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Where Darkness Blooms
Brutally orphaned and made a murderer in the same night, Kieryn Rhodes was dropped unconscious on the doorstep of the prestigious Phantoms Keep at the age of sixteen. In the ten years since, she's made herself into an infamously lethal assassin and created a family from those around her.
But when Kieryn and her friends are sent on a mission that results in them being framed for regicide, secrets are revealed that prove they may not know each other as well as they thought. And in this world, sometimes friends can be more dangerous than enemies. If they're going to prove their innocence and survive the war that's sure to come, they'll all need to play a part.
Unfortunately, for Kieryn, her part involves journeying to an unfamiliar realm with a mysterious, sarcastic dark prince who gets on her last nerve and might even be deadlier than she is. But with his help, she just might be able to gain a royal ally in the coming war and identify her parents' killer all at once.
But when Kieryn and her friends are sent on a mission that results in them being framed for regicide, secrets are revealed that prove they may not know each other as well as they thought. And in this world, sometimes friends can be more dangerous than enemies. If they're going to prove their innocence and survive the war that's sure to come, they'll all need to play a part.
Unfortunately, for Kieryn, her part involves journeying to an unfamiliar realm with a mysterious, sarcastic dark prince who gets on her last nerve and might even be deadlier than she is. But with his help, she just might be able to gain a royal ally in the coming war and identify her parents' killer all at once.
- GenresFantasy
370 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 10, 2024
5 people are currently reading
203 people want to read
About the author
Leslie Bates
3 books9 followersLeslie Bates is a fantasy and dark romance author. She is passionate about creating epic love stories that highlight unhinged villains, heavy hitting topics and happily ever afters. Her debut fantasy novel, WHERE DARKNESS BLOOMS is out now and her debut dark romance novel, TO THEIR HEART'S DESIRE, will be released in August 2025. You can follow her on instagram @_butfirstbooks.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 12, 2024
STOP!! Ugh, I loved this one so much! There’s so much impacted into this book, and I had the best time reading! I’m really sad it’s over… for now. But I already miss all of these characters!
The story is told in third person and shifts between multiple POV’s and I LOVED that! Getting to know each characters backstory, it was never confusing and very much enjoyable!
I love our FMC kieryn, she’s strong, fierce and loyal!! I cannot wait to see how her character develops! Because, she’s a badass And I need to see more of her shadows!
The tension between Kieryn and Callian had me fanning myself! I love the buildup of their connection and damn, are they hot!! I’m so excited to see where this relationship goes!
A favorite of mine is the, friendships. The loss that these friendships had endured broke me hearing their stories, I got so emotional over Damian, ugh I adore him. I’m so glad that they all have each other! Can’t wait to see more of them.
That cliffhanger?! Girl, I’m going to be in agony waiting to know what happens next 😭😭
WHAT TO EXPECT:
🗡️ Enemies To Lovers
🗡️Touch Her & Die
🗡️Mental Health Rep
🗡️Found Family
🗡️Shadow Mommy & Assassins
🗡️Action
Thank you so much @butt for sending me an eARC of your debut novel!! I’m so happy and proud of you!! 🫶🏼
The story is told in third person and shifts between multiple POV’s and I LOVED that! Getting to know each characters backstory, it was never confusing and very much enjoyable!
I love our FMC kieryn, she’s strong, fierce and loyal!! I cannot wait to see how her character develops! Because, she’s a badass And I need to see more of her shadows!
The tension between Kieryn and Callian had me fanning myself! I love the buildup of their connection and damn, are they hot!! I’m so excited to see where this relationship goes!
A favorite of mine is the, friendships. The loss that these friendships had endured broke me hearing their stories, I got so emotional over Damian, ugh I adore him. I’m so glad that they all have each other! Can’t wait to see more of them.
That cliffhanger?! Girl, I’m going to be in agony waiting to know what happens next 😭😭
WHAT TO EXPECT:
🗡️ Enemies To Lovers
🗡️Touch Her & Die
🗡️Mental Health Rep
🗡️Found Family
🗡️Shadow Mommy & Assassins
🗡️Action
Thank you so much @butt for sending me an eARC of your debut novel!! I’m so happy and proud of you!! 🫶🏼
October 13, 2024
2,7/5
Plan był dobry, ale wykonanie...
Plan był dobry, ale wykonanie...
