My Rating ~ Three and a half stars

RELEASED: 6 May 2019

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Format: Paperback

Pages: 433

Blurb

In a sealed-off city, it begins with a hunt. A young woman, Lena, running for her life, convicted of being a mage and sentenced to death. Her only way to survive is to trust those she has been brought up to fear – those with magic.

On the other side of the locked gates is a masked lady, Constance, determined to find a way back in. She knows only too well how the people of Duke’s Forest loathe magic. Years ago she escaped before her powers were discovered. But now she won’t hide who she is any longer.

A powerful and terrifying storm cloud unites them. It descends over the dukedom and devastates much in its wake. But this is more than a thunderstorm. This is a spell, and the truth behind why it has been cast is more sinister than anyone can imagine … Only Lena and Constance hold the key to destroying the spell. Though neither of them realise it, they need each other. They are the blood and they have the thunder within.

Review

Thankyou to Bloomsbury Publishing for providing me with a copy of We are Blood and Thunder, in exchange for an honest review.

Lena is a cryptling, working in the town’s crypts, preparing the dead to be laid to rest. When an incident sees her running for her life, she stumbles across a masked lady in the woods – Constance. As Lena heads to where Constance came from and Constance heads to Lena’s town, they’ll both have major difficulties to overcome.

This one was a little hard for me to rate – there are some really interesting and unique aspects to the story and the magic was especially intriguing, but the main characters didn’t quite draw me in as much as I hoped. There was a lot about the magic that wasn’t quite explained, which is ok if the book is the first in a series, but as a standalone it just meant I’ll never get answers to the questions I had. There were some truly great battle scenes though and some of the characters got me nicely riled up (as was the intention of those characters!) but I was much more attached to and interested in the secondary characters than the two leads!

The story itself was full of adventure and secrets and it was definitely a page turner. I often found myself holding my breath anxiously, waiting to see what would happen. I also loved the twist at the end!