House of Earth and Blood Hardcover – 3 March 2020

Soo.. I have picked up Throne of Glass and left the series after finishing ToG; because I wasn’t connecting to the characters or the story (#sorrynotsorry!) but I had high hopes from this humongous 800 page tome; becausea. It is an adult fantasy – and yes while, it isn’t a certainty that adults will behave maturely as compared to young adults; there is a higher probability that I will actually connect with these characters!b. Even if I didn’t connect with ToG; I had no problems with Maas’s writing style – I found it to be engaging, stimulating and with the capability of capturing my interest from the get go. So; I knew that the writing style of the author would be enjoyable to me!Now; coming to the actual review –I will not be able to actually summarize HOW MUCH I ENJOYED the experience of reading this tome, before I start to bore you; so let me make points:1. Bryce Quinlinn – a fiercely, sarcastic, rule breaking harpy with a heart that has been bruised and broken – more accurately damaged – is someone that I DID NOT like for more than half the book; and I am not sure if I still like her after completing the book. But I do know that I respect the heck out of her – she is strong, fierce and takes no notice of anyone else’s thoughts or opinions on her – or at least does her best not to!2. Hunt Athalar – a slave assassin who indenture is a burden he has no choice but to carry – and somehow doesn’t see a light at the end of a long, dark and bleak tunnel. So he keeps his head down, keeps moving forward one step at a time. He is gentle at heart; and even with his vicious reputation; it was easy to see that the trauma he endured shadows a kind and loyal heart!3. The multitude of characters playing a vital role in the world – there were so many; that it took me the whole book to keep them straight in my head – WE NEED A PREQUEL TO UNDERSTAND THIS WORLD!4. The element of having a mystery within a fantasy world was a brilliant stroke – the twists and turns; the revelations of betrayals, secrets and things that would make any weaker protagonist buckle just made Bryce and Hunt’s decisions & actions all the more believable! Trust me; once you get used to the world created by Maas; the book seems to fly – you just CANNOT stop reading!5. I adored that Maas made sure that there was no “saving the world” kind of responsibility thrust on the shoulders of the protagonists – which made the climax pretty darn perfect experience in my head – I swear; with both Bryce and Hunt being characters you just won’t like in the start; the growth they had to become characters I could respect and definitely want on my team – incredible!6. Last; but definitely NOT the least – the romance; this is an adult fantasy – the attraction between Hunt & Bryce was sizzling; slow burn and definitely angst ridden. But it was one that saw a conclusion within this book; so I am really hoping that the next book is all about a couple I am rooting *wink wink*If you have actually read through the whole review – kudos and now go pick up this book if any of the aspects seem to be of your liking – and if you are already a fan of Sarah J Maas; do I even need to say anything more?

Best book i ever read my fav seriesThis world is fantastic, these characters so strong. I was immediately sucked into to story. From the beautiful gates, to the dingy apartment, the love between Bryce and Danika, the attraction between Connor and Bryce, the undying loyalty.The story follows half-human half-fae Bryce Quinlan and angel Hunt Athalar.Bryce was a carefree girl until the day when her closest friends were mysteriously murdered. The accused is sent to prison but similar crimes begin to happen again which pushes Bryce to look for the real demon and avenge her friends' deaths.

