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Title: House of Earth and Blood

Book series: Crescent City, Book #1

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Genre: Urban fantasy; Romantasy

Number of pages: 803 pages in my paperback edition

What the book is about: Bryce Quinlan is one of the party girls in Crescent City, along with her best friend Danika Fendyr. When Danika is murdered, though, she stops caring about a lot of things. Two years later, the murders start up again, and Bryce is asked to investigate them, in the company of Fallen Angel Hunt Athalar, the Umbra Mortis, a.k.a. the Shadow of Death. And what began as a simple partnership turns into more…

My review

(You can also find it on Goodreads following this link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3066082301)

My rating: 5 stars (and more)! It’s definitely one of my favorite books of SJM so far, and definitely the best first book in any of her series for me.

Read this if you like:

• urban fantasy
• modern world filled with magic and creatures
• forced proximity
• banter
• the last 100 (200, here) page curse: when everything goes to hell and you love it.

Proceed with caution, because the rest of the review will contain spoilers (and also some colorful language… I don’t know how that happened, must be the book influencing me!).

This book is very long and contains one of the most complicated world systems of SJM’s for me. And I made the mistake of DNF’ing it because of that a few years ago. But you should keep reading. At all costs. Because you’ll find out that there’s a lot of different place names / character names / species names, etc., that maybe the magic system, where it comes from, etc., is a little bit complicated, but in the end it doesn’t really matter. I just kept reading and it finally fell into place for me (I think? and even if it hasn’t completely, I don’t really care right about now).

Let’s start with the characters.

BRYCE QUINLAN is one of my favorite FMCs ever. She’s sarcastic as hell, she’s a badass bitch, she’s also very caring and strong, and I just love her. And there is a big plot twist regarding her that I wasn’t expecting and haven’t fully understood yet?

HUNT ATHALAR. Oh boy did he make me feel things. I honestly wasn’t sure how to feel about him the first time we met him, and even in the next few chapters, but I love him now. He’s been through a lot and hasn’t let it break him. And he’s just so in love with Bryce and it’s so clear and I was so scared for him so many times throughout this book, and he even made me go WHAAAAAT THE FUCK once (yes, the boat), but I don’t really care. He’s just fantastic. And I went FERAL when Hypaxia finally freed him and HE went feral on Sandriel. Hunt deserved to be freed and no one can change my mind about that.

DANIKA FENDYR. I love her with my whole heart. She’s, like her best friend Bryce, a badass bitch, she doesn’t take shit from anyone, she’s also incredibly smart, me thinks. And her very untimely end made me kinda cry. But it’s what comes after that really broke me. Finding out just how she died was unbearably painful.

RUHN DANAAN. I love him and I wish we’d seen more of him. I was very glad of his evolution at the end, when in my mind he started standing up to his father a little more. And I think he’s a great brother to Bryce: their relationship was amazing (but more on that later).

I love all the women in this (except some obvious ones like Sabine and Sandriel because I hate them, but I think you’re supposed to dislike them). They’re all strong women in their own way and I love strong women. But I think LEHABAH deserves a special mention because I sobbed when THAT happened:

My friends are with me and I am not afraid.

and

Then let the world know that my first act of freedom was to help my friends.

What do you mean the parallel with SAM??! How was I expected not to have my heart broken??

The villains were amazing, especially because I didn’t expect MICAH to turn out to be that much of an asshole. I knew something was up from the beginning, but him killing Danika and the Pack of Devils, who deserved SO MUCH BETTER?? Him being responsible for Lehabah’s death?? Him being basically responsible for all the string of murders, for Hunt being sold again to Sandriel? Let me just say I was SAT when the vacuum scene happened.

I think there are some other villains / “villains” that I can’t wait to see more of, like the Autumn King because somewhere deep down I want him to not be that bad, like Sandriel’s triarii because CONSEQUENCES…

Now on to the relationships:

BRYCE QUINLAN & HUNT ATHALAR deserve the world. They are sweet together, yes (and SO DOMESTIC!!!), but even when they weren’t together, their understanding of each other, their chemistry and their banter was pure gold. One small gripe I had with the book is that they went from being friends to being more than that so fast that I don’t actually remember when or how it happened.

BRYCE QUINLAN & DANIKA FENDYR are one of my favorite friendships ever. The way they’d do anything for each other. The way they love each other so deeply that Bryce sacrificed her place in the Bone Quarter for Danika, just in case, and that Danika sacrificed what was left of her to help Bryce?? I was crying and sobbing and smiling too, because that much love… One particular scene made me shiver:

LIGHT IT UP!

And I wish we had seen more of the Pack of Devils too because I would have liked to be able to get attached to all of them.

BRYCE QUINLAN & RUHN DANAAN are one of my favorite relationships in the book. Complicated, yes, but also so loving, and the way Ruhn would do anything for Bryce had me bawling my eyes out when I thought she’d never forgive him after him taking ownership of her just to save her life!! Their reunion at the end of the book made me smile so bad!

BRYCE QUINLAN & LEHABAH & SYRINX. The trio that I’ll love to hell and back. Their friendship was so sweet, even if it went through some hardships, and the book wouldn’t have been the same without Syrinx AND Lehabah.

Also, the found family trope in general was amazing!

The plot was amazing. I loved that this was built around a murder mystery. Murder mystery + fantasy = hell yes! And this was also the first urban fantasy I read. I had my doubts because angels, vampires, werewolves in books are usually not my thing. My doubts had no place being there in the end though.

This was clearly an adult book, both due to the themes and the language used (plus, the few smut scenes). The story kept me hooked. Most of the plot twists had me gasping, some of them had me smiling or crying, and it was the best I could ask for.

On the language used: I don’t think the swearing and cursing (very, very present in the book) was bad. Maybe used a little bit too much, but I do swear often as well, so who cares? Not me.

And the 100 (200!) last page curse in SJM books was so there (you know, when everything goes to hell at the end of every one of her books?)!! I was sobbing, gasping, non stop for all that time! And I loved every second of it.