Blood Trial: Supernatural Battle: Vampire Towers, Book 1

In general I'm not crazy about Urban Fantasy. I find it unoriginal and basically the same story repeated with different names for characters. This story, while an Urban Fantasy and about vampires no less, was actually refreshingly original. I don't want to give a single thing away so you'll just have to take my word for it.The world building was flawless. Issues of class, poverty, greed were so realistic and mirrored our current state of affairs in the world.The MC was relatable and instantly likable. She's a genuinely good person. A real person. She's afraid in her current situation and reacts like I imagine I would. She's witty and stubborn and hilarious. Most importantly, she's not annoying. I abhor whiney, childish characters. Basi is neither of those things. She's someone I could see myself being friends with! Her relationship with her best friend doesn't feel like an added afterthought or a filler. It feels real. Their friendship feels genuine.The love interest is funny and complicated and real. And it's not one of those, we met for 5 seconds and instantly desperately loved her. It's far more complicated. It's easy to see tho where their feelings come from. They have chemistry and banter.There were parts of this book that had me laughing so hard I was wiping tears. Then immediately forcing my boyfriend to listen to what I just read.It's well balanced. Funny, scary, heartbreaking, heartwarming, serious, silly. And so entertaining! I gobbled it up in 2 days. I went into a Kyros rage upon realizing the second book doesn't come out until January. But to be fair, I'm about as patient as a virgin on prom night. It didn't end with an unbearable cliffhanger.I really recommend this book. There's a lot of good books popping up on Amazon and a lot of crap books too. This is one of the good ones!

I liked this one enough to re-read, which is something I only do when the characters a) make me laugh, b) have a great set of supporting characters to complete the family, and c) have a terrific story to tell.. Hailey Edwards and Beginner’s Guide To Necromancy, KF Breene and the DDVN or Demigods series, Faith Hunter’s Rogue Mage or Yellowrock, Ilona Anderws, Patricia Briggs, - that’s sort of thing.I just ignore the political rubbish, and ftr her pov is critical to the development of Basi’s story line, but St. Clare didn’t belabor it to the point it was unreadable. Thank god…if I need to hear more political rhetoric (I don’t) I’ll read the news. Ack.Anyway - back to the fun read. The game aspect is unique in my experience, and I enjoyed that immensely. St. Clare continued it in succeeding, related series, but…they didn’t grab me quite as hard as this one did. YMMV. I loved the relationship between Basi & Tommy sooner than I did Basi & Kyros, but he eventually humanized and - point to St. Clare - these two actually do engage in normal-ish conversations for more than a sentence and a half b4 tearing each others clothes off again for another round of wayyyyyyyyyy TMI (a sore point that is #1 on The Big List of TL:DR Things That I Hate in pnr books. Looking at you, Jaymin Eve. #fail).At any rate, hope someone finds my rambling helpful and enjoys the series.

This is the first time I read any works by this author, and as with new authors, I was a bit iffy on reading her new book. I took my chance based on the synopsis (which rarely meets my expectations) but boy, this one was sure packed with surprises. It's been a really long time since I stayed awake long enough to finish a book, and this one was riveting from the start. For the most part, the main heroines in paranormal romance tend to be annoying and make poor decisions, but this one took decisions that seemed like they made sense in a way, and she had a funny sense of humour. Although there was a lot of pop culture references that I feel I might've missed, it was still enjoyable. What did set me off was that insta-lust thing, I honestly wish it didn't happen, based on the idea that the main characters hate each other (the heroine does actually act as someone that doesn't really like the H but gets along enough to get by his crazy possessive tendencies), but I havea feeling this will change in the next book, considering all the lies that came from the H's part. To be honest, I did feel that no matter where the heroine turned, she was trapped, and I honestly for once felt her plight and that of the relationships she established outside of the circle of mayhem (ie the tower). I was honestly rooting for her friend Rhys, and was shocked where the author headed for with this character and their paused relationship. The H, if you can call him that, felt more like a villain, and didn't redeem himself in my eyes, in fact, I sincerely hope that the heroine manages to one up him and leave his nefarious clutches, and this is coming from a person who enjoys reading about villainous heroes with dubious actions. What he did to the heroine was annoying, and I felt bad for her. I was going to take my sweet time writing this review for myself, but the author left convincing message at the end of the book that compelled me to write it right away. Note that this book is freshly read, and am actually looking forward for the second in the series (if there's going to be more where this came from). There were, I confess, certain parts I may have skimmed over, but I doubt it had much to affect the story for me, I hope this doesn't bite me later on in the second book once it's released. For recommendation purposes, I would say go for it, but as a re-read, this might be debatale. Once read there's a certain charm that wears off.