This latest book by Sarah J. Maas has been the talk of the town everywhere! It is literally everywhere! It's amazing.Note: The review may have a few spoilers. Be careful when you read it.Review: 3.5 StarsHouse of Earth and Blood is a well-written, fast paced story that has it's ups and downs. The book started off slowly and abruptly, making it difficult for me to understand the context setting and the initial character introductions. However, as the story progresses, the plot becomes stronger and more interesting. The story becomes gripping and is a wild roller-coaster until the very end. The author ensures that the readers attention is on the book and nowhere else!Most of the characters are well crafted and interesting. However, I was not very impressed with Bryce, the main protagonist of the story. She is not as relatable as I had hoped, but all in all, she holds her own well in the story. Being half-fae, she is under the protection of the Fae community, but that is where it ends. On her own with her best friends, living away from her loving mother and step-father, anyone will assume that she is enjoying her life. But when tragedy strikes, it all comes undone.As Bryce is pulled in to investigate her best friends death, the possibility of suicide, then murder all lurk about. Bryce has to sort out the facts and separate the truth from the lies. Hunt Athalar, personal assassin for the Archangels, is forced to step in protect Bryce, while working with her to solve the case. What ensues is a battle of wits and an underlying attraction which the two characters fight. With a lot of secrets being kept, it is not easy to find out the truth.I did come to love a lot of the supporting characters, Bryce's best friend Fury, shrouded in mystery. Her step-brother, the Fae prince whom a lot of readers will come to love. His is a very well developed character. I also liked the other Archangels both good and bad. The author brings out a colorful variety in the nature of characters introduced.One message which is persistent throughout the book is the meaning of friendship and loyalty. The author also shows us the true power of love above all else. The story, even though a little slow at first, was truly a wonderful read! I thoroughly enjoyed the action and appreciate the way the characters find their way in the end! Even Bryce and Hunt grow on you in the end and the reader just has to accept them since they bring the story together!

Great seller, thanks. Carefully packaged, item came as described. You know a book gets to you when you broke down crying, so guess what? Brace yourselves, this book wants to catch you off guard.

An incredible book as everything that Sarah has written !

I thoroughly enjoyed the intricate world-building and deeply-defined characters and their complex relationships with each other. There were countless twists, turns and surprises. The last 130 pages were epic and enthralling.And they made the first 670 pages look rather uneventful. A great deal of the book was spent on the romance between the two main characters, with tidbits of the murder mystery revealing themselves until around the 700th page when the villain randomly decided to explain everything in one several-page-long chunk. It seemed a bit awkward, honestly.Lastly the 'through love, all is possible' theme felt superficial. All throughout the story the good characters perform selfless self-sacrificing deeds facing certain death and then magically emerge triumphant. It just felt too much like a fairy tale.Regardless I'd still say it deserves the Goodreads top pick for fantasy in 2020. Well done.

All righty,let me start by saying, *SPOILERS.*Let me also start by saying, I've read SJMs' books before, and like probably half the population, I liked her ACOTAR series. I don't mind SJM in general, (she can be a bit too graphic for me at times but whatever) but I honestly wasn't planning on reading this book. Not because of anything in particular, I just wasn't drawn to it, you know?But a friend of mine told me that it was sooo good and all this so I decided, okay, I guess I'll give it a shot. So here are my thoughts and why this is 3 stars. Let's goooooOOO1) Info dumping/world"building"Okay, here's where the title of my review comes in. If SJM wasn't SJM, I doubt she could get away with how she info dumped in the first several chapters of this book and have very few people take issue with it. I honestly believe that since she's an established, popular author, SJM was able to skirt by with the text book/Wikipedia description of this new world that was very, very dense to read and quite difficult not to skim over with glazed eyes.I mean, we know in writing it's show and not tell. We know that in establishing a world, it's like a ball of yarn unraveling; Information coming to light gradually through action, dialogue, events, etc. But this... phew. I was honestly surprised at SJM and the way she revealed--no, dumped--information about the world on the readers. Like it was a LOT and I STILL have no idea what's what and who's who, and I finished the book.Every other paragraph, every other sentence, was PAUSE. Allow me to explain in great but also confusing detail about why this world is the way it is, who runs it, why, how, where, when, and also, let me give you a quick history lesson about it all that will not clear anything up. (As a writer my head is exploding with just the thought of creating an outline for this world).It really pulled me out of the story countless amounts of times and was honestly super annoying. If this was