Ashia Monet

A found family of teenage magicians embark on a road trip to save their friend's kidnapped family.

The Black Veins

Jamieson

"You were going to take your shirt off? Antonio teases. "Dude, at least take me to dinner first"
"Just thought I'd show you what was coming after the main course" Jay replies.
"Oh my Goooood, you're corrupting my sweet boy and turning him into you" Blythe whines.


The Black Veins is an inventive and exciting new release that has so many of the qualities I see people asking for in YA lit. I’ve been following Ashia on twitter for a long time and watching them write this story, post about the characters and the plot, and to finally see it all come together in THE BLACK VEINS has been really special. The culmination of all Ashia’s efforts into this book was even better than I could have ever dreamed, and I genuinely loved reading this urban fantasy, character-driven road trip book which was so much fun and filled with thoughtful, inclusive representation and loveable characters.

The Black Veins begins with Blythe Fulton, a sixteen-year-old girl who’s completely normal except for the fact she is a Guardian. The Guardian’s are some of the worlds most powerful magical users, elected by their parents as birth to be a user of one of the seven magic types – Ether, Mind, Body, Death, Nature, Animals and Time. When the Guardian’s lives are threatened by the Trident Republic, a rebel group challenging the government of The Black Veins and her parents are kidnapped from their family-owned coffee shop, Blythe sets out on a quest to unite the Guardians and rescue her parents.

The first thing that struck me about The Black Veins was the strong character focus. Monet weaves a tapestry of characters, who are all unique and interesting in their own rights. We follow seven main characters: ),

✧ Blythe – Our main character and the Guardian of Ether. She is black and bisexual. She is determined, friendly and warm, and the leader of the group.

✧ Cordelia – The second Guardian we meet, who is the Mind Guardian. She is Chinese-British. Cordelia likes nice things and can be a bit uppity, but she’s intelligent and loyal. 

✧ Daniel – Nature Guardian. He’s the youngest of the group, and pretty naive and innocent due to living a very sheltered life. 

✧ Antonio – Animal Guardian. Puerto Rican, queer, and the sunshine heart of the group. He has strong surfer boy energy and a gift for baking. 

✧ Storm – Time Guardian. She is Black, has a mysterious past and is easily the funniest member of the group. Her lines made me laugh out loud. 

✧ Caspian – Death Guardian. Trans, asexual, and literally a ghost. Adorable, loves Ramen, and not what anyone expects. 

✧ Jay – Body Guardian. Black and unstoppably bisexual. Charming, charismatic, the hot bitch and a hoe but proud of it. He was my FAVOURITE AND I WOULD DIE FOR HIM.

  


"My friends leave me on read"
"I'd never leave you on read, bro" Jay says
Antonio grasps his heart. "Bro."


One thing I loved about this cast was how distinctive and unique each character felt. I thought each character was extremely fleshed out, not just in terms of giving each character a strong motivation and a character arc, but also for smaller details, like their hobbies, personalities, likes and dislikes. This made every character feel real and relatable to me, and it was easy to invest in the squad. While having this many characters could have felt crowded, Monet perfectly balances each voice and character, to give each an important role without creating a story that felt clustered and confused. 

The group dynamics and banter was easily my favourite part of this book. I am a major sucker for a strong group dynamic and The Black Veins had it in SPADES. The jokes were genuinely laugh-out-loud funny, but there was also soft and tender moments between the characters that highlighted their genuine affection for eachother and I loved that. Also, no friendship and no romance – what a blessing! Monet has a great sense of timing and humour, dropping jokes that are genuinely funny in just the right places. And on top of that, each characters unique brand of humour just adds more to their characterisation.

 
   "when chaos is constant, it starts to feel like comfort"



The reason I gave this a four-star and not a five is that for me, I felt the beginning took a bit to get going. The scenes as Blythe is travelling before meeting all the Guardians dragged a little for me, and lacked the strong character focus and fun that the second half of the book had. That said, the second half of the book easily made up for the earlier chapters and I loved the rush, fun-filled run to the end that book carried me on.

 
   “The magic wakes at midnight. It arrives in the form of a song.”


All in all, The Black Veins is a highly enjoyable and well-crafted debut from an exciting new author. Ashia Monet has created something unique and beautiful with The Black Veins. High energy, fun, character-driven urban fantasy that values inclusion, friendship and family over all else. I promise if you read this you’ll find yourself in love with each and every one of these characters – and you’ll put down the book but won’t be able to stop thinking about them. I genuinely urge every single person who has told me they want more character-driven stories, more stories without romance, more fun in fantasy, and more group dynamics to pick up The Black Veins when it releases on July 17.

A big thankyou to Ashia for providing me with the ARC. These quotes are taken from the ARC and are subject to change on publication.

 If your into the found family trope and magic this book is for you. It’s fast paced and a relatively easy read. The author does a decent amount of character and world building despite the pacing.

Sydney Alston

Cels

This book has some of the best group dynamics and I'm gonna be thinking about them forever. No-love-interest, found family adventure is truly the best description of this book. I absolutely can't wait for the continuation of this series.

Sofia 

I would like to start this review (and give a shoutout) by saying I read this book because of Joel (https://www.goodreads.com/joelrochesterr, https://youtube.com/fictionalfates). I found his YouTube channel and in the first two days of watching his videos he recommended it so many times and speaks so highly of it that I had to check it out. So I did check it out on Goodreads (that I made just because he started mentioning it and I had heard it before) and soon ended up buying it.

Onto the actual book, I really like the storyline behind this one. The first few chapters were slightly confusing at first but that's just because the main elements of the book were still getting introduced. I loved seeing how Blythe felt and the disconnectedness her family had. The first introduction of magic was incredible and although it took me a while to fully make a visual in my head, when I did, it was great. The next few parts were Blythe was on her own started to disinterest me but it got picked up again when we met some more characters. I really liked seeing the characters interact and get to know each other better as we got each Guardian. I felt like these chapter were kind of just filler until we got all of them in one place though. After all the Guardians got together, the book started getting even better and better as it went on. The last few chapter were amazing to see even though I had already guessed what was going to happen but it was even more incredible seeing it written out. The last few pages of the book really got to me and reminded me to appreciate the people in my life more. These last few pages are also what really sold me on this book and made it give it a 5-star rating.

I really liked all of the characters but Blythe and Antonio have to be my favorites. Their relationship was written so well and they have so much of a sibling bond already. I really related to Antonio and how he felt when everything was going, he's definitely going to be a comfort character for me and part of the reason why I want to just reread this book already. I also really loved how Blythe handled Antonio opening up to her and she was so sweet about it.

Overall, this book was great and I have already recommended it to my friends. I'm so happy that I found Joel's YouTube because if not I wouldn't have read this incredible book. I'm even more eternally grateful to Ashia Monet for writing this book and giving me a new favorite.

The Black Veins

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