The Bibliophile's Bookshelf

Title: The Nightblood Prince

Series: The Nightblood Prince #1

Author: Molly X. Chang

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Rating: 3 stars

Review:

Two kingdoms on the brink of battle. One prophesied empress to unite them, who finds herself caught between two princes, and the fact that love alone may not stop the coming war. A thrilling romantasy from the bestselling author of To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods.

Two princes. One prophecy. A fate she cannot outrun.

The night Fei was born, a prophecy was made: she would one day become the Empress of All Empresses.

Torn from her family as a child and raised in the palace to one day marry the Crown Prince of the most powerful empire in the land, Fei has only ever known loneliness. When the opportunity arises to seize her own destiny for the first time in her life, Fei sets out to hunt a legendary tiger, knowing it might cost her everything. What she doesn’t expect is to fall under the mercy of Yexue, the beautiful runaway prince from a rival kingdom. Blessed by the night, harboring a dangerous magic, and capable of commanding an army of deadly vampires, Yexue could be the key to Fei gaining more than just her freedom.

But to outrun destiny, Fei must spark a wave of events that will change the world as she knows it. Torn between two princes and plagued by nightmares of bloodshed, she finds that the stars might be more inescapable—and more irresistible—than she ever considered before. . . . – summary from Goodreads

The Nightblood Prince combines a love triangle, war, and vampires in an interesting novel!

I have to say that this book disappointed me. I have been wanting to read this for a few years now, and I was so excited to find it at my library. However, after reading, it let me down.

I will say that my not loving this book was probably my fault. The main things I had seen about this book were from the internet and pointed out three things: that there was a love triangle, vampires, and it had Asian mythology. All of these were selling points for me, and I didn’t really look too much more into it.

The love triangle was completely lacking. Fei kept trying to convince us to like Siwang, but I just couldn’t see it. I think part of the problem was that as Fei was wanting us to side with Siwang she was actively trying to leave him. Yexue was so intriguing and I liked him much more than Siwang. Maybe it felt like he was a little more fully fleshed, and a slightly better person. We really didn’t get to explore him much, which was disappointing.

As I was working my way through the book, I was hoping it would lean into the tragedy aspect of this story a little more. One of the things that always gets me in books is when there are societal/parental pressures on a person which lead them to things that in another situation they might not have done. There were hints at this, but it was never fully committed to. I think that if it had been, it would have made the book better.

I love vampires, but I don’t often read a lot of vampire books. So, I was super excited to find this book. However, the vampires weren’t really that big of a part of the book. I think they had their part, I just wish we got to explore them a little more. There was such potential for the vampires, too.

The setting was nice. I will say that this book wasn’t super descriptive, which fits my reading style a little better. For those who like descriptive writing, this book may not be for you.

One of the things that I noticed immediately that irked me a little was the fact that Fei asked a lot of questions in the narration then there wasn’t any time to answer them. Every chapter it seemed like a question was asked and no answer was given. It was something that just kept jumping out at me.

The chapters were short, which was kind of nice. It made the story move fast and kept you engaged. There was a decent amount of action this book, too. There was a Mulan type storyline that happened throughout the majority of the book, which I really liked. Mulan is one of my favorite stories, so I really enjoyed this inclusion.

There was a great deal of battle in this book as well. It was kind of gory at times, but the war did deepen the world and raise the stakes.

There was a small spice scene. I skipped over it relatively easily.

The characters were intriguing, but there was a little more of them. A deeper dive into these characters would have made me more interested in the story. The prophecy on Fei was super interesting and she was a headstrong, determined character. Yuxue was intriguing and mysterious. I really liked a lot of the side characters, as well. I just wanted a little more from all of them.

Overall, The Nightblood Prince is an intriguing story that keeps you engaged with a love triangle, royalty, and vampires, though the story could have been more developed.