SJMs' first book, I'm sure her editors or beta readers or whoever would have been like girl....this is word vomit and you need to disperse this information throughout the book instead of ALL AT ONCE. I felt like I was reading a text book during the first few chapters. It was a chore to get through. If I had picked this up in a bookstore and read the first three pages it was going right back on the shelf. Peace out2) PacingYou know what I noticed immediately? Bryce, our wonderful, great and awesome main character (sarcasm, though, she was all right, but we'll get to that), really had no goal for several chapters. I'm pretty sure your character has to have a goal or an objective within the first few pages....? Something they want, even if it's just to get to work on time. Refer to the title of this review for something else you can get away with when you're a popular author: Your MC can aimlessly wander around while you focus on your history book worldbuilding & everyone's okay with it because you've sold millions of books so whatevs.You can argue that Bryce did have a goal in the beginning, and that was to find the horn for Jesiba. But Bryce didn't even care and made probably a .02 effort to actually search, and so I don't think that counts since your character's goal is something they truly want. For instance, Bryce's GOAL was to catch the murderer and that didn't come in until very later on. I don't know, I guess it can be summed up as Bryce was very passive rather than active for a very long while before actually getting a goal and objective and something we could root for her on and want her to succeed in.Also-- side note-- this book was WAY too long. Let me say, I have NO problem with lengthy books. I actually love them, because more pages means more adventure. I don't believe in limiting word counts when the book has something important to say and when it all gears toward the plot. But there were a lot of unnecessary things here or just events that could have been sped up or cut out altogether. (Bryce's date with her ex? That scene was for what? To give us info on Redner industries? To show us why she dumped him? (is that how Redner was spelt? oh well lol))But here we go. This is just something else you can fly under the radar with when you're SJM:SLOW. PACING.A part of me gets it. This whole thing (the plot) was supposed to be gradual. It was like in real life, where nothing is instantaneous and things just kind of happen over the course of months/weeks/years. But this isn't a documentary, you know? Like, I get that SJM needed to show us Bryce and Danika's relationship and their dynamic and all, but I honestly feel like the first several chapters dragged on and on. The whole book sort of did until (SPOILER)near the end when Micah revealed he was a true psycho and then things went from (literally) 0-100000000000. And I mean ZERO because before this we were stuck at The Summit along with all the other bored shifters/animals/angels/aquamans/witches/whatever other creatures SJM made.And I was as bored as Hunt and Rhun. (Ruhn?)It was just a lot but also nothing at all. I will hand it to SJM-- she kept Hunt and Bryce moving once they were put on the case by Micah because THEN they had objectives in every chapter. THEN we got active and not passive characters. But it just took too long to get there.And the runaround with the horn and that whole case was a bit of a web that could have been shortened tremendously. This book kind of reminded me of an author who had multiple favorite scenes that the book could have done without, but she ignored her editor and didn't want to get rid of them because she simply liked the scenes even when they could have been snip snipped.3) CharactersI saw some reviews saying these characters were cut and paste from SJMs' previous books, one review in particular calling Hunt a mix of Azriel and Cassian and honestly, very true. I won't harp on SJM for giving us another love interest with wings because that could just be what she loves, and you know, write what you love and whatnot. And Hunt was at least a different breed than Rhys, so I give her a pass on that one. (Also you guys, if the LI doesn't have wings, how else are we supposed to get the excuse for further contact by the protagonist being carried into the skies while leaning against the muscled chest of her soon-to-be-lover?)I honestly didn't mind the characters, I just had a hard time differentiating between them all. You can't tell me Rhun and Hunt aren't the same exact person. They spoke the same, were overprotective of Bryce the same, etc. If they swapped places no one would notice. Bryce and Danika were even similar in a lott of ways. I did like Bryce-- I really didn't have any issues with her except for her forced feminism, but everyone else sort of blurred together.