Hey Everyone,

Hope your weeked has been good, I can’t believe that I am writing another book review again. Two days apart in a row, go me.

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas

Half-Fae, half-human Bryce Quinlan loves her life. By day, she works for an antiquities dealer, selling barely legal magical artifacts, and by night, she parties with her friends, savouring every pleasure Lunathion—otherwise known as Crescent City— has to offer. But it all comes crumbling down when a ruthless murder shakes the very foundations of the city—and Bryce’s world.

Two years later, her job has become a dead end, and she now seeks only blissful oblivion in the city’s most notorious nightclubs. But when the murderer attacks again, Bryce finds herself dragged into the investigation and paired with an infamous Fallen angel whose own brutal past haunts his every step.

Hunt Athalar, personal assassin for the Archangels, wants nothing to do with Bryce Quinlan, despite being ordered to protect her. She stands for everything he once rebelled against and seems more interested in partying than solving the murder, no matter how close to home it might hit. But Hunt soon realizes there’s far more to Bryce than meets the eye—and that he’s going to have to find a way to work with her if they want to solve this case.

As Bryce and Hunt race to untangle the mystery, they have no way of knowing the threads they tug ripple through the underbelly of the city, across warring continents, and down to the darkest levels of Hel, where things that have been sleeping for millennia are beginning to stir…

Blurb from Goodreads

Published: March 2020

Published Edition: March 2021

Publishers: Bloomsbury

Pages: 803

Genre: Urban Fantasy, New Adult, Romance

Goodreads Star Rating:🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Thoughts

This has taken me two years to finally pick this book up and not only that, the second book is set to release tomorrow! I was very intimidated to pick this book up thinking that I might not like this series but as I had reached to the end of part 1, I knew almost immediatly that I would come to love this book so much. I am still mad that it has taken me this long to read it.

I found myself growing interested after every moment while reading this book. I really liked Bryce, she plays the party girl but has changed after losing Danika and she chose to change her life but to continue to deal with the pain herself. When she is asked to assist the investigation, not only did it bring a lot of bad memories, but through the investigation, she had to keep fighting off eveyone while learning the last moments of her best friend. But she had the best company of Hunt Athalar, an Fallen Angel but also a slave, their relationship doesn’t go off the right way at the beginning but once the curtain keeps dropping they learn more about each other but also have a burning desire to rip their clothes off each other, a lot of teasing throughout the book which I didn’t mind.

I think one of the themes of this book is about grief and how people handle losing someone so important. It says in the blurb that Bryce lost not only her best friend but also a group of people that were attatched to her life for so long and to see the devastation of how she found them was very heartbreaking. Bryce’s determination to keep the last remaining mark left from that night on her body even though it was killing her, I really liked the scene of her telling Hunt, that if she does get it healed it would mean what happened would be forgotten and it was all a dream. I really liked how it didn’t shy away from the grief that Bryce went through, even thought she felt that she went through it alone when everyone around her had moved on.

That’s the point of it, Bryce. Of life. To live, to love, knowing that it might all vanish tomorrow. It makes everything that much more precious.

While the world buidling was a lot since it is the first book in the series, but I really like how it was explored with the use of a criminal investigation to learn the different areas around Crescent City. I am even more excited to explore the world more in book two. I am a sucker for criminal investigation and I really loved the buddy cop relationship of Bryce and Hunt, it reminded me so much of Castle and Rizzoli and Isles.

Picking up a Sarah J. Maas is like having a nice warm bowl of soup on a rainy day. You have a female lead who takles with her personal problems internally, attrached to a man who is so supportive but also has his own internal problems but not only that harness the most strongest and powerfulest power that people have seen in thousands of years. Bryce is very much like her other sister leads in the world of Maas yet still manages to be a character that has such a personality unlike Feyre and Aelin. I am very much looking forward to what it set to happen with Bryce, I hope she becomes fearless and strong willed.

I started to overthink while reading this book and I had a weird conclusion that Hunt is like Howl and Bryce is Sophie from Howls Moving Castle, many similarities whether it is the book or movie. Hunt and Bryce have both experienced so much trauma in their life whether it was following and believeing in a leader, a father who expressed little interest in his child, hope and happiness being stripped away and also having to build up from the pain that no one else cares your experiencing.

I am still emotional now, I am going lie down and hide under the covers.

I hope you have a great week, if your excited for House of Sky and Breath like me, what are your predictions and expectations?

Happy Reading xx