Lauren Gantt ‘21
Staff Writer
Amazon
House of Earth and Blood is bestselling author Sarah J. Maas’s newest release and the first book in her newest adult fantasy series titled Crescent City. While Maas has mainly written young adult books up until now, fans of her younger-leaning series will be sure to enjoy this newest book.
Maas is my favorite author and House of Earth and Blood (HoEaB) was my most anticipated release of this year. I have to say that I had high expectations going in and, while the book was a lot different than what I thought it would be, it was amazing!
HoEaB is set in a modern high fantasy world and follows a half-fae named Bryce Quinlan and a notorious Fallen angel known as Hunt Athalar. After a vicious murder killed Bryce’s closest friends almost two years prior, the crimes start up again. As Bryce and Hunt team up to find the murderer, each with their own secondary agenda, “they discover a dark power that threatens everything and everyone they hold dear.”
The world itself is fascinating. It’s a modern fantasy world with technology mixed in with magic, traditions, and non-human beings. It reads very much like an urban fantasy, which I enjoyed since I don’t really read much urban fantasy. I’m excited to see the magic system explored in more depth in the upcoming books.
The plot itself was addicting. I did get spoiled for the outcome of one of the biggest questions of the book, so that was a bit disappointing, but I enjoyed everything else and there were plenty of smaller plot lines that I was thrilled to read about. The plot twists were very much up to par with what I expect from a Maas book. What really drove this story for me, however, (like all of the other Maas books) was the characters.
We follow a pretty solid cast of characters and I think that’s my favorite thing about all of Maas’s books–the ability to write solid characters and meaningful friendships. In this book, the importance of friendship is very much emphasized from page one. Maas also writes amazing character arcs and, even though this is only book one, it was wonderful to see how the main characters have each grown throughout the course of the novel. The side characters were also very well developed and I connected to them easily which makes me even more excited to see them in future novels.
I am very interested to see where book two goes. This one wrapped up well and there wasn’t a big cliffhanger, but there were a lot of open plot lines and unanswered questions. I think there’s so many ways that Maas could take this series and I’m not quite sure where the next ones are going to go. Either way, I’m excited to explore more with these characters and what happens to them next!