(Side note, the 'I'm so hot and I know it and everyone (EVERYONE) also thinks I'm hot' protagonist trope is stale. Can we just get an unconventionally attractive unique looking protag for once in these upmarket books like sheesh--)What I think SJM could have done is differentiated her characters in dialogue/thought. They ALL swore. (Swearing in a book is whatever but this got old very fast and lost effectiveness almost immediately). Let's say if at least one character didn't swear, there's a distinct difference right there.Like, Lehabah. Putting aside the fire sprite thing, if she were a human in this book, she would have been distinct just because the way she spoke and acted was different from literally everyone else, who said and did more or less of the same things. *SPOILER*(Lehabah's death-scene was heartbreaking but well-written, so I'll give SJM that).4) RomanceI'll keep this short-- I really liked Hunt and Bryce together. I saw some people saying it was insta-love, but I think it was very slow burn and I thought their progression was well executed. My annoyance came with the overly done sexual tension.We. Get. It. Hunt is hot, Bryce is hot, they want to do terrible things to each other, let's move on.But no, we had to be subjected to (especially Hunt's) constant dirty thoughts. Just make them kiss already and skip all the...taking matters into own hands and toe-curling skin pebbling kind of thing. Like, please. We get it. & their moments would have been a lot sweeter and had much more meaning, I feel (like the shower scene where Bryce cleaned Hunt up) had they been just that--short and sweet.But it's not like expected SJM to suddenly go all PG13 on the romance after her last few books, sooooo. Moving right along.5) "Zootopia" LOLThe Zootopia references I saw to describe the amount of creatures in this book was hilarious. But also spot on. I love fantasy-- it's my favorite genre ever. And I love it because there are no rules and you can make up whatever the heck you want. But this felt a littleeee excessive. It reminded me of a fantasy I drafted where I dumped every creature under the sun in the book just because I wanted to, but I trimmed 96% of them out by draft 2.By the time we got to the Mer, I was just skimming over the aquatic life descriptions. And the Nokk (Nook?) creature in the library was just another "huh?" I skipped over whatever his deal was too. But I get that creature had to be there because it played a role in the random escalation at the end. Which brings me to my final point:6) 0-1000000 in record speedWe all know every book has a climax that's built up to throughout the chapters. But I needed glasses to see the buildup to this climax because everything exploded in no time.Now, the last few chapters were actually my favorite because we finally had ACTION. And it was the only time I truly enjoyed the book (also because I was finally nearing the end lol). But the cliché 0 to hero was a taddd annoying. SJM dropped crumbs here and there about Bryce that she wasn't super ordinary, like blinding the Oracle and such. But everything at the end and who she was felt unrealistic, and not in a sense that this is fantasy but just...rushed? And a littttle random.Things just escalated to new heights after literally nothing happening for hundreds upon hundreds of pages. It's like someone woke SJM from her fever-dream typing frenzy and was like, you need to end this book soon. And you also need to get some action going while you're at it. Because before everything went down, before Micah revealed his psychotic behavior and the demons were released, I know everyone (readers, I'm looking at you) were BORED at the Summit.(WHY did we have to read the details of everyone arriving at the Summit and what they were wearing? WHO cares?) Add this to what you can get away with when you're a famous author-- pointless chapters.Miscellaneous closing thoughts:--The mind-speak between Ruhn (Rhun?) and Hunt was a COP OUT and no one can convince me otherwise. This is what annoys me, when an author makes up something on a whim just to give themselves an out. "How can I make Hunt communicate with someone across the room while he's in shackles? OH mind-speak!" with no prelude or hint beforehand. No.--The cutting of Hunt's wings-- predictable. Why is it when authors have angels, they think they need us to read through their wings being severed? I felt like it was a cop out for Hunt and Bryce not to go all the way on her couch so that Sara can dangle their "unfinished business" around for more buildup and tension that I've honestly had enough of.--Blowing up the club felt unnecessary and a way to add action to lagging chapters. Just me?-- I get that Hunt's hands were tied (literally) when everything with Bryce was going down while he was at the Summit, but literally having to read him just standing there staring at the screen and doing nothing for a few chapters was sort of annoying.-- The Jelly Jubilee thing and whatever those toys were was humorous and added another layer to Bryce but also was one of the many things that could have been cut. That's just me being picky, though.SJM did do a good job of layering and adding twists, and overall, this book is okay. It's not a BAD book, just too slow. Way too slow. A tad confusing (all I really know is this world is on a planet called Midgard. Midgrad... or whatever) and a little eye-rolly but not awful. I won't read anything else from this series though lol. It just wasn't gripping enough and there's honestly too much going on.I just think SJM got away with a lot of things a debut author (or a lesser-known author) could never. There were lots of things here that I think an editor or publisher would grimace at or make major changes to for the sake of clarity and conciseness and just the sake of interest for the reader. & SJM is surrounded by the 'hype' complex where her other works are so well-liked that everyone feels like they HAVE to love whatever else she puts out because otherwise I don't know why this book is so raved about.But hey, this is what being a popular author can do for you.(P.S, don't get me wrong, SJM deserves her success. This is just a result of what all that success can allow you to get away with).Also, fellow writers out there, imagine writing a query letter for this. LOL.

