House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City, #1) in Reading Materials

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May 21, 2020 Lucia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: faeries, read-in-2023, fantasy, podcast, werewolves, read-in-2022, read-in-2020

For a more in-depth review, listen to our podcast episode about this book here.

I am writing this review after having re-read this book in anticipation of House of Sky and Breath being released.

I am *so* glad I read this one again and took my time with it because it turns out I remembered almost nothing from my first time reading this two years ago. The amount of world-building and information that we get in the first 200 pages of this book is staggering - I counted more than 30 named characters For a more in-depth review, listen to our podcast episode about this book here.

I am writing this review after having re-read this book in anticipation of House of Sky and Breath being released.

I am *so* glad I read this one again and took my time with it because it turns out I remembered almost nothing from my first time reading this two years ago. The amount of world-building and information that we get in the first 200 pages of this book is staggering - I counted more than 30 named characters alone and managed to fill 4 pages of notes on all of the different Houses, the magical objects and power structures. It really was a lot and I don't think it was done organically, it felt too forced into the story - Bryce might as well have been reading a historical textbook with the way this information was thrown in at random.

However, once the world and characters are established and the action gets going, the book becomes quite epic.

Fans of SJM will be happy to see a return of her favourites - men with large wingspans, men with tattoos, men with horribly traumatic backstories, badass female MC, unresolved sexual tension, quippy dialogue... This being an adult novel, they will also get a truly unnecessary amount of swearing.

In terms of characters - I love pretty much everything about Bryce, except for her view that all men are alphaholes, which is ironic because that is primarily what Hunt is for the majority of this book. I'm not sure if SJM was trying to make this an enemies-to-lovers story and that's why Hunt is so abhorrent in the beginning, but I gotta say I did not like his character one bit and I'm not sure I am rooting for him. I think there were other, more interesting, characters introduced that I hope we will get more of in future novels (e.g. Ruhn and his friends, Tharion, the Viper Queen, Aidas).

So, overall, this is an ambitious urban fantasy novel with some great lines (the classics being 'Light it up' and 'Through love, all is possible') that, despite all of its negatives, I really enjoyed and am anxious to start reading the next one. ...more

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Jun 28, 2022 Corrie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

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Apr 03, 2020 Jessica rated it it was amazing

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