Blood Flows Deep (Ryze #1) by N. Isabelle Blanco

🌟🌟🌟 out of 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Ismini 

He wants to kill me . . . More than that, he wants to see me die.
I don’t know him. I’ve only heard about him throughout my short life.
It is my destiny to die at his hand when he sacrifices me to the Fates . . .
All so that my death can bring back his obsession.
The woman he loves.
He’s my death.
But he’s more than that.
He’s the air that destroys me with each breath. An addiction I never planned on having.
I’ve mated to my killer.
Either way, I’m going to die.
The question now is if I can survive long enough for him to complete his sacrifice and bring back the woman he truly adores.

Dyletri 

Fourteen-thousand years ago, I locked away my powers.
The loss of one woman took everything from me. I made a deal to wait. To sacrifice an innocent that would be born in the far future to bring my beloved back.
Then I laid eyes on that girl . . . and everything I thought I knew got shredded to shit.
She’s reawakened the monster in me.
The madness.
The hunger.
The creature that demands a taste of her flesh.
Even worse, for the first time in my long, brutal existence, the monster is demanding her blood.
I’ve mated to my victim.
I’ll have no choice but to keep my promise. I have to sacrifice her. And the moment I do . . .
We’re both going to die. 

I had read a few books by N. Isabelle Blanco before and enjoyed the darkness that she is capable of bringing to a story. Blood Flows Deep intrigued me because it is more of a fantasy than her other books. I thought that the premise was interesting in that Ismini is a sacrifice for a god and she is aware of that fact. When I read that I wondered what would drive a person like that and how could they be okay with that. The author was able to write such a compelling book with a sacrifice mated to her own killer and vice versa. I knew that I had to read this story to find out how it progresses. 

I loved the tension between the two main characters. It seemed so natural and I thought that the emotional turmoil that they both go through is portrayed really well. As far as characters go, I connected much more with Ismini than I did with Dyletri. He seemed very childish and entitled at times which annoyed me. 

All in all I really enjoyed the book. The only critique that I would give would be more world building. I feel like I was dumped into a world that I didn't completely understand. I was aware that there was bad blood between some of the gods resulting in betrayal and bloodshed but didn't understand much else about it.