October 9, 2024
Thank you to the author for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Where Darkness Blooms is a fast paced adult fantasy inspired by Makaria and Thanatos. This book is filled with relatable characters, intriguing magic, great world building, spicy open door scenes, ancient gods and so much more. I love that the story is told in third person and shifts between multiple POVs. Getting to know each character’s backstory and how they ended up at the Phantoms Keep was really fun. The first chapter starts off strong and maintains an air of mystery throughout the rest of the story. There is never a dull moment and the cliffhanger? Are you kidding me?! Did not see that twist coming and now I’m scared for what’s in store for everyone next!
The found family of misfits aspect was one of my favorite parts of the story and I found it easy to connect with all the characters. I especially loved how loyal the FMC, Kieryn, is to her friends. She is so strong and fierce, I can’t wait to see how her character develops in the next book. I spent the whole last half of the book wanting to give Kieryn, Damien, Ash and Grayson hugs because they seriously cannot catch a break! The banter and tension between Kieryn and the dark and mysterious Callian is so good. I have no clue where that relationship is headed but I’m buckled in for the ride!
Read if you love:
🗡️Assassins
🗡️Enemies to Lovers
🗡️Found Family
🗡️Mental Health Rep
🗡️Shifters (and other cool creatures)
🗡️Spicy Fantasy
Where Darkness Blooms is a fast paced adult fantasy inspired by Makaria and Thanatos. This book is filled with relatable characters, intriguing magic, great world building, spicy open door scenes, ancient gods and so much more. I love that the story is told in third person and shifts between multiple POVs. Getting to know each character’s backstory and how they ended up at the Phantoms Keep was really fun. The first chapter starts off strong and maintains an air of mystery throughout the rest of the story. There is never a dull moment and the cliffhanger? Are you kidding me?! Did not see that twist coming and now I’m scared for what’s in store for everyone next!
The found family of misfits aspect was one of my favorite parts of the story and I found it easy to connect with all the characters. I especially loved how loyal the FMC, Kieryn, is to her friends. She is so strong and fierce, I can’t wait to see how her character develops in the next book. I spent the whole last half of the book wanting to give Kieryn, Damien, Ash and Grayson hugs because they seriously cannot catch a break! The banter and tension between Kieryn and the dark and mysterious Callian is so good. I have no clue where that relationship is headed but I’m buckled in for the ride!
Read if you love:
🗡️Assassins
🗡️Enemies to Lovers
🗡️Found Family
🗡️Mental Health Rep
🗡️Shifters (and other cool creatures)
🗡️Spicy Fantasy
October 7, 2024
Your next romantasy obsession!
An amazing debut featuring some of my absolute favorite things: an immersive, layered fantasy world, a bad ass female character, sexy spice, and mental health representation all wrapped into an incredible story.
Read if you love:
- enemies to lovers
- touch her and die
- shadow mommy’s
- found family
- delicious spice
- mental health representation
An amazing debut featuring some of my absolute favorite things: an immersive, layered fantasy world, a bad ass female character, sexy spice, and mental health representation all wrapped into an incredible story.
Read if you love:
- enemies to lovers
- touch her and die
- shadow mommy’s
- found family
- delicious spice
- mental health representation
October 30, 2024
Kieryn Rhodes always obeyed her father. Until one evening she did not, and this got her parents murdered. Or maybe it’s because of the rumors of a powerful weapon her father may have had, but that same evening her parents died, Kieryn is taken by a masked man. The masked man was sent to execute the Rhodes, but instead takes pity on Kieryn because of how young she is and leaves her at a monastery hoping he’s not making a mistake.
Ten years later, Kieryn is now an assassin for The Sanctuary of Crown and Blood. She had been taken in by a group called The Guild of Phantoms. She’s known as Deathbringer. Her and her crew are sent on a mission where they learn it is a set up and now have to not only clear their names, but gain people to help them stop a war that is coming.
Soooo, I have mixed feelings about this book. It has such potential! You can tell a lot of work went into creating this fantasy world with the names, and places. The character building is well done. You really learn about each of the characters really well and their pasts and what they’re like now. There’s some unique creatures in here as well.
I always enjoy descriptive writing, which Leslie does explain things in detail, such as what the characters look like, what they’re wearing and other details similar to those. I like being able to picture these in my head.
The start of the book is a great way to get you hooked into reading it to understand what happened, why it happened, and what will Kieryn do going forward.
I loved the idea of this mysterious faction of assassins that no one knows where they’re located. Like a need-to-know basis.
