Skip to main content

Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf #1) by Crystal Smith [arc review]

@glimpses_of_my_books
Do you ever go into a book completely blind? I almost never do that these days, specially when it comes to Young Adult books. But... blind into it I went. I read the blurb after I had started the book and I have no regrets. Outside of romance YA Fantasy is a favorite genre of mine and I would have picked this one out regardless.

The Blurb:
Princess Aurelia is a prisoner to her crown and the heir that nobody wants. Surrounded by spirits and banned from using her blood-magic, Aurelia flees her country after a devastating assassination attempt. To escape her fate, Aurelia disguises herself as a commoner in a new land and discovers a happiness her crown has never allowed. As she forges new bonds and perfects her magic, she begins to fall for a man who is forbidden to rule beside her. But the ghosts that haunt Aurelia refuse to abandon her, and she finds herself succumbing to their call as they expose a nefarious plot that only she can defeat. Will she be forced to choose between the weight of the crown and the freedom of her new life?


3.5 Stars

This magical story had a nice flow to it. The first few chapters were captivating and it was hard to put the book down. Princess Aurelia is the heir to the throne but she gets ousted from her own country for possessing magic. In Renalt, people like her receive the death sentence. 
She goes to the Kingdom of  Achleva were she is meant to marry their sickly prince. None of it goes according to plan, an attempt in her life has her on the run.

Aurelia was a good female heroine. Not the cleverest tool in the box but brave and determined. 
Zan was a charming main male character. I think he was meant to be a heartthrob? I just found find sweet and adorable.
Nathaniel -his best friend- had me almost in tears. In many ways his character stole the show for me.
All other characters were good but not interesting enough to be mentioned.

Bloodleaf was a very easy to read fantasy, but not much of it was properly explained. That is not really a problem since this is only the first book in the series, but it is something the reader should keep in mind. 

The true negative to me was predictability. It was easy to see where the story was going. It follows tropes and themes that have become very popular in YA in recent years- powerful and yet clueless (and let's not forget plain looking) female heroine, male villain, two love interests that would give their lives for her, and a problem only the female character can fix. All those things on their own aren't bad, but when it makes the story predictable it is rather boring. There was at least one instance where the plot was so so obvious I wanted to scream at the book.

All that being said though it was great YA Fantasy. I have never heard of this author and I think this is a debut novel, which makes the book as a whole a lot more impressive. As a debut novel that was phenomenal. 

Release Date: March 12th, 2019 by HMH Books for Young Readers 
Find the book at: GoodReads - Amazon - Inklings Bookshop

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crow and Reaper by A. Zavarelli (Boston Underworld #1 and #2)

Crow and Reaper by A. Zavarelli (Boston Underworld #1 and #2) @glimpses_of_my_books These books are (to me at least) two VERY different books and the reason you should never give up on an author after just one book. I did not like Crow  one tiny bit. But I absolutely loved Reaper . One is a 1 star, while the other is a 4...  Let's start with the good first, Reaper . Ronan is likely to break your heart. Throughout the book we get snippets of his past, accounts of everything he had to go through before Crow and his mother find him and save him from the horrible life he was leaving. In a way, although I wasn't a fun of Crow in the first book, his love and care for Ronan had made me like him a little better. Ronan is not quiet, moody, and broody by choice. It is a consequence of all the things he has been through, the things I mentioned above that will break your heart... He is caring and loving, but he has no idea how to put those things in action. He is, in a way, one of the mo...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Book Hater's Book Club by Gretchen Anthony

The Book Hater's Book Club  at first appears to be about a struggling bookstore and its imminent sale. Elliot, the co-owner of Over the Rainbow Bookstore, started  The Book Hater's Book Club , a newsletter of reading recommendations for the self-proclaimed non-readers of the world, because he believed there was a book out there for everyone. Something I wholeheartedly agree with! For years he and Irma have kept the store going and always had a recommendation in hand. When you finish this book, you will have yet another list of books to read.  However, this book is about more than just books and a struggling bookstore. It is also about grief, the price of secrets, and a little more grief.  You see, Elliot is gone, and his grief-ridden business partner has agreed to sell the store to developers. Problem is, she didn't tell that to anyone until the deal was almost done. Which is making her daughters ask questions. Why is she selling? Is it grief alone? Is ther...
1 comment
Read more

Vandalar Concubines 1 to 4 by V. K. Ludwig

I don't read monster romance, I have tried a few and found it is not for me. All the tentacles and slime and whatnot are not for me at all. But I find that I enjoy alien romance a lot. Especially when the anatomy is not too different. This series was great. The exact amount of cheesiness and humor I wanted this past week. It reminds me very much of my favorite romance subgenre of all time - paranormal romance with shapeshifters, wolves and bears to be exact.  The first book in the series is Sign Here for Horns. Our heroine purchases herself an alien worker to help around the farm just to find out that he is a saikh. A saikh is a male concubine and trained to pleasure females in all ways possible. Their relationship is both funny and sweet. All he wants to do is pleasure her and all she wants (at least to start) is getting her farm working. Their different views on what and how to pleasure surely made for many funny scenes. Although slavery very obviously exists in this series, she...
Post a Comment
Read more