lord Ruvan. In order to survive, she becomes his blood sworn. But the longer Floriane stays at Castle Tempost, the more she realizes that the vampires are not the monsters she thought they were.

Floriane is a strong female protagonist and compelling character. She finds great joy working beside her mother as a blacksmith. As someone who is not familiar with this line of work, I loved learning about how metal is forged into weapons and how much strain the body goes through during this process. To accurately portray smithing, Kova worked with an iron artist to make her own dagger, which makes this book extra special!

Due to the long hours Floriane spends in the smithy, she has an “untraditional” figure—one that is curvy and stout. The way she is described made me love her all the more because Floriane provides representation of women of different body types to readers.

Though she is self-conscious about her appearance at the beginning of the novel, comparing herself to other women in the town, those feelings go away the moment she realizes that Ruvan burns for her. Of the three books in the series, “A Duel with the Vampire Lord” has the best relationship development. Ruvan and Floriane naturally start off as enemies, but they are forced to put their differences aside in order to break the curse plaguing Ruvan’s people. Their attraction for each other heightens the more time they spend with each other until it reaches a fever pitch (arguably Kova’s spiciest scene to date). I absolutely love Ruvan and Floriane’s chemistry and the sacrifices that they made each other towards the end of the novel truly made me feel things.

Another aspect of the novel I appreciated is how Kova was able to create something new about vampires. In her world, blood is used to enhance magic rather than quench thirst. Their blood based magic system is both complex and unique, informing the reader of the vampire’s customs and abilities.

In past books, a majority of the time is spent in Midscape (Kova’s magical land). Kova switches it up in this novel, dividing the protagonist’s time between Midscape and Hunter’s Hamlet, Floriane’s home in the Natural World. I enjoyed getting the opportunity to learn about the social structure of Hunter’s Hamlet (complete with a Master Hunter, Hunters, a Forge Maiden, and farmers) while still being able to venture into the Vampir mountains.

I cannot wait to continue on in the Married to Magic series with “A Duet with the Siren Duke” next year! Fingers crossed that Ruvan and Floriane make a cameo!

➤ 4.25 stars

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@elisekova​

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