Verdict: A middle book that out-spices its own opener and does real emotional damage, undercut by a heroine readers spend four hundred pages wanting to shake and a plot that holds its answers back for book three.

Best for: Readers who finished House of Crimson Hearts, want the heat escalated rather than maintained, and can tolerate a protagonist behaving badly and a hard cliffhanger — because the payoff is deliberately withheld.

Heat level: ★★★★★ (5/5 — explicit and plentiful)

Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5 — a 4.25 Goodreads average, flattered by the readers book one already filtered out)

Tropes: Enemies-to-lovers, fated mates, morally grey vampire, dhampir heroine, memory loss and memory theft, BDSM and blood play, deadly trials, political intrigue, dual POV, forced proximity.

House of Crimson Kisses by Ruby Roe is the second book of the Kingdom of Immortal Lovers trilogy, an indie-published sapphic vampire romantasy with a dark romance streak, set in Sangui City during the trials to name the heir of the city, where Red — a dhampir hunter losing her argument with her own hunger for blood — is thrown back against Octavia Beaumont, one of the three original vampires, who is holding pieces of Red that Red does not remember losing.

It carries a 4.25 average across 4,557 Goodreads ratings, against 3.98 across 8,375 for book one, and a 4.02 on StoryGraph from 913 reviews. The trilogy finished in December 2024, so nothing is pending. What is not settled is whether this book is actually better than the one before it — the aggregate numbers say yes and a meaningful share of the written reviews say the opposite. Both halves of that split are worth understanding before you start.

What Is House of Crimson Kisses About?

House of Crimson Kisses is a dark sapphic vampire romance with a competition plot bolted to it, and both halves of that description carry weight. The vampire politics are not decoration: Sangui City is run by houses, the trials to name its heir are lethal, and the book spends real page count on who is manoeuvring against whom. The dark end is earned too — StoryGraph readers tag it dark at 82% and emotional at 72%, and the crowd-sourced content warnings put blood, sexual content, violence and gore at the top of the graphic tier.

Red comes into this book missing something, and she knows it — that is the unavoidable inheritance from book one, and it is the engine of everything here, so consider this your one spoiler flag. Octavia comes into it certain that what she did was the only thing that kept Red standing, and equally certain she does not owe anyone an explanation. The book runs on dual first-person POV plus a set of interleaved chapters from an unnamed schemer, which lets you watch two people be individually reasonable and collectively catastrophic while a third party moves pieces neither of them can see.

What Makes This Dark Sapphic Vampire Romance Work

• The escalation: The most consistent thing readers say about this book relative to book one is that the heat goes up, not sideways. Roe’s own shop listing calls it “even more explicit than book one,” and the reviews back that rather than contradicting it.
• Octavia: Reader devotion to her is the loudest positive signal in the whole review section, and it is protective rather than admiring — people are angry on her behalf.
• The second romance: The Cordelia and Eleanor thread draws unprompted praise, and more than one reader names it as the reason they carried on to book three.
• Momentum: With the worldbuilding already done, the trials start immediately. 34% of StoryGraph readers called it fast-paced and 61% medium; almost nobody called it slow.
• The bond as a weapon: romance.io’s tag list for this book includes role switching, and readers single out those reversals specifically — the power moves between the two leads rather than sitting with one.

Book Synopsis

The trials for the heir of Sangui City are underway, and they are not ceremonial. Each round strips out competitors, the houses behind them are already spending favours and lives, and Octavia Beaumont — one of the three original vampires, and the one least interested in pretending she wants the crown for the city’s sake — intends to take it. She has resources, centuries of practice, and a partner she cannot fully trust.

Red is that partner. She is a hunter, she is becoming something she was raised to kill, and the blood hunger is winning arguments she used to win easily. She also knows, now, that Octavia removed parts of her memory. Octavia’s justification is that Red asked her to, at a point where Red was not going to survive keeping them. Red’s position is that it was never Octavia’s decision to make. Neither of them is wrong, which is precisely the problem, and the trials do not pause while they work it out.

Around them the city keeps producing evidence that the contest is rigged and that someone outside the visible houses is steering it. Interleaved chapters from an unidentified figure make that explicit early without naming them, so the reader spends the book assembling a suspect list. Allies from book one turn out to have their own ledgers. A second pair of women, older and more damaged than either lead, are running a parallel campaign with reasons of their own.

What Red and Octavia have between them is real and physical and constant. What they do not have is a single honest conversation about the thing that broke them. The trials will end. The question the book keeps asking is what either of them is willing to give up first — the truth, the crown, or each other.