Spoiler Free Part:I'm going to start off by saying that I am a moderate SJM fan. I tried but failed to ever get into her Throne of Glass series (particularly thrown off by the multiple love interest changes) and really only got truly into ACoTR series towards the end of the first book. While I liked her writing style, I just couldn't connect with the characters. The last third of ACoTR was the first time I felt like the characters were interesting and the plot became engaging. So, I say this without rose colored glasses- I liked House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City Book 1). I thought it was well written, interesting and I connected with the characters. My biggest love of the book was the deep and real feeling of unquestioning love between the two best friends, Bryce and Danika. It's not a spoiler to say that Danika is murdered, as its in the book blurb, but I had totally forgotten and was absolutely gutted when it happened. Bryce's grief for her friend felt so real throughout the books. I think that was what made me empathize with and like her beyond her sassiness. Also, I for one didnt mind the partying and drug use specifically because its depicted that she realized she was basically wasted her life chasing stupid pleasures and not doing anything meaningful. However, this book has a TON of info dump and exposition. I'll go into it more below in the spoiler section, but there is a LOT of information for the reader to process constantly, and new characters are introduced constantly as well making it feel like there are just too many cast to keep track of. The relationship between Hunt & Bryce feels organic to me and I didn't feel that it was "insta-love" as some others have complained. It made sense to me that they were the only two people who saw each other as they really were. My biggest gripe is that the very last bit of the book feels like it was supposed to be part of one of her other series compared to the rest of the story.Overall I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars, it was far from perfect but it was highly enjoyable and I'm anticipating the next book in the series.********SPOILERS**********DO NOT READ BELOW UNLESS YOU WANT SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!I really loved the relationship between Bryce and her friends throughout the book. They felt very real and genuine. Even the relationship with Rhun felt nicely done. The friend characters were well fleshed out and didnt feel too two dimensional.I really like the world building. I think the caste system and the way the Vanir reign is well explained and makes sense. I thought the concept of "The Drop" was unique and interesting.And of course, I loved Danika. Oh boy did I love Danika, and I was heartbroken when she died, because I had forgotten it was coming. When Lele died, I was also genuinely saddened. I felt like the emotions in the book were really well done. Although some people complained about the multiple dead-end leads, I enjoyed them (at one point I was certain Sabine was the killer) because it would have been really boring if they just easily figured it out right away. The Kristillos demon was kind of a disappointment. I mean, it took down Micah but really didn't seem that dangerous overall.I liked Aidas and am intrigued to see him return in future books.I also liked the war between Humans & Vanir. That was something that ACoTR hinted at being a possibility but I think the concept of rebelling against their masters and finding a way to fight back was a good plotline; however I also think Bryce doesn't seem to care too much about their cause. She is always befriending and trying to free slaves, her parents are humans, but she doesn't seem to care all that much about the overall subjugation of multiple species. It kind of gets treated like "thats the way it is" without any sense of outrage or hatred about it.Alright now for some gripes:Fury is just a carbon copy of Amren. What is the point of her whole character? Bryce could have been partying with June that night; Rhun could have put a gun to Hunts head and rode Bryce off on the wave runner; Rhun also could have been the one with a helicopter stashed off site. What did Fury actually do for the plot?Everyone is soooooooooooo super crazy off the charts perfectly hot, and also, everyone is insanely deadly. Now I get it, they are Vanir and Angels, but come on. Is there no such thing as an ugly werewolf or an unattractive mermaid? And everyone is a super honed amazing assassin. Fury, Bryce's adopted dad, Rhun and his friends, Hunt, every werewolf, etc. Everyone is stunningly hot and dangerous. To us, they might be, but if that was your entire world your entire life wouldnt it seem a little trite? If everyone is hot, does it mean anything anymore?Also like others have said, jesus with the overkill about Bryce being scorch-the-earth-hot. I get it if Conner & Hunt are super attracted to her, and if she gets hit on occasionally. But it is literally like every male she meets throughout the book can't bear to keep their