House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J Maas – Thoughts

Through love, All is possible….

– Crescent City #1, Sarah J Maas

This is my first book by author Sarah J Maas and I am floored. It didn’t matter that it was an 800 page behemoth of a book, the longest book Ive read so far. Because the story just flew through. I felt like I was watching a fantasy show on Netflix! 🙂

Trigger warnings: Death, abuse, gore, drugs, addiction

In this adult fantasy story, the first one from the Crescent City series, we follow our two main protagonists – Bryce Quinlan – half human half fae and Hunt Athalar – angel turned slave, team up to solve a gruesome murder case. Add in a missing relic, shape shifters, werewolves, Prince, a witch Princess, a 400 year old witch, many other angels in the backdrop of a brewing civil war between the humans and the beings with power, this book was one hell of a rollercoaster ride.

It took me a while to get a hang of all the different creatures in the story. I actually had to draw out the characters, the seven heads, and all the bits and pieces of information that is provided in the beginning of the book, to get it all straight in my head. But once you get a hang of it, the rest of the story quickly falls into place.

There were some difficult parts for me in the story though. One of them is mentioned in the trigger warning too and I can’t talk about it in the review post, without giving away spoilers. But those scenes made me tear up many times in the book. I read at night these days, before going to bed, and there were a few nights when I cried thinking about how much I missed my dad too. At least, it helped me remember him even more 🙂

The ensemble cast was well written. Everyone gets a reasonable amount of story space to show their history and a bit of their personality. However, Bryce’s character stands out the most. I was impressed with how SJM brings to light the way we treat and judge women on the basis of their clothes or their lifestyle, without even getting to know them. High time we stop doing that, isn’t it? 🙂 Girls like to have fun just like everyone else – what’s wrong with that?

I was dreading that this will be one of those books with a cliffhanger, because most series have that. But I’m happy to say that its not, so if you don’t like books ending in cliffhangers, this one is definitely for you! There will be more books in the series and I’m wondering if the next stories will continue Bryce and Hunt’s journey or will each book feature different protagonists in the lead. I’d like it to be the latter since I want to read more about some of the supporting cast in the story too 🙂 Also, wasn’t Syrinx the cutest!! And Lehabah..respect. That one particular scene reminded me of Rue’s scene from The Hunger Games – goosebumps.

Bookish Conversations 🙂

Have you read this book yet? I’d love to read your thoughts as well..so please leave behind a link of your review in the comments section if you feel like it 🙂

What do you think the next books in the series will contain? More of Bryce and Hunt or more of some other characters – like Ruhn and Hypaxia or Fury and Juniper?

Have you read any other books from Sarah J Maas? Are they equally fast paced and filled with action? Which one would you recommend to read? 🙂