Escape by Kenya Wright

The Quiet King.  The blind and deaf ruler of vampires seemingly should be disadvantaged, harmless even.   But that’s not quite the case here.  With a harem of human dominas acquired for the sole purpose of bearing his vampire children, he maintains an upper hand.  Brie, a domina for two years, is nearing her turn to begin procreating with the King. Unfortunately, his policy to slaughter babies who could challenge him is a pretty big turn off. Her only hope to escape lies with Samuel, a vampire known for leading slaves to freedom.

Slaves are one thing; dominas are another, and they happen to be the one exception for Samuel as it’s too risky, and not just the from the ramifications of the palace.  Brie lies about her identity, but her blood doesn’t and the closer she gets to freedom, the closer she gets to Samuel as her blood becomes increasingly irresistible.

For 127 pages, I was very enthralled. Usually it’s hard to get into a novellas for me, especially for a new and unestablished series, but the world-building and characters were well done.  Brie’s inner conflict as she fights the temptation of Samuel while trying to remain faithful to her husband and children to whom she desperately wants to return kept things pretty interesting.  I finished actually wishing this could have been a full length novel. I was definitely left wanting more.  There is a lot of romantic tension, but plenty of action as well, often times pretty gruesome.  There’s certainly more to the story that can be told and I, for one, hope it is.  The Quiet King has potential to be a very good villain and we’re only scratching the surface.

There are illustrations provided sporadically which were a nice touch, though I think they could be colored and placed all together in a certain sections of the book.  At this point I don’t think they add or detract from the story, but it did make me think that this could be a great graphic novel.

*ARC Provided by the author