Daughter of the Blood - Anne Bishop

Title: Daughter of the Blood
Author: Anne Bishop
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 3/5
# pages: Audiobook ~17hrs
Date read: March 2011

The Dark Kingdom is preparing itself for the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy--the arrival of a new Queen, a Witch who will wield more power than even the High Lord of Hell himself. But this new ruler is young, and very susceptible to influence and corruption; whoever controls her controls the Darkness. And now, three sworn enemies begin a ruthless game of politics and intrigue, magic and betrayal, and the destiny of an entire world is at stake.

After all the raving reviews I'd read, I think my expectations were perhaps a tad too high, and I ended up disappointed. It's not a bad book by any stretch, but it came across to me as very obviously the first book in a series as great effort was spent on building the universe and the characters and very little plot actually happened. I 'read' it as an audiobook and very often found my attention drifting as I really wasn't all that interested in many of the characters and their sub-plots.

That said, because so much time was spent on introducing the characters, I ended up being very fond of especially Jaenelle and Daemon, but also of Saetan and Wilhelmina. I liked their relationship and enjoyed reading about the love they had for each other.

I'm not sure that's enough for me to want to read the rest of the series though. Guess it depends on how attached I feel I've become to the characters as it certainly won't be for the plot.