Exciting new read

A book that I’ve been really excited about came out last week. It’s by one of my favorite authors that I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Sarah J. Maas. It’s the first book to her new Crescent City series, called House of Fire and Blood. In the past, Maas has written books focusing mainly on fae. However, it seems she is turning away from strictly the fae and including other supernatural creatures she has not written about before. Based off of the book description and what I have read so far, this series will include angels, demons, werewolves, and many other supernatural creatures we are familiar with.

While Maas is one of my favorite YA authors (this book is apparently New Adult by the way), I hope she can pull this off. Angels, demons, and werewolves are very overdone, and I’ve read tons of books about these creatures. I’m hoping she has something somewhat new to bring to the table, although I do have bias towards her because I’ve loved her books in the past.

So far, I’m only 27 pages in out of 799. Maas’ books are usually crazy long, but I’m pretty excited. Everything is a bit confusing right now, as she definitely throws a lot of world building at you within the first two chapters. It seems this world is ordered by three tiers social hierarchy, at the bottom humans, then Vanir who are magical creatures like fae and werewolves, and then angels at the top, the Asteri, who rule the planet. The main conflict so far seems to be that there have been conflicts between humans and the Vanir, as the ringleader of the human rebellion is about to be released from prison after blowing up a popular nightclub. Our main character, Bryce, is half human, half fae, as her father is a fae and her mother is human. Her best friend, Danika, is a powerful wolf who is trying to prevent the human ringleader Philip Briggs from being released from prison.

What has struck me so far about this book is that there is a ton of technology and similarities to modern society. Usually in the fantasy books I read, and Maas’ previous novels, the story takes place in some distant universe outside of time without much of the technology we are familiar with. Yet, the characters in this book have used cellphones, email, and have even talked about smoking a ton of weed. This is different from Maas’ other novels, so I’m interested to see how she handles the crossover between the fantastical and more real-life elements such as this.

With school being moved online and my parents forcing me to come home next week (sigh) I will undoubtedly have time to read as I sit around my house in Connecticut. I will update my blog posts with my progress and hopefully a positive review!