Briar Boleyn

On Wings of Blood

I'M FREEE WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY FUCKING LIFE

Annabella

"Only the powerful may rule. Only the worthy may survive. ‘Sanguis et Flamma Floreant’ is our motto. Only blood and flame may flourish in these halls. From blood comes unity. From blood comes strength. From blood, legacy. From blood, power."

I'm going to be honest, this book wasn't for me at all and the only reason I pushed through was because this is a long overdue Netgalley read and I wanted to review it honestly. I have read the first book in Briar Boleyn's 

 series and I had mostly enjoyed that book, but ultimately found the writing too choppy, the pacing awkward, the side characters lacked depth, and the romance felt rushed and unconvincing. Which is exactly how I felt about this book too, but even worse this time around. I was hoping this book would be an improvement considering the other one appeared to be a debut but it wasn't, and I see that these books, five or six of them at least, have all been published within the last two and half years and that feels very fast to me. I think perhaps that has played into why this book feels messy, underdeveloped and underedited. I didn't know before going into it that it was a spin off from the 

 series either which confused me, I was worried it might give some spoilers away but now that I have read this one I have decided I won't be reading any more of Boleyn's books.

Mostly this book just felt very juvenile and far too busy. It was like Boleyn tried to cram all of her favourite romantasy tropes into one story and in some ways that could've worked but it just did not for me in this book. We were dropped into the story with very little context at the beginning and the plot progressed very quickly from Medra essentially being held captive because she'd been found not dead on a pile of dead bodies to her being betrothed to her captor and admitted to the vampire academy in the nearby city as a student, which didn't really seem like a realistic turn of events to me. It felt a bit like those Wattpad stories where a girl gets sold to or kidnapped by One Direction. There were some inklings of an interesting plot at the beginning though, with Medra trying to understand how her death in her own world of Aercanum had led to her new life in Sangratha, and with her trying to figure out how this was happening and possibly how to get away, but this quickly dissolved into an unbelievable plot with her somehow falling for her betrothed despite him being an asshole to her at all times and there being absolutely no chemistry between them except for some very shallow attraction and lust, her deciding to fall in line for the most part and just go along with their plans for her, and her playing high school petty rivalry with her co-consort. It just... really wasn't my cup of tea.

The premise sounded like it would be something I would enjoy and I saw a few people on Tiktok raving about it, so clearly this hits the marks for certain types of readers but not for my sadly. Check your trigger warnings if you're still thinking of giving this one a go because there is a quite a lot of alpha-male speak, bullying and dubious consent to it as well as the obvious Dark Fantasy usuals such as murder, violence and deadly competition, as well as a few romance scenes that made me feel a bit uncomfortable - not because of their content but because I couldn't understand 

 they were getting it on when there was barely any spark between them. The writing also wasn't up to standard for me, it really felt like it hadn't been edited very well, a few turns of phrases used slightly wrong, some mispellings and extremely overused words just made it feel clunky overall unfortunately. I sadly can't recommend this book, but thank you to Netgalley and Starwater Press for giving me the opportunity to read this.

Genevieve 

"Only the powerful may rule. Only the worthy may survive. ‘Sanguis et Flamma Floreant’ is our motto. Only blood and flame may flourish in these halls. From blood comes unity. From blood comes strength. From blood, legacy. From blood, power."

2.75⭐

I'm going to be honest, this book wasn't for me at all and the only reason I pushed through was because this is a long overdue Netgalley read and I wanted to review it honestly. I have read the first book in Briar Boleyn's Blood of a Fae series and I had mostly enjoyed that book, but ultimately found the writing too choppy, the pacing awkward, the side characters lacked depth, and the romance felt rushed and unconvincing. Which is exactly how I felt about this book too, but even worse this time around. I was hoping this book would be an improvement considering the other one appeared to be a debut but it wasn't, and I see that these books, five or six of them at least, have all been published within the last two and half years and that feels very fast to me. I think perhaps that has played into why this book feels messy, underdeveloped and underedited. I didn't know before going into it that it was a spin off from the Blood of a Fae series either which confused me, I was worried it might give some spoilers away but now that I have read this one I have decided I won't be reading any more of Boleyn's books.

Mostly this book just felt very juvenile and far too busy. It was like Boleyn tried to cram all of her favourite romantasy tropes into one story and in some ways that could've worked but it just did not for me in this book. We were dropped into the story with very little context at the beginning and the plot progressed very quickly from Medra essentially being held captive because she'd been found not dead on a pile of dead bodies to her being betrothed to her captor and admitted to the vampire academy in the nearby city as a student, which didn't really seem like a realistic turn of events to me. It felt a bit like those Wattpad stories where a girl gets sold to or kidnapped by One Direction. There were some inklings of an interesting plot at the beginning though, with Medra trying to understand how her death in her own world of Aercanum had led to her new life in Sangratha, and with her trying to figure out how this was happening and possibly how to get away, but this quickly dissolved into an unbelievable plot with her somehow falling for her betrothed despite him being an asshole to her at all times and there being absolutely no chemistry between them except for some very shallow attraction and lust, her deciding to fall in line for the most part and just go along with their plans for her, and her playing high school petty rivalry with her co-consort. It just... really wasn't my cup of tea.

The premise sounded like it would be something I would enjoy and I saw a few people on Tiktok raving about it, so clearly this hits the marks for certain types of readers but not for my sadly. Check your trigger warnings if you're still thinking of giving this one a go because there is a quite a lot of alpha-male speak, bullying and dubious consent to it as well as the obvious Dark Fantasy usuals such as murder, violence and deadly competition, as well as a few romance scenes that made me feel a bit uncomfortable - not because of their content but because I couldn't understand why they were getting it on when there was barely any spark between them. The writing also wasn't up to standard for me, it really felt like it hadn't been edited very well, a few turns of phrases used slightly wrong, some mispellings and extremely overused words just made it feel clunky overall unfortunately. I sadly can't recommend this book, but thank you to Netgalley and Starwater Press for giving me the opportunity to read this.

This took me awhile to get into because there is quite a bit of world building and just general background knowledge you need, but when I tell you by the end it will have you in a chokehold, just trust. Excited to read the rest of the series. 

Boring! Had so much potential, but was a literal struggle to the end. What happened in this book? Zero things. Character development? Not there sis. Cliffhanger? Nope. Spice? Lacklustre. The FMC & MMC were temu versions of just about any decent fantasy romance. 

Samantha Waterson

Boring! Had so much potential, but was a literal struggle to the end. What happened in this book? Zero things. Character development? Not there sis. Cliffhanger? Nope. Spice? Lacklustre. The FMC & MMC were temu versions of just about any decent fantasy romance. 

TikTok recommendations did me dirty. 

This was such a fun read! It did remind me a lot of fourth wing but I think I liked the elements of vampires, fae, magic and dragons way more. It was more interesting. 

The slow burn was slow burning (which I LOVED) 

And the ending!? I’m literally about to start reading the second book after I post this review 😌

Essence

This was such a fun read! It did remind me a lot of fourth wing but I think I liked the elements of vampires, fae, magic and dragons way more. It was more interesting. 
The slow burn was slow burning (which I LOVED) 
And the ending!? I’m literally about to start reading the second book after I post this review 😌