Race Wars and Royal Sisters + Extreme Guilt For Being Murderous!
The Buzz
I was on the lookout for African based fantasy YA so I was totally interested in A River of Royal Blood when I saw the cover. And while the cover doesn't slay me it's strength lies in giving us a sense right away of what this book is going to be about. Obviously magic and sisters! If we're using characters on the cover though the art should be true to those characters and not have wrong details.
A River of Royal Blood is not a title I love, its rather obscure, but it does come directly from the text... which I do like!
The Premise
A River of Royal Blood is about a nation ruled by a Queendom. Every generation the next queen is chosen through combat... with her sister. Eva is the underdog in this fight as she was born with magick of marrow and blood. This magick hasn't been seen since the first queen brutally toppled the original khimaer royalty. And I have to say the magic and the different races were the best part of the story!
From the premise and even the excerpt I read I didn't get the sense that this would centered on an internal struggle Eva deals with not wanting to kill. You're raised with the idea that you HAVE TO kill your sister to survive... so you accept that. It was really quite distracting how Eva kept going back to the past and reminiscing on tiny interactions with her sister. She only lived with her sister when very young so I just didn't get where the extreme bond came from. It was very thin for me. So when Eva kept beating her chest about killing her sister I just didn't buy it.
I did adore the different races! I've always loved the fae and we also got the khimaer, humans with animal traits like horns, sharp teeth and claws, etc. Top this with the very regular humans and we have a recipe for racial tensions! And the different races and their specialties were used really well! In fact I totally fell for many of the secondary and minor characters who embodied these races. And I liked where the story took these tensions in regards to the plot.
However I felt like we were on a mouse wheel the entire middle of A River of Royal Blood. Things happened okay. Like we met the characters that I came to adore. But I just felt like we didn't get anywhere. It felt like endless setup and then BOOM! We have a battle and it's over. The pacing just didn't work for me. I ended up feeling way more bored than I should have.
My Experience
After reading the excerpt I was really excited to read A River of Royal Blood. I was so jazzed about the different races, the magic and the African fantasy setting. There seemed to be a rich back history to the Queendom and to Eva's life.
And the end has some explosive reveals. I wasn't a fan of the sister's battle but we end at a neat part. I would actually read the next book to see where the races and the characters I love go with it all. I didn't truly get the gravity of the racial tensions while the story was setting up, which is really neat. There is a lot to like. There is a lot of potential.
But I wanted more and better interactions between Eva and her sister. IN. THE. PRESENT. I wanted LESS running around doing nothing. And I needed a character whose motivations were supported by all the back history we went over.
A River of Royal Blood has a fascinating world with three great races that I was dying to learn more about... and I got to explore them with some fabulous secondary characters. We get a true blue teenage protagonist and while I found her boring, I did find her situation heartbreaking.
I was on the lookout for African based fantasy YA so I was totally interested in A River of Royal Blood when I saw the cover. And while the cover doesn't slay me it's strength lies in giving us a sense right away of what this book is going to be about. Obviously magic and sisters! If we're using characters on the cover though the art should be true to those characters and not have wrong details.
A River of Royal Blood is not a title I love, its rather obscure, but it does come directly from the text... which I do like!
The Premise
A River of Royal Blood is about a nation ruled by a Queendom. Every generation the next queen is chosen through combat... with her sister. Eva is the underdog in this fight as she was born with magick of marrow and blood. This magick hasn't been seen since the first queen brutally toppled the original khimaer royalty. And I have to say the magic and the different races were the best part of the story!
From the premise and even the excerpt I read I didn't get the sense that this would centered on an internal struggle Eva deals with not wanting to kill. You're raised with the idea that you HAVE TO kill your sister to survive... so you accept that. It was really quite distracting how Eva kept going back to the past and reminiscing on tiny interactions with her sister. She only lived with her sister when very young so I just didn't get where the extreme bond came from. It was very thin for me. So when Eva kept beating her chest about killing her sister I just didn't buy it.
I did adore the different races! I've always loved the fae and we also got the khimaer, humans with animal traits like horns, sharp teeth and claws, etc. Top this with the very regular humans and we have a recipe for racial tensions! And the different races and their specialties were used really well! In fact I totally fell for many of the secondary and minor characters who embodied these races. And I liked where the story took these tensions in regards to the plot.
However I felt like we were on a mouse wheel the entire middle of A River of Royal Blood. Things happened okay. Like we met the characters that I came to adore. But I just felt like we didn't get anywhere. It felt like endless setup and then BOOM! We have a battle and it's over. The pacing just didn't work for me. I ended up feeling way more bored than I should have.
My Experience
After reading the excerpt I was really excited to read A River of Royal Blood. I was so jazzed about the different races, the magic and the African fantasy setting. There seemed to be a rich back history to the Queendom and to Eva's life.
And the end has some explosive reveals. I wasn't a fan of the sister's battle but we end at a neat part. I would actually read the next book to see where the races and the characters I love go with it all. I didn't truly get the gravity of the racial tensions while the story was setting up, which is really neat. There is a lot to like. There is a lot of potential.
But I wanted more and better interactions between Eva and her sister. IN. THE. PRESENT. I wanted LESS running around doing nothing. And I needed a character whose motivations were supported by all the back history we went over.
A River of Royal Blood has a fascinating world with three great races that I was dying to learn more about... and I got to explore them with some fabulous secondary characters. We get a true blue teenage protagonist and while I found her boring, I did find her situation heartbreaking.