My Review

The heat is the headline, and it deserves to be. This is one of the very few books where I can say the escalation over the previous volume is measurable rather than asserted: readers who found book one explicit describe this one as a step up, and the variety genuinely widens — role switching, pain play, exhibitionism, mutual feeding written as a sex act rather than a plot device. romance.io puts it in the top steam band, “explicit and plentiful,” the same band it gives book one, and the author’s own listing pushes further and calls it a 6 out of 5. That is a marketing flourish, but for once the reader reports point the same direction.

The second real strength is that the emotional damage lands. This is a book people finish and then post about being unwell. The betrayal structure is well built — Roe sets up a situation where both women have a defensible position, then lets the consequences accumulate rather than resolving them, and the interleaved schemer chapters keep a low hum of dread under the romance. The secondary couple is the quiet achievement: readers who have soured on the leads keep reading for Cordelia and Eleanor, which is not something a throwaway subplot achieves.

Where it struggles is Red, and this is not my private irritation — it is the single most repeated criticism in the reviews, and it turns up as often in five-star reviews as in two-star ones. She spends the book punishing Octavia for a decision Octavia made to keep her alive, refuses to engage with Octavia’s side of it, and then, once she has her memories back, keeps going. Multiple reviewers describe her as insufferable, ungrateful or spiteful. Stacked around that are the structural complaints: the sex-to-plot ratio, with one Goodreads reviewer breaking the book down as “90% hot sex between a vampire and a hunter, 5% plot evolution”; a conflict engine that is essentially miscommunication, where several readers note that one honest conversation between two people with a thousand years of experience would end the book; and middle-volume incompleteness, with the largest reveals deliberately held for book three. A minority also flag comma-spliced sentences and typos, which is a real complaint but a much smaller one than in most indie romantasy.

One expectation to reset: this book is not a sequel that stands alone, and it does not pretend to. It opens mid-scene, it assumes book one, and it ends on a hard cliffhanger with the central mystery still unresolved. StoryGraph’s did-not-finish rate is only 2% — against 9% for book one, which is a genuinely large improvement — but the people who did stop mostly stopped for the same reason, best summarised by one StoryGraph reviewer’s flat “Sex got in the way of the story.” If you came for a vampire political thriller with romance in it, calibrate. If you came for the smut and are willing to let the plot arrive when it arrives, you will have a very good time.

My honest note: The best-executed heat in the trilogy attached to a heroine who spends four hundred pages being wrong about the one thing that matters. If Red’s behaviour toward Octavia will ruin the romance for you, this book will ruin it; if you can read it as a character in a hole rather than a character being written badly, this is the trilogy’s most propulsive instalment.

How Dark and Spicy Is House of Crimson Kisses?

A full 5/5. romance.io rates the steam level “explicit and plentiful,” its top band, and its tag list for this specific title reads like a checklist: BDSM, blood play, spanking, bondage, exhibitionism, role switching. Readers corroborate the frequency rather than just the intensity — one Goodreads reviewer counts roughly nine explicit scenes across a book of about 400 pages, and the most common complaint in the entire review section is that there is too much sex, which is not a complaint most romances have to field. Our spicy sapphic romantasy guide calls this the hottest book on the list. Testing that against the evidence: it mostly holds, with one honest caveat. romance.io’s scale tops out at 5, and book one sits in the same band, as do several other titles we have reviewed — so the band alone cannot crown anything. What supports the claim is the direction of travel the readers describe, the breadth of the kink content, and the fact that the sheer volume is the loudest criticism. If any book on that list earns the label, it is this one; it just cannot be proved by the number alone.

The element worth naming in advance is not a kink but a dynamic: the memory manipulation between the leads is not treated as a tidy fantasy device, and the sadism in these scenes is, in the author’s own content warnings, not always healthy. At least one reader also raises the possessiveness as something they could not get past, and that is a single voice rather than a chorus. Beyond that, nothing goes unflagged — Roe publishes an unusually complete content-warning list for this title, which is more disclosure than most books in this band offer. If you want this level of heat elsewhere, Her Spell That Binds Me and Tryst Six Venom sit in the same top band.

Who Should Read This Book?

You’ll likely love it if: you have already read book one and want the heat escalated rather than repeated, you enjoy a morally grey vampire more than a likeable one, you read for emotional wreckage and betrayal, and a cliffhanger is not a dealbreaker now that book three exists.

You may want to skip it if: you need the protagonist to be someone you can root for, miscommunication as a plot engine exhausts you, you want the sex to serve the plot rather than the reverse, or you want a volume that resolves something on its own terms.

In short: the most explicit and most emotionally violent book in the trilogy, sold at the cost of a heroine who is hard to forgive and a plot that will not conclude until the next volume.