The story and plot kept my attention as well, never was bored and wanted to know what happens next, and the ending has a fantastic cliffhanger, which I always love a good cliffhanger.
So, those are things I enjoyed. There are I guess a lot of smaller things that just made the book lackluster for me.
To start, the world building leaves much to be desired. I think this book was too fast-paced with the story that the world is forgotten. I think the first book should have stayed focusing on the characters and the world, by the end we start to see the action and hints of romance, and then the second book is where the romance and everything else really starts to build up. Or else this first book should have been much longer. There are some random explanations about the world history shoved in at random times, but it seemed more of an afterthought and not actually a part of the story. This left me wanting more to understand this world.
The world is also supposed to be a unique fantasy world. However, there are a lot of modern day/our world things used in here. Such as a pool table or a lot of food we consume in our world, or at one point, Callian is described as having an Adonis-like body. Who is Adonis supposed to be in this world? This world literally has its own gods and yet we are describing this person as a Greek god that does not even exist in this world? So little details like this that could have used some work to make this a completely new fantasy world. In the end, it wasn’t that unique.
When I first started reading this book, it sounds like it’s a different story that turns into a different one all about this king coming for Kieryn. There’s not enough detail to explain why that is. At least there wasn’t for me to fully grasp and understand the meaning behind what is so special about Kieryn and to make me feel like rooting for her.
I also, and this is probably just a preference, but I didn’t like the way the POVs are set up. You have to really pay attention to who is narrating because it will switch mid-sentence or mid-paragraph and I just didn’t like having to put that extra work into it to understand who was the one actually talking right now. I had to backtrack a few times to figure out who is narrating.
Although there is great detail about the characters, I never truly felt emotionally connected with either of them. They were also all very one-noted, not enough individuality with the characters. Every single male character was the “who did this to you” type and each of the characters were so melodramatic in their thoughts, actions and words. I do think Damien is the one I connected with the most and I want to say Kieryn, but she seemed to be all over the place. It’s more like, I wanted to be connected to them and should have been, but I wasn’t. Is Kieryn an assassin or not? She’s all about being stabby, but then she’s not for random strangers, it was confusing for me. Because of this, the romance didn’t work for me. It was a very fast romance, which I don’t like. But this story was too fast-paced for the romance to work for me.
The romantic steamy scenes are done very well, but I also didn’t care if they stayed together or not 🤷🏼♀️
I enjoyed probably half the things about this book and the other half not so much. That ending is a really great ending and a great cliffhanger and I am curious to know how it will continue. So, I will probably pick up the next book to satiate my curiosity. Solid 3 ⭐️ read for me.
Thank you to the author for the gifted e-ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Ten years later, Kieryn is now an assassin for The Sanctuary of Crown and Blood. She had been taken in by a group called The Guild of Phantoms. She’s known as Deathbringer. Her and her crew are sent on a mission where they learn it is a set up and now have to not only clear their names, but gain people to help them stop a war that is coming.
Soooo, I have mixed feelings about this book. It has such potential! You can tell a lot of work went into creating this fantasy world with the names, and places. The character building is well done. You really learn about each of the characters really well and their pasts and what they’re like now. There’s some unique creatures in here as well.
I always enjoy descriptive writing, which Leslie does explain things in detail, such as what the characters look like, what they’re wearing and other details similar to those. I like being able to picture these in my head.
The start of the book is a great way to get you hooked into reading it to understand what happened, why it happened, and what will Kieryn do going forward.
I loved the idea of this mysterious faction of assassins that no one knows where they’re located. Like a need-to-know basis.
The story and plot kept my attention as well, never was bored and wanted to know what happens next, and the ending has a fantastic cliffhanger, which I always love a good cliffhanger.
So, those are things I enjoyed. There are I guess a lot of smaller things that just made the book lackluster for me.
To start, the world building leaves much to be desired. I think this book was too fast-paced with the story that the world is forgotten. I think the first book should have stayed focusing on the characters and the world, by the end we start to see the action and hints of romance, and then the second book is where the romance and everything else really starts to build up. Or else this first book should have been much longer. There are some random explanations about the world history shoved in at random times, but it seemed more of an afterthought and not actually a part of the story. This left me wanting more to understand this world.
The world is also supposed to be a unique fantasy world. However, there are a lot of modern day/our world things used in here. Such as a pool table or a lot of food we consume in our world, or at one point, Callian is described as having an Adonis-like body. Who is Adonis supposed to be in this world? This world literally has its own gods and yet we are describing this person as a Greek god that does not even exist in this world? So little details like this that could have used some work to make this a completely new fantasy world. In the end, it wasn’t that unique.
