Review: We Are Blood and Thunder

We Are Blood and Thunder 
Rating: 2/5
Buy or Borrow: Borrow
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review! 

In a sealed-off city, it begins with a hunt. A young woman, Lena, running for her life, convicted of being a mage and sentenced to death. Her only way to survive is to trust those she has been brought up to fear - those with magic.

On the other side of the locked gates is a masked lady, Constance, determined to find a way back in. She knows only too well how the people of Duke's Forest loathe magic. Years ago she escaped before her powers were discovered. But now she won't hide who she is any longer.

A powerful and terrifying storm cloud unites them. It descends over the dukedom and devastates much in its wake. But this is more than a thunderstorm. This is a spell, and the truth behind why it has been cast is more sinister than anyone can imagine ... Only Lena and Constance hold the key to destroying the spell. Though neither of them realise it, they need each other. They are the blood and they have the thunder within. 

Hey, it's me, ya girl...back with another unpopular opinion. Literally everyone I see talking about this loved it so much, and I was expecting to love it. The synopsis sounded on point, I was so excited to start it and I eagerly dived in...but I was left feeling quite underwhelmed and I kind of wished I'd DNF'd it a couple of chapters in instead of persevering with it to the bitter end. One of my main issues was that I really didn't like Lena, one of our main characters and who's supposed to be, you know...the hero. Awkwaaaaard. 

The opening was nice and foreboding and as Lena pocketed the insect I was plagued with the thought "what could possibly go wrong", turns out a lot. We have a nice shoot forward in time after a double dose of foreboding and we're met with the breathless tension of the opening chapter. Unfortunately after that it started to drag horrendously and it was a struggle to get through it. I only managed it because of Constance's chapters, and I resorted to skim reading Lena's. When it didn't drag...it was rushed. Every time I thought something interesting was finally going to happen....it didn't and some of the plot twists just flopped and left me sitting there like "....and?". 

The opening page was an extract from a book that gave us a sense of foreboding to start with, but also kicked off the world building. We see what's coming and get an overview of what the people are dealing with, what the storm cloud does, the history of it and how it appeared and progressed and basically how things stand ready for when we shoot forward to the present. The prologue also started to build Lena's corner of the world for us, unfortunately that's all I really have to say about it. 

The magic system was interesting in the way that it was described as being the supernatural effect of chaos upon order. Order being the natural state of the physical world. A mage holds chaotic forces inside their body and...it really sounded quite familiar thanks to the Invisible Library series that focuses a lot on Chaos and Order, obviously it's not the same but it did have me in mind of that but not explained as well because it took me a while to get my head around it, the explanation was overly long winded, I thought. I was side eyeing it because of that, but the science or whatever you want to call it were intriguing and we've got magic, gods and goddesses along with magic mechanical devices. However, the magic system is being touted as original and I don't agree. It's an overly complicated version of the regular point and shoot magic to be honest. 

The writing did paint a vivid and atmospheric picture of the storm cloud and life under it, with the descriptions and the way the words were woven. Initially I even found it quite cinematic too and I was right there with the characters, but that all died off when the book started to drag to be honest. This is described as being like Leigh Bardugo and Laini Taylor....no. I'm sorry but I don't see how anything from this book, writing, world building, magic, is in any way on par with Leigh Bardugo and Laini Taylor's writing. I don't see the comparison at all, and I actually feel it's a bit of a reach to be honest. 

When it comes to the characters we have Lena, a Cryptling who's shunned by the outside world because of the mark on her face hence...Cryptling. Her POV gives us mage training which should have been exciting yet wasn't. Constance is our other POV, she's a mage and the daughter of the Duke. She gives us the inside of the town and the power struggle with the Justice, along with the tension that she'll be found out. Xander is Constance's BFF from before she left and the Swordsmaster so I was expecting a badass but I was just underwhelmed by him. Emris has an interesting job but the plot twist with him wasn't all that shocking, I wasn't that impressed and the only memorable thing about him was that he was our source on mages and how the magic works. The Justice...I was stoked for the power struggle with him, and I loathed him from the start but again...he ended up disappointing me and leaving me underwhelmed and was kind of...stereotypical. 

