I have been waiting for Cruelly Bitten by Lexi C Foss for over two years, and after finishing it, I still don’t think I am ok.  This book is not what I expected it to be to any degree.

This is the sixth and final book in the Blood Alliance series, and it follows Cam and Ismerelda.  Ismerelda we have met in the previous books, and she was Cam’s mate, but Cam himself was a little different.  Through the entire five book series, we had heard about Cam, we had seen others talk about Cam and how he had a master plan.  Cam was always meant to be king, always meant to be in charge.

And then, when we meet Cam?  He has no memories, no idea of his plans, nothing.  Worse, he has been corrupted by Lilith and an unknown source as well, and thinks humans are beneath him, and that his friends for hundreds, if not thousands of years, are out to betray him.

I finished this book in three days, and it was all I could think about the entire time.  The way the first five books are written, I assumed that this would follow suite and Cam would come into power and fix everything.  That is not at all what happened.  As a matter of fact, I really like that Cam is lost and trying to figure out where his memories are, and what is actually true.

I felt so bad for Ismerelda while reading this.  The man she loved, the man she had been with for over a thousand years, didn’t remember her.  He didn’t have a glimpse of their history or their past, all he knew was that she was his to use and abuse, and use and abuse he did.  (This is probably a good time to mention, please be wary of all trigger warnings for this book.  This is an incredibly dark book.)  There was one specific scene that broke my heart in this book, where Ismerelda thought her Cam, her lover, had come back to her, and when she realized he hadn’t, it broke her so badly she essentially withdrew into herself.

This is Cam’s book overall, but really it is Ismerelda’s book, and how she becomes a badass queen.  I like that Cam wasn’t what we thought he was going to be, and that he was not the “good guy” as he was portrayed in the previous five books.  But I loved that Ismerelda had finally had enough of being treated like shew as less than, like she needed to be protected.  I like that she became, in all sense of the word, a queen.  Because by the end of this book, she and Cam were partners, but he also deferred to her and treated her with so much respect, and I loved that.

The one thing I did not like about this book, was when I hit about 90% of the way through reading it.  You ever have that feeling in a book, where there is not a lot of book left, but there IS a lot of plot left.  Because that is where I was in this book.  And then, when there were only twenty or so pages left, my brain went “wow, Lexi is wrapping this shit up quick.”  But no, no she was not.  This book ended the Blood Alliance series, but it is starting an entirely new series, and I WANTED TO SCREAM.  I was not prepared to need to wait for an entirely new series to come out as well, and I am still a little bitter, a week later.

Overall – I really loved this book.  I don’t know if it is my favorite book of the series, but I do really enjoy this book, and I like the conclusion it gave to The Blood Alliance series.  I think the way Lexi showed Cam not being the man/vampire we were expecting him to be the entire time was masterfully done.  But what was done even better, was him falling in love with Ismerelda again, and having to learn how to find his humanity. 

Cruelly Bitten by Lexi C Foss

Cost* – eBook is $5.99 and Paperback is $24.99 and Hardback is $29.99.  This book is included on Kindle Unlimited. 

*Cost is based upon what the book cost when book review is published