Holy cow. I don’t even have words right now for the absolute heart twisting turmoil that Lucy just put me through. First of all, I picked up this book to read as I had signed up for the ARC of the sequel. After reading this, I don’t know if I have enough heart left to read the sequel, I’m barely breathing right now!

As always, there are spoilers ahead, so continue at your own risk!

Lucy’s creation of the Courts of Daemonium was absolutely breathtaking! The world was the definition of gothic fantasy, and I wanted nothing more than to live in it. Not to mention the depth of her characters, I fell in love in every single one and had an intense hatred for the enemies of my loved ones, that I just completely broke apart with what happened!

First, the world of Daemonium was essentially created by Lilith, everyone’s favourite hated daughter of God. Lucy weaved a great story linking the creation of every common paranormal creature (vampires, werewolves and witches) to Lilith aiming to cause chaos and destruction within the mortal realm. Of course, there are different but familiar names for these creatures: Lamiae, the seductive blood sucking walkers of the night; Lupi, the shape changers who turn into wolves at the full moon; and the incantrices, the wielders of elemental magic some with a unique gift curtesy of Lilith, which is also shared by the Lamiae.

Each first creation of Lilith broke free of her control and hunger for chaos, with the exception of a select couple, and formed the Courts of Daemonium with the soul aim of remaining free of Lilith’s influence and keeping the mortal realm safe from her daemons. The only way to truly keep her at bay is with the powerful light of a Luciferius Incantrix, the original bringer of light had aged and her power was weakening, which allowed Lilith to start wreaking havoc in the 1800s.

Queue our main leads! Xander is the first Lamiae with the intense power over shadow and the mind, he created the courts and struggled with his guilt of his friends being forcibly turned into Lamiae with him and trying to keep Lilith out of his head. His pain is so powerfully describe in the very first chapter, my heart ached for him. Next is Adrianna, an incantrix who had inherited her great-grandmother’s Luciferius light. She was a child when she first met Xander, in the middle of struggling to regain control over his mind from Lilith, but even then she was a strong little influence on him, it was love at first sight!

Well, not really. They fought and yelled most of the time, I half expected it to be a wild goose chase! They finally give in and they become the source of each other’s strength and power, it’s so loving and tense filled, it was a happily ever after in the making. Then Lucy went right ahead and crushed my heart again for the ump-teenth time. Lilith gets her claws into Xander again, resulting in the absolute slaughter of Adrianna’s family including the most brutally torturous murder of herself. I cried so hard I needed my Ventolin to calm me down!

So, no happily ever after… fast forward a few centuries and daemons are now known by mortals and threatened by a hardcore group of extremists, Xander is now a supportive member of parliament trying to make up for murdering the love of his life. All is going rather democratically and smoothly, until on of his brothers comes across a rather unique Lamiae Incantrix who half blinded him with her Luciferius abilities. Queue a horribly traumatised Addie who has spent centuries hiding from her soul mate who murdered her and her entire family.

It was just bombshell after bombshell! Trauma, regret, grief, pain, love, betrayal, you name it! I can’t believe I’m still breathing after this!

Lucy has a knack for making you crave the world she creates and has your heart aching for the characters. As much as I feel like I have been completely obliterated by this novel, I cannot wait to find out if there is a happy ending or if Lucy is just going to drop another gut wrenching bomb shell on me!

As per my agreement, I won’t post a review with spoilers for the sequel “Lady of Light and Death”. I will however rage on about my emotions that will without a doubt render me emotionally useless for the foreseeable future. If you love gothic fantasy, achingly loveable characters and not afraid of looking death in the eye, “Lord of Shadow and Blood” is for you!

Happy Reading!