The main character really made this book for me. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of other entertaining aspects (the world building, the nonstop action, the side characters), but I have a feeling that I could follow Basil through literally any story and still be more entertained than I am with most books.Well worth the read.

I don't even remember how many times I read this book and series, love this world and all of kelly's books.It really is a must read author.

My husband has had to live without me for several days as I utterly devour everything this author has written. I want to give my thanks for placing these books in the Kindle Unlimited library as they are easily three times better than the usual fare and probably could charge more. I cant afford to read the good stuff usually. Thats what this author is. The good stuff. Not the very very best yet. But definitely like A- and better than most of the Unlimited library.

This is a story worth reading, it grips the reader from the very beginning till the end and have all the ingredients to a great story: a complete out of the world heroine, a badass guy, mystery, and lots of fun. Looking forward to reading the next one.

This was a really good start in a new trilogy (well, new for me at least). I already read a series from this author and noticed some recurring themes she uses, but I get ahead of myself.I really like our heroine Basilia. She grew up filthy rich and decides to take her life into her own hands. This really doesn’t work out well. I was first a little bit annoyed by her to be honest. Nothing bad happened to her in her home. Yes, rich people play games, but that is no valuable reason to run away. It’s a punch in the face for every homeless person. But she recovers fast from her foolishness and becomes a quite badass character. Her voice and humor reminded me a bit of Kate Daniels. Which is great.In her quest to find a job she stumbles across a realtor company (lead by vampires). And our love interest Kyros. Who is an alpha-male trope specimen. But it is done nicely and he is actually quite fun as well.Here I started to notice a pattern from other stories. The heroine is pretty much hot and cold all the time and it gets exhausting. Like, she can’t admit to anything other than attraction. While Kyros is very steady in comparison.But that was a minor thing. I just don’t like dragging out the plot like that.Anyhow, Basilia gets hired by the vampires to appeal to their human customers, who are often intimidated by the vampire realtors.The vampires try to buy as much property as possible in a game with another clan. Losing is not an option. The plot revolves around that and Basilias budding relationship with Kyros and the other Vampires in the Tower.I really liked the side characters as well. Her friend Tommy and her guard Laurel for example. The author is really good in giving her characters a voice that works even with little interaction.If you like vampires, alpha males and Kate Daniels, this book might be for you.There is explicit/sexual content.

I don't think I have the words to describe just how awesome this book is. I picked this up with the intention of only reading a few chapters before bed and found I just could not put it down. This is not a small book either so I was still awake when the sun started to rise, but I didn't care I just wanted to keep reading this amazing story.Now I admit that I am a mahoosive fan of Kelly St Clare, I've read everything she has published (most of them multiple times) so I knew that this was an automatic buy and read for me. I always find that this authors MC are not instantly likeable but that's what I love about reading her books is the character growth we get and how she develops each character throughout the book and series. Basil is no different, she is the heiress to a fortune and has lived an incredibly pampered and sheltered life but the book starts off with her deciding to step out of her comfort zone and make a life for herself, without any of the comforts to ease the way.I really liked Basil, she made me laugh several times. I like that she is realistic character with real feelings and emotions that we get to see. I'm looking forward to reading more of her character development throughout the series.Then we have Kyros and I really laughed at the words that Basil uses to describe him when she first sees him from behind. You really have to read this book just for the adjectives Basil uses.This book is full of the right amount of action, humour, romance and adventure. I enjoyed it and am going to be picking it up again to reread. Blood Trial gets five stars from me and is a must read that I'll be recommending to everyone.