Book Review: House of Royals (House of Royals Book 1) by Keary Taylor

 
 
When Alivia moves into the Conrath plantation left to her by a father she never knew, she expects to find an empty mansion and a quiet, Southern town, not to be feared by her staff, bitten by a vampire, and almost killed by Ian her first week there. But as she learns more about the town, its history, and her father and tries to figure out what the right choices are, she finds herself caught between her duty to the House (the immortal Born vampires) and her feelings for Ian, the House's number one enemy.

Book Review: House of Royals (House of Royals Book 1) by Keary Taylor | reading, books, book reviews, fantasy, urban fantasy, new adult, vampires
Title: House of Royals
Author:
Series:
Book Number: Book 1 of TBA
Pages: 224
My Rating: 3.5 Stars
More Info: Goodreads
 

Review:

I’m a major vampire book fan. I’m also a Keary Taylor fan. So I was rather excited when I found out she had written a book about my favorite supernatural creature.

This book, however, is a good one for even those who aren’t vampire fans because it isn’t so much about vampires as it is about a character just trying to find her place in a crazy new chapter of her life.

The forbidden romance took center stage, as you can probably tell from the blurb, and I liked that there was insta-chemistry and then feelings that built up rather than insta-love.

My favorite thing about the book though was actually just Alivia herself. She was super down-to-earth and mature about things. She never made mountains out of mole hills or got overdramatic, and she had her priorities straight. She also never sat around doing nothing, waiting for people to make decisions for her—she got proactive and took her fate into her own hands. And I definitely loved how she stood up for herself and didn’t let the people in her life push her around. It all made her really relatable and likeable to me. I don’t often genuinely like female protagonists, especially when they’re written in first person, but Keary Taylor writes them well. And though Alivia was my favorite, Ian was also great—he was an adorably gruff closet sweetheart!

Another thing I liked was how beautiful and interesting the Mississippi setting sounded. It added a lot of atmosphere and charm to the book.

Overall this was a book that was focused on characters and intrigue rather than action, but it still flowed well and kept my attention until the end. And the next book has more action, more angst, more emotion, more intrigue, and more vampires, so this book did an amazing job of laying the foundation (while still being interesting) and creating a story I couldn’t wait to keep reading!

 

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4 thoughts on “Book Review: House of Royals (House of Royals Book 1) by Keary Taylor

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  1. Amber Elise @ Du Livre

    I haven’t read a vamp novel in years. I was turned off when the market was over-saturated like 6 years ago (remember that??)

    Thanks for the review! The cover is really puzzling to me. I feel like the guy is modern, but the girl looks like a princess from a YA novel!

    1. Kristen Burns

      Well this is a good one if you don’t want anything *too* vampire-y. The way she does the vampires is pretty unique. But I’m cool with the market saturation because it means more vampire books to choose from, haha.

      Your assessment of the cover is kind of accurate lol. I mean, the book is completely modern, but she is the Royal in House of Royals lol.

  2. Lola

    I like to read books about vampires, although shifters are my favourite type of supernatural creature. I like it when I find a good and original vampire book. I don’t read books with vampires that often though, but i do enjoy vampires as paranormal creature. And I like forbidden romances, something about the forbidden aspect can make them more exciting. I love when a setting is described well and you can visualize how it all looks. Alivia sounds like a main character I woudl enjoy reading about. It sounds like a good book, so I checked it out on amazon and saw it was free for kindle. I just grabbed my copy! I am looking forward to reading this one!

    1. Kristen Burns

      I noticed that it was free now, glad you downloaded it! Unfortunately I paid like three dollars because I bought it before it went down in price lol. That’s ok though, authors gotta make a living!

      I just finished Book 2 last night, and it was amazing, even better than the first, so that’s good news if you end up enjoying this one.

      I think I feel about shifters how you feel about vampires. I like them enough, I just don’t read about them as often. This one is a pretty original take on vamps though, not the standard “human girl falls for mysterious, brooding, centuries old vampire” fare, so you might like it.