hands off her. Every time she walks down the street every male is just falling all over themselves to look at her. It definitely feels slathered on a little thick.One of the biggest things that bugs me though is this: The last third of the book. Oh my god. Everything happening on screen, Micah going all Bond Villain and giving a long monologue explaining everything he did and why and just happened to be on camera for everyone important to see. Eye roll. We weren't even with Bryce during most of the action but rather watching it alongside the other secondary characters. The whole scene with the Nok was absolutely unnecessary and just felt like it was dragging out the ending of the book. Micah could have slammed Bryce into the tank, resulting in it cracking and her being severely injured, and Lele still could have broken the glass without the whole Syrinx-Rescue/Nok-Fight even needing to happen. In fact, it would have felt more believable that the Nok fought Micah and occupied him long enough for Bryce to escape than for Micah, the Archangel, the immensely powerful Governor, to have been....conveniently locked in a magically warded bathroom while a whole other scene got played out. It just felt totally unnecessary.Okay- now- last major gripe:THE LAST 50 PAGES OF THE BOOK. What the hell? Did we suddenly get transported into A Court of Thorn and Roses? Portals to Hel opening up all over the city, the lead character running around fighting in hand-to hand combat to protect helpless citizens, the magical companions fighting demons with her.......it felt like I was suddenly watching Feyre, not Bryce. On top of that, while I appreciate the symbolism of Bryce using Danika's sword, it felt totally unrealistic to see a woman who spent the last five years of her life first partying and being a college student then an antiquities desk clerk suddenly is an amazing sword wielding killer. The gun thing is believable due to her Stepfather and the scene at the gun range. But we never once see Bryce mention ever knowing how to use a sword or pick one up, but suddenly she's single handedly taking on an army of demons with flawless sword fighting? I really enjoyed the ending bit with her making the Drop and Danika being there (so touching) but other than that the very last part of the book suddenly felt like it was just a rehashing of the battle scene from A Court of Mist & Fury.The ending of the book wrapped everything up pretty well, but it also leaves a lot unanswered. Bryce admits that the entire city saw her use her Starborn powers and that she is now more powerful than any other mixed-species has ever been before. She even says the Fae & Angels can't let it stand that she showed their caste system was invalid. And yet, the highest Angels told her just to lay low and they would leave them alone. Obviously, we know that they probably don't, but I feel like a cliffhanger as to what would happen now in the fate of humans Vs Vanir/Angels and what that revelation was going to mean for Bryce would have worked better than just wrapping it up in a neat but not really logical bow.I still liked the books, I still like the characters and I am excited for the next one, but hopefully some of these issues will be corrected going forwards.Anyway that concludes my long as heck summary, thanks for reading!!!

Being the fan of an author's work is both a blessing and a curse. You count down the days until their next—usually hyped up—release is to be published. You talk about it more and more the closer that said release day approaches. You try to enter any possible pre-order special is available, in the hope of getting a lovely exclusive pin, or a poster, or a print.And then the book releases...I don't know about you, but once that book hits shelves, I am violently torn between a crazed eagerness to read it, and a nearly crippling fear that I am going to hate the book no matter how much I have loved this author's stories in the past. Which, let's face it, is one of the worst things to happen in a reader's life.Thank you, Maas, for delivering the goods once again.House of Earth and Blood is not a perfect novel. I'm not even sure that such a thing is possible, to be frank, because our love of books is a very personal thing. But, this novel is a punch to the heart, in the best possible way. I absolutely fell in love with the story, with the characters, with the world that was created. And it is definitely a complex and intricate world of which we get a glimpse, but that is sure to open up to us even more, and I cannot wait to continue exploring it as the series progresses.I'm a huge fan of badass female leads in novels. What can I say, I live vicariously through them. Ironically, I usually don't like so-called “badass” female leads in novels, because most of the time what we're given are annoying females that try too hard. I initially read the sample for HoEaB that NetGalley provided, and I was a bit unsure about Bryce. She came off a tad strong for me, and I was instantly worried that this meant negativity throughout the rest of the