What Readers Are Actually Saying (August 2026)

There is no viral moment attached to this book, and there never was. What TikTok activity I could identify for the title traces back to Ruby Roe’s own author account rather than to organic reader posts, there are no trade reviews at all — no Publishers Weekly, no Kirkus, no Library Journal — and blog coverage amounts to a small number of independent romance bloggers, of whom Courtney Reads Romance gave book two four stars and called it “different and darker than in book one, but absolutely delicious.” What this book has instead is volume and distribution. It sits at 4.25 across 4,557 Goodreads ratings and 4.02 across 913 StoryGraph reviews, and Podium Audio took the trilogy into professional audio: this instalment was released on 10 December 2024, narrated by Allie Rose and Anais Inara Chase across 12 hours 57 minutes. That audio deal, not a hashtag, is why an indie sapphic vampire romance keeps picking up new readers two years after release.

Prefer audio? Listen to House of Crimson Kisses on Libro.fm — the audiobook shop that supports independent bookstores.

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Why readers love it (according to the discourse): The spice, first and most consistently, and specifically the fact that it exceeds book one rather than matching it — readers who arrived expecting more of the same report being surprised. Then Octavia, who inspires something closer to protectiveness than admiration; a striking number of five-star reviews are essentially arguments on her behalf. Third, the emotional impact: “I’m unwell” is close to a genre convention in this review section, and readers describe needing recovery time. The Cordelia and Eleanor subplot draws its own following, with several readers naming it as what kept them in the series. The worldbuilding gets credit for expanding without info-dumping, which is a specific and unusual compliment for a middle book. Notably, one StoryGraph reviewer complains of not enough action or spice — the exact inverse of the majority position, and worth flagging because it tells you the volume of sex here is a taste line, not a fact.

What readers argue about and complain about: Red, above everything. She is the single most repeated criticism, and the tell is that she is criticised just as hard in five-star reviews as in low ones — readers who love the book still describe her as insufferable, ungrateful or spiteful for how she treats Octavia after the memory theft. Second: the sex-to-plot ratio. Reviewers describe scenes as gratuitous or oddly placed, one breaks the book down as roughly 90% sex and 5% plot, and this is the most common reason given by the small number who stopped reading. Third: miscommunication as the load-bearing conflict, with several readers pointing out that the entire dispute would collapse under one honest conversation, and at least one noting that the same argument recurs to the point of tedium. Fourth: middle-book incompleteness — the big reveals are held for book three, and one reader argues the volume could have been split between books one and three without loss. Finally, a smaller but real thread on craft: comma splices, long run-on sentences and typos, with one one-star reviewer calling the writing appalling while admitting they remain invested. Opinions divide hardest on whether this is better than book one. The numbers say yes without much ambiguity. The written reviews split, with a clear group saying it was harder to get through, weaker in plot and writing, and more predictable.

The series question everyone should ask first: yes, book two ends on a cliffhanger, and a harder one than book one’s. It resolves almost nothing; romance.io even carries “cliffhanger” as a tag on the title, and readers describe the ending as brutal. Nothing here works as a standalone, and it will not make sense without book one. The good news is that the wait is over — House of Crimson Curses published in December 2024, completes the trilogy at 4.32 across 3,648 Goodreads ratings, and readers consistently report a genuine ending with both couples resolved. On the better-or-worse question: on aggregate, book two is measurably better received. Goodreads runs 4.25 against book one’s 3.98, StoryGraph 4.02 against 3.73, and the did-not-finish rate drops from 9% to 2%. But treat that gap with some care. Book two has 4,557 ratings against book one’s 8,375, meaning roughly half the readers did not continue — the sequel is being scored by the people book one already selected for. Roe’s Girl Games series shows the same monotonic climb across four books, from 3.87 to 4.37, which suggests the pattern is partly structural. My read: better than book one on execution and pacing, worse on protagonist likeability and self-containment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does House of Crimson Kisses end on a cliffhanger?

Yes, and a severe one. The book resolves almost none of its central mystery, readers repeatedly describe the ending as brutal, and romance.io tags the title with “cliffhanger” outright. Book three, House of Crimson Curses, is already out, so the wait is zero.

Is House of Crimson Kisses better than House of Crimson Hearts?

By the numbers, yes. It holds a 4.25 Goodreads average against book one’s 3.98, a 4.02 StoryGraph average against 3.73, and a 2% did-not-finish rate against 9%. But roughly half of book one’s readers did not continue, so the sequel is being rated by a pre-selected audience, and a visible group of reviewers says plainly that they preferred book one.

How spicy is House of Crimson Kisses?

A 5/5. romance.io rates it “explicit and plentiful,” its top band, with tags covering BDSM, blood play, bondage, spanking, exhibitionism and role switching. One reviewer counts around nine explicit scenes, and the most common criticism of the book is that there is too much sex rather than too little.

