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A review by hzmt
The House of Dragon Blood by B.C. FaJohn
adventurous
dark
funny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
I received an ARC of this from the author, and I'm so glad I got the privilege to read this.
In short, this series is a total must read if you love high fantasy, romantasy, ACOTAR, The Cruel Prince, Serpent and Dove, and Fourth Wing.
Now, this is the first book in a series so this book is quite slow-paced. There's a lot of world building and ideas that we're introduced to here to set us up for the next books, so it took a little while to get through.
The dialogue is funny and I couldn't get enough of the laugh out loud moments I had with the characters. Fajohn manages to pull off sarcasm extremely well and hilariously in lines like "Oh, I'm the king's mercenary. Look at me do things with my sword." Just being ridiculous and funny juxtaposed with the serious plot building alongside it. Our characters are jaded and unhappy with the states of their lives, but still find ways to be funny.
Cateline and Varin are both deeply flawed themselves with Varin having a lot of sexist notes and Cateline having a xenophobic upbringing that you see impacts her under pressure. But both are good of heart and seem to be stripping away at these biases with experience as the story goes on, making them loveable despite their flawed prejudices (that I'm sure they will continue to grow from).
The world that they live it is also vastly unexplored still to our reader's eyes with little explanation at this point on the magic system, with us only knowing about as much as Cateline does about magic despite the 3rd person limited perspective also following Varin about as equally as it follows Varin, but I have high hopes that we will learn more with Cateline throughout the series.
In short, this series is a total must read if you love high fantasy, romantasy, ACOTAR, The Cruel Prince, Serpent and Dove, and Fourth Wing.
Now, this is the first book in a series so this book is quite slow-paced. There's a lot of world building and ideas that we're introduced to here to set us up for the next books, so it took a little while to get through.
The dialogue is funny and I couldn't get enough of the laugh out loud moments I had with the characters. Fajohn manages to pull off sarcasm extremely well and hilariously in lines like "Oh, I'm the king's mercenary. Look at me do things with my sword." Just being ridiculous and funny juxtaposed with the serious plot building alongside it. Our characters are jaded and unhappy with the states of their lives, but still find ways to be funny.
Cateline and Varin are both deeply flawed themselves with Varin having a lot of sexist notes and Cateline having a xenophobic upbringing that you see impacts her under pressure. But both are good of heart and seem to be stripping away at these biases with experience as the story goes on, making them loveable despite their flawed prejudices (that I'm sure they will continue to grow from).
The world that they live it is also vastly unexplored still to our reader's eyes with little explanation at this point on the magic system, with us only knowing about as much as Cateline does about magic despite the 3rd person limited perspective also following Varin about as equally as it follows Varin, but I have high hopes that we will learn more with Cateline throughout the series.