When I first started reading this book, it sounds like it’s a different story that turns into a different one all about this king coming for Kieryn. There’s not enough detail to explain why that is. At least there wasn’t for me to fully grasp and understand the meaning behind what is so special about Kieryn and to make me feel like rooting for her.
I also, and this is probably just a preference, but I didn’t like the way the POVs are set up. You have to really pay attention to who is narrating because it will switch mid-sentence or mid-paragraph and I just didn’t like having to put that extra work into it to understand who was the one actually talking right now. I had to backtrack a few times to figure out who is narrating.
Although there is great detail about the characters, I never truly felt emotionally connected with either of them. They were also all very one-noted, not enough individuality with the characters. Every single male character was the “who did this to you” type and each of the characters were so melodramatic in their thoughts, actions and words. I do think Damien is the one I connected with the most and I want to say Kieryn, but she seemed to be all over the place. It’s more like, I wanted to be connected to them and should have been, but I wasn’t. Is Kieryn an assassin or not? She’s all about being stabby, but then she’s not for random strangers, it was confusing for me. Because of this, the romance didn’t work for me. It was a very fast romance, which I don’t like. But this story was too fast-paced for the romance to work for me.
The romantic steamy scenes are done very well, but I also didn’t care if they stayed together or not 🤷🏼♀️
I enjoyed probably half the things about this book and the other half not so much. That ending is a really great ending and a great cliffhanger and I am curious to know how it will continue. So, I will probably pick up the next book to satiate my curiosity. Solid 3 ⭐️ read for me.
Thank you to the author for the gifted e-ARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Read
February 8, 2025DNF’d at page 131, because what happens makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever. Not even a little. I hate it when authors ruin a decent story.
October 14, 2024
𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝘿𝙖𝙧𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝘽𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙢𝙨 by Leslie Bates
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!!!!!
Gosh I just LOVED every second of this book!! It has everything my romantasy loving heart wants in a read. And I just loved this story and world and characters oh so much. If you love Throne of Glass, you must definitely check this one out! There’s assassins. There’s dragons. There’s an evil queen that will you hate. There’s a charming most swoon worthy MMC…. Wait. Hold up. There’s actually two. Cause I completely loved them both. 🥹 but I’m getting ahead of myself…
This is told in third person and follows multiple different POVs and story lines with one main one underneath. The different story lines all blended in so smooth and effortlessly. I totally forgot it was different stories going on. I absolutely loved getting all the characters back stories and the found family that was in this book. My heart broke for so many of them and I just wanted to protect them all. 🥺 So let’s talk about a few of them shall we?
Let’s start with Damien. Ughhhh Damien. I just loved him so much. And I understood him!! But his story broke me 😭 and then everything that transpires with him throughout the book…. Heart. Shattering. And the way he was so protective of Kieryn. 🥹 LOOOOOOVE him. Then there’s the badass that is Kieryn. I didn’t know I needed a shadow mommy in my life, but I’m so glad I have one now cause I’m obsessed with her! And definitely wouldn’t wanna mess with her.
Then there’s the mysterious Callian who gives the enemies to lovers vibes in the book and we all know how good those vibes are. 😮💨 I adored him. But good lord. That man had me sweating!! Fans were needed. 🪭 The tension between him and Keiryn was so SO good. Oh, and I can’t forgot about the tension between Kieryn and Damien cause theirs was 🔥 as well. I’m such a sucker for a good teach a girl how to play pool scene and that one delivered. 🫠 There’s some other characters too, but you’re just gonna have to read it if you wanna know. 😏
This is Leslie’s debut novel and my girl absolutely KILLED it!!! There’s mystery and intrigue. There’s SO much romance! There’s emotions!!!! The world building isn’t too complicated either so if you’re new to fantasy, don’t let that deter you. All in all, this book was so captivating and I just loved every page!
Such a great fantasy read and I can’t recommend enough!! Thank you so much for this ARC Les!!! I love you so much and I’m so stinking proud of you!!!! 🫶🏻
Read if you like:
🗡️ enemies to lovers
🗡️ shadow mommies
🗡️ mental health rep
🗡️ assassins/exiled prince
🗡️ the best found family
🗡️ touch her & die
🗡️ tons of action
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️!!!!!