novel. Maybe my mindset was not in its proper place then, but I am so glad that I decided to read the full novel from the first chapter again, because my opinion of Bryce completely changed.I love this woman.Despite the fact that we are reading a fantasy, despite the fact that Bryce is half-Fae, she is very human in her actions and emotions. She makes her mistakes, she suffers through them, she learns, she picks herself back up, puts on a new pair of teal-colored panties, and she keeps going. She's believable and realistic in who she is, and it's very easy to become connected to her.This is actually true of the rest of the characters. They don't always connect right away—I was unsure of Hunt at first, of Ruhn, of Jesiba even—but once they do, they stick and you root for these people. You suffer with them, you are excited alongside them, you want them to kick ass and come out winning on the other side.Hunt—or as I like to think of him in my head, Orion...such a gorgeous name—had one of the best evolutions. I can see that Maas wanted to make him this dark, introverted being at the beginning, and I saw hints of it, but I couldn't quite see him that way full-force. I think that's one of the things that made me question him for those first few chapters of his appearance in-story. I see what you want me to see, because you're telling me what to see, but that's not really who he is, and that's coming out more so than the facade he's portraying. Athie is a deep, tortured, sweet and loving male who slowly opens up to the reader, and he swept me right off my feet.That's probably why the sudden twist at the end of the novel's third part was such a slap to the face, and the biggest problem that I had with this book.We're navigating a story that's centered around the death of Bryce's best friend, Danika, and her pack of shape-shifting wolves—one of the most heartbreaking moments of the book, by the way, even if the synopsis warns us about it (the writing in this piece, at the start, was wonderfully done and it tore through me). Eventually, we know that Danika's death, and that of the pack, is surrounded by the use of a drug called synth, which makes people—both human and non—have strength and violence to such a degree that they can tear others apart. And the culmination of that is that Hunt is involved in this so that he, and those with him, can use this drug to help themselves be freed from those who have enslaved them.It did not fit with his character.Hunt, who strives to keep others safe, who works and does the horrible things that his handler, Micah, tells him to do so that he can keeps streets safe? Hunt, who deals in killing demons that come through rifts? Yes, he has been suffering for over two hundred years, and he has been tortured within an inch of his life, and the love of his life was killed in the midst of this. But to make him be a buyer, when he comes to know the consequences of the usage of synth, did not fit in with who he is. As the last part of the novel progressed, things were smoothed out a bit and it sort of fit in. But this nagged at me so much that I was not able to let it go.I did, as a matter of fact, stop reading for the day once I hit this point, and had to force myself to pick up the book again the next day so that I could continue.It doesn't take away from the story, mind you. I said it once, and I say it again, I love this book. I felt every single emotion that was in here, and that's one of the best things that I can ever ask for in a story: make me feel. And you certainly feel. You feel to the point of tears sometimes. Lehabah's end did it for me, that little fire sprite was one of the good ones. Bryce's phone call to Hunt when she's in the middle of taking out demons after the Gates open and knows she might very well die, did it for me again. Danika and Bryce's reunion after Bryce makes her Drop did it for me a third time. And then that bittersweet moment, near the end of the book, when Bryce gets just a glimpse of the pack and Connor waves to her, brought tears to my eyes once again.But I still think that there is, and was, so much to explore. And while we're taken to the brink of those moments that can be darker, like the ones that Hunt described having experienced during his years with Sandriel alongside Pollux, we're not taken there. It's not that I want to see my beloved characters suffer, it's that sometimes that suffering can have room for that much more growth. Sometimes when we bypass that, things appear a little too easy.At the end of the day, though, this was stellar. My worry was for nothing, and I am going to be suffering until the second book is so much as announced. I'm still not over the losses in this first installment, I still remember the epic scene of Bryce against Micah, of Hunt's plummet over that helicopter, of Lehabah's sacrifice. I am so curious to see how the obscure Aidas ties in with this story and what more he has to offer, and I can't even imagine how the Asteri will likely play a part in the future of this world.Bring it on, Crescent City. I'm waiting.