Can you read House of Crimson Kisses as a standalone?

No. It opens mid-story, assumes everything from House of Crimson Hearts, and ends unresolved. Multiple readers state directly that none of the books in this trilogy stand alone and that it should be read in order.

Is the Kingdom of Immortal Lovers trilogy finished?

Yes. House of Crimson Curses published in December 2024 and closes the story at 4.32 across 3,648 Goodreads ratings, with readers reporting a real resolution for both couples. Two bonus volumes of extra scenes also exist alongside the main trilogy.

Is there an audiobook?

Yes — narrated by Allie Rose and Anais Inara Chase for Podium Audio, running 12 hours 57 minutes, released on 10 December 2024. Listener comment on the narration is thin but positive, with at least one reviewer singling out both narrators by name.

If You Loved House of Crimson Kisses, Read These Next

If the draw was explicit heat carrying a hostile dynamic, Tryst Six Venom runs the same top-band spice through a contemporary enemies-to-lovers engine with none of the fantasy scaffolding. If it was the dark magical setting rather than the vampires, Her Spell That Binds Me puts a rivals dynamic at the same 5/5 heat inside a Regency witching college. And if you simply want more Ruby Roe, her Girl Games series is the obvious next stop — sapphic fantasy heists rather than vampire politics, four books at a 4.03 series average across more than 21,000 ratings, and rising with each instalment; we have not reviewed it yet, so start from our paranormal and fantasy lesbian romance collection. For more in this register, browse our complete sapphic romantasy reading hub or the full Book Reviews collection.

The Bottom Line

House of Crimson Kisses is a middle book that knows exactly what it is selling. The heat escalates rather than repeats, Octavia is a genuinely compelling morally grey lead, and the emotional wreckage is engineered with real care. It is also built on a conflict that one honest conversation would end, carried by a protagonist a large share of its own fans find insufferable, and structured to withhold its answers for another four hundred pages. Whether that trade works depends on what you read vampire romance for — if it is the charge between two women who cannot leave each other alone, this is the trilogy’s peak, and the fact that book three is already out removes the only real objection. Check House of Crimson Kisses on Amazon →

The Eikna Overall Ranking

On the Eikna scale, House of Crimson Kisses ranks as a peak-heat indie sapphic vampire romantasy — the most explicit and most emotionally punishing volume of its trilogy, held back by a heroine readers cannot forgive and an ending that resolves nothing, and best approached as the middle third of one long book rather than as a novel in its own right.

The Evidence Scorecard

Overall ★★★★☆ 4/5

• ✓ 4.25 average across 4,557 Goodreads ratings
• ✓ 2% did-not-finish on StoryGraph, down from 9%
• ✓ Podium Audio carried the whole trilogy
• ✓ Rated by the readers book one filtered

Romance ★★★★☆ 3.7/5

• ✓ Chemistry never falters, physically or on the page
• ✓ Both women have a defensible position
• ✓ Second couple lands harder than expected
• ✓ Conflict runs on miscommunication readers resent

Characters ★★★★☆ 3.9/5

• ✓ Octavia inspires genuine reader protectiveness
• ✓ 81% of StoryGraph readers say flaws are central
• ✓ Cordelia and Eleanor earn their own following
• ✓ Red the most repeated complaint in the reviews

Writing ★★★☆☆ 3.4/5

• ✓ Worldbuilding expands without info-dumping
• ✓ Interleaved schemer chapters build real dread
• ✓ Pacing rated fast or medium by 95%
• ✓ Comma splices and typos flagged by a minority

Emotional Impact ★★★★★ 4.5/5

• ✓ 82% dark and 72% emotional on StoryGraph
• ✓ Readers describe needing recovery time
• ✓ Betrayal has real, lasting cost
• ✓ Anger at Red sometimes displaces the intended feeling

Heat Level ★★★★★ 5/5

• ✓ romance.io top band, explicit and plentiful
• ✓ Around nine explicit scenes in 400 pages
• ✓ BDSM, blood play and role switching throughout
• ✓ Volume is the book’s loudest criticism

Ending ★★★☆☆ 3.3/5

• ✓ Cliffhanger is genuinely propulsive
• ✓ Book three already out, so no wait
• ✓ Sets up a resolution readers rate 4.32
• ✓ Resolves almost nothing on its own

Re-read Value ★★★★☆ 3.8/5

• ✓ 12 hour 57 minute audiobook is a strong second pass
• ✓ Bonus scene volumes extend the world
• ✓ Completed trilogy rewards a straight reread
• ✓ Scenes many readers admit to skimming

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