Gosh I just LOVED every second of this book!! It has everything my romantasy loving heart wants in a read. And I just loved this story and world and characters oh so much. If you love Throne of Glass, you must definitely check this one out! There’s assassins. There’s dragons. There’s an evil queen that will you hate. There’s a charming most swoon worthy MMC…. Wait. Hold up. There’s actually two. Cause I completely loved them both. 🥹 but I’m getting ahead of myself…
This is told in third person and follows multiple different POVs and story lines with one main one underneath. The different story lines all blended in so smooth and effortlessly. I totally forgot it was different stories going on. I absolutely loved getting all the characters back stories and the found family that was in this book. My heart broke for so many of them and I just wanted to protect them all. 🥺 So let’s talk about a few of them shall we?
Let’s start with Damien. Ughhhh Damien. I just loved him so much. And I understood him!! But his story broke me 😭 and then everything that transpires with him throughout the book…. Heart. Shattering. And the way he was so protective of Kieryn. 🥹 LOOOOOOVE him. Then there’s the badass that is Kieryn. I didn’t know I needed a shadow mommy in my life, but I’m so glad I have one now cause I’m obsessed with her! And definitely wouldn’t wanna mess with her.
Then there’s the mysterious Callian who gives the enemies to lovers vibes in the book and we all know how good those vibes are. 😮💨 I adored him. But good lord. That man had me sweating!! Fans were needed. 🪭 The tension between him and Keiryn was so SO good. Oh, and I can’t forgot about the tension between Kieryn and Damien cause theirs was 🔥 as well. I’m such a sucker for a good teach a girl how to play pool scene and that one delivered. 🫠 There’s some other characters too, but you’re just gonna have to read it if you wanna know. 😏
This is Leslie’s debut novel and my girl absolutely KILLED it!!! There’s mystery and intrigue. There’s SO much romance! There’s emotions!!!! The world building isn’t too complicated either so if you’re new to fantasy, don’t let that deter you. All in all, this book was so captivating and I just loved every page!
Such a great fantasy read and I can’t recommend enough!! Thank you so much for this ARC Les!!! I love you so much and I’m so stinking proud of you!!!! 🫶🏻
Read if you like:
🗡️ enemies to lovers
🗡️ shadow mommies
🗡️ mental health rep
🗡️ assassins/exiled prince
🗡️ the best found family
🗡️ touch her & die
🗡️ tons of action
October 11, 2024
🤍 Where Darkness Blooms 🤍
Are you looking for a romantasy with shapeshifter, shadow mommy, and assassins? This is your book! This is Leslie’s debut novel and I am so incredibly proud of her!! I devoured this book. It had me instantly hooked with the tension and the fighting! I love a good fantasy book that has amazing action packed scenes.
I love Damien but Callian 😮💨😮💨 the tension between Kieryn and Callian had me sweating! I love an enemies to lovers it is absolutely my fav! I don’t typically connect well with books written in 3rd person but the way Leslie wrote this I had no issue!
Read this book if you like:
⚔️ enemies to lovers
⚔️ mental health rep
⚔️ assassins/exiles prince
⚔️ shadow mommy
⚔️ found family of misfits
Thank you so much for this E-ARC. My thoughts and opinions are mine.
Are you looking for a romantasy with shapeshifter, shadow mommy, and assassins? This is your book! This is Leslie’s debut novel and I am so incredibly proud of her!! I devoured this book. It had me instantly hooked with the tension and the fighting! I love a good fantasy book that has amazing action packed scenes.
I love Damien but Callian 😮💨😮💨 the tension between Kieryn and Callian had me sweating! I love an enemies to lovers it is absolutely my fav! I don’t typically connect well with books written in 3rd person but the way Leslie wrote this I had no issue!
Read this book if you like:
⚔️ enemies to lovers
⚔️ mental health rep
⚔️ assassins/exiles prince
⚔️ shadow mommy
⚔️ found family of misfits
Thank you so much for this E-ARC. My thoughts and opinions are mine.
Read
October 8, 2025I read about 100 pages of this book and while it was very imaginative and has a lot of promise in terms of premise (assassins school… 4 assassins) the writing needs work. This is mostly a developmental editing issue, I think. There was. Lot of information dump, pacing was inconsistent, and the jumping POV was difficult to track with l the many characters. Because of those issues, I DNFd.
October 16, 2024
This was a fun little romantasy read!!! I was lowkey a little devastated for Damien but I’m hopeful for him in the coming books 😂 this book keeps you on your toes and had some of my favorite tropes.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews