Review: The Red Lily (Vampire Blood #2) by Juliette Cross

The Red Lily (Vampire Blood #2) by Juliette Cross
Purchase link: Amazon

My rating:     

Heat rating:      

The Red Lily is a a raw, intense and deeply sensual story which shows you what happens when little Red falls for the big bad wolf! Both Sienna and Nikolai are the quintessential embodiment of the archetypes from the fairy tale.

The Red Lily started off good, then it got better and by about halfway on, it blew me away. Many tears were shed along the way as Ms Cross had me feeling deeply for what both Sienna and Nikolai were going through and most of all, suffering.

I adored Nikolai. I had liked him when I first met him in The Black Lily as a strong, silent soldier at Marius' right hand. In The Red Lily, we see the wolf. The beast unleashed. He is raw, primal and sexy as heck. He oozes sensuality as much as he oozes danger. It's like petting a wild wolf. You simply don't know if he'll let you or if you'll get bitten. But aside from that raw, primal intensity is a sensual man who is filled with honor, heart and love. A man who is protective of those he cares about and willing to fight for a cause he doesn't entirely understand but feels he needs to stand for those underprivileged and who cannot fight for themselves.

"He’d not been called my lord for many years, not since before he’d joined the Legionnaires. As the superior species, vampires were either of noble birth and therefore lords or ladies, or they were soldiers in the Crown’s Legionnaires. Since he wasn’t in uniform, she’d assumed he was a lord, which he was. But the thought struck something dark inside him, that humans who were unfortunately born into the peasantry never had a chance of coming into their own, seen as lesser simply by their birth. In that single moment, he understood why Marius’s wife Arabelle had started the Black Lily. And for the first time, it truly hit home that there was justice in their cause."

Nikolai is everything I love about my heroes. Ms Cross has done a fantastic job of creating a man that I've completely fallen for.

While Sienna is equally strong, she also has an innocence to her. She has led a sheltered life even though she fled an unwanted marriage to a wealthy nobleman. She's independent and a little wild, with a strength and a fire that burns bright inside of her. There is a moment in the story when it seems like everything is falling apart and Sienna suffers a great deal. Those moments, my heart broke and I may or may not have cursed Ms Cross for putting my heart through the wringer for what she and Nikolai go through. There's a scene where Sienna goes through a terrible thing and it brought to mind for me what Katherine suffered in The Deepest Well. That had me shaking my fists at Ms Cross. How dare you put me through this? I was suffering alongside Sienna, as I suffered with Katherine previously. Ms Cross stomped on my heart!!

And BTW, shout out to a horrible villain. Volkov was disgusting. I was so put out by him, I think I might has metaphorically thrown up a little bit in my mouth while reading about him. I felt physically ill from my reaction to him and what he did. Horrible. Horrible.

Fantastic continuation to the Black Lily series, Ms Cross. I can't wait for the next book.


View all my reviews


About the author



Juliette Cross: Website - Amazon Author Page - Facebook - Twitter - Pinterest - Goodreads - Newsletter


Find Deanna around SOCIAL MEDIA: