Serena’s Review: “The Serpent and the Wings of Night”

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Book: “The Serpent and the Wings of Night” by Carissa Broadbent

Publishing Info: Bramble, December 2023

Where Did I Get this Book: eARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: For humans and vampires, the rules of survival are the never trust, never yield, and always—always—guard your heart.

The adopted human daughter of the Nightborn vampire king, Oraya carved her place in a world designed to kill her. Her only chance to become something more than prey is entering the a legendary tournament held by the goddess of death herself.

But winning won’t be easy amongst the most vicious warriors from all three vampire houses. To survive, Oraya is forced to make an alliance with a mysterious rival.

Everything about Raihn is dangerous. He is a ruthless vampire, an efficient killer, an enemy to her father’s crown… and her greatest competition. Yet, what terrifies Oraya most of all is that she finds herself oddly drawn to him.

But there’s no room for compassion in the Kejari. War for the House of Night brews, shattering everything that Oraya thought she knew about her home. And Raihn may understand her more than anyone – but their blossoming attraction could be her downfall, in a kingdom where nothing is more deadly than love.

Review: Vampires have never really been my favorite paranormal creature. It would be easy to blame “Twilight” for this opinion, but even before then, back when I was reading “Interview with a Vampire” and the like, I never quite understood the appeal. Especially not in the romantic sense. How do you form a romantic interest out of a being that literally sees you as food? That in mind, I’ve been a bit hesitant about the recent resurgence of vampire fantasy fiction. But I’m always hopeful that there is a book out there that can change my mind on some of these pre-existing skepticisms. And, here we are, a vampire book that I actually really loved!

You know how a week ago I struggled to write a review for Jennifer Armentrout’s “Fall of Ruin and Wrath?” Mostly because, while I enjoyed the book, I could also objectively look at it and recognize that, at least in this instance, the author’s quality of writing was fairly low. Well, here I am a week later with a book that truly highlights the difference that good writing makes. In many ways, these books are similar. They are romantic fantasy fiction, focused on powerful beings and the humans who are caught up in their scheming, and, ostensibly, they both have unique worlds (I use the word “unique” carefully in Armentrout’s case as it seemed that she recycled some of her own ideas in her book.) But from the very first page, it is clear that this book is operating on an entirely different level. The sentence structure was varied and dynamic, the author pulled from a large vocabulary, the narration had a distinct voice, and the dialogue was engaging and natural. It was a success in every way, and I was immediately drawn in by the style.

The world-building was also introduced organically throughout the story, while not bogging down what ended up being a very fast-moving plot. The versions of vampires we see here are recognizable, but there was also a lot of creative interpretation built into the structure of this society, the political conflicts, and the lore of this world. I was also impressed by the creativity brought to the Kejari trials. Each one of them felt fresh and unique to this world and its story. These weren’t simple battles to the death, but intricate and dangerous puzzles of danger.

Further, I’ve also read a decent number of “Hunger Games” style books with deadly competitions at the heart of the story, and too often this aspect of these stories often falls flat, with the main character surviving due to heavy swaths of plot armor rather than any real skill we’ve seen from them. Instead, here, we have clear insight into Oraya’s success, with it often coming down to her keen observational skills and her drive to push herself further than her fellow competitors, beings who have been able to rely on their physical dominance up to this point. And that’s not to say that Oraya isn’t a powerful fighter herself. I appreciated the balance that was struck here between presenting Oraya, a human, as an exceptionally skilled fighter while also remaining realistic about the disadvantages she faced when competing against supernatural beings.

I also really enjoyed the romance that builds up through this story. This is definitely a slow-burn love story. Not only does the book itself hold off on its main characters getting together until late in the novel, but the structure of the plot takes place over months, giving our two characters a believable amount of time to work together, develop a friendship and partnership, and eventually a romance, overcoming their original distrust of one another. Of course, the book ends with a fairly large reveal (I was able to predict some of it, but that didn’t make it any less engaging when it happened), so the story is left in a state of upheaval as far as their love story goes. But the author so neatly side-stepped many failure points in the development of this relationship that I feel fully confident that she’ll navigate the path ahead just as successfully.

This book definitely doesn’t shy away from the violence of this world, so readers should go in expecting bloodshed. It’s also a romance novel in that it has fairly explicit scenes when it gets to that point. But it also reads well as a straight fantasy novel, with full attention and detail given to the plot and world-building. I think this book would likely appeal to most fantasy readers in general, beyond the romantasy fans out there. I really can’t express how impressed I was with this read. These books were originally self-published, so the sequel is available on Amazon now. But I’m going to try to hold off on reading and reviewing the second one until it comes out later this spring. Gotta support Bramble’s effort to pick up indie authors like this! Who know what other hidden gems are out there?!

Rating 9: Expanding the boundaries of what romantasy is capable of, this book has it all: solid word-building, compelling characters, and a fantastic love story!

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Serpent and the Wings of Night” isn’t on any Goodreads lists but it should be on Fantasy Vampire Romance .