That's all I've got for the positives, now I'd like to talk about the negatives I had with this book in a little bit of depth. First of all, I was confused as to why one of the conditions the people had when they give Constance 2 days to sort out the cloud was that they be allowed to march on the castle...why? For what purpose? To achieve what? Just for the sake of it and to take over as if they can do any better? That entire scene just fell a bit flat for me and I didn't see the point of it at all other than to build up to a nice big battle scene that wouldn't have happened otherwise. 

I have to say straight up that I found Constance's POV way more interesting than Lena's and I liked Constance a lot more, I didn't really connect with Lena like I did with Constance and I swiftly lost interest in her. Alongside that...Emris irritated me quite a bit too. I found Lena to be quite bland, she's fled to become the thing she hates...but considering she didn't have all that much vehemence for magic it was just like she kept saying she hated magic and mages for the sake of it and she embraced it all pretty quickly. It was interesting with Emris hinting at what Constance did and was basically chatting s*** about her, casting a different light on her, while Constance didn't have the best things to say about the Temples or at least the city. 

The thing is, and this is entirely my opinion and granted I did stop paying 100% full attention to Lena's POV's because I didn't like her and she bored me but I feel like Constance did all the work for this book. She dealt with the Lord Justice, she was looking for the heart of the spell and solutions and trying to placate the people while Lena ran off to learn magic and basically did nothing but practice her magic for a couple of days and not listen to what Emris said. Her connection to the storm cloud wasn't even a surprise because I found it more and more glaringly obvious the more I read. I don't even care that Constance had that twist to her, which by the way....hinted at from the start as she clearly had a darker side and it was hammered home with the scene straight out of Merlin when she makes that crown grab, but like I said, I connected with her more and Lena bored me so I was disappointed by the ending and underwhelmed. 

It irked me that Constance was doing all the work towards sorting it, took all the risk and the danger on, and then Emris and Lena swoop in at the last minute, after Emris is finally willing to listen to Constance, to save the day after messing about doing some Yoda training stuff. You lost me. Emris irked me because he was willing to listen to Lena no matter what, but refused to listen to what Constance had to say, why? To draw out some tension and danger? "I've spoken to her at last and I finally understand" he says, as if Constance didn't try to speak to him before but he refused to listen, I cannot even with him and his holier than thou attitude. I put up with like 400 pages of this BS. He'd had a relationship with constance but I guess there's nothing stronger than the power of insta-love, which is another thing this book has by the way. Not a fan of it. I just loved how Emris was against Constance for some of the same things Lena did but when Lena did it, it was okay. Assumedly because there needed to be a love interest for Lena and insta love overcomes all. 

This went from a five star book to a three start book pretty quickly, and as I wrote this review I actually lowered it down to a two. It initially started out well, but I fast lost interest as the story dragged. The only thing keeping me reading were Constance's POVs. I couldn't stand Lena, she was useless for the majority of the book, she only does something useful at the end. Right at the end. The most unbelievable part of this book is the belief that Lena could actually control the storm cloud. 

I'm just so disappointed because this sounded like it was going to be a great read and it was just so underwhelming and disappointing with plot twists falling flat, the pace never picking up and having to slog through it. Then there was the insta love and the characters that were bland or forgettable and the only one I enjoyed was Constance because of her darker side. I freely admit I could have lost something from the reading experience because I resorted to skim reading Lena's parts to get through them, but they were just so....boring. 

***** SPOILER ALERT I JUST NEED TO RANT REAL QUICK*****

Lena herself was reluctant to return because she wouldn't be special anymore. Reaaallly? Constance is immediately touted as being evil by everyone at the end but she was a kid who was grieving and was treated like crap, and she wanted to take control of the situation but nope, she's evil. No-one seemed to care about that. Lena straight up killed people but no-one said a word. She deadass murdered someone in front of Emris, her second kill by the way, in self defence using her strange magic and Emris is all "OMG we have to run they'll kill you" but when it was Constance he caught looking at strange magic and when she stole something from Chatham he turned on her and started to hate her and I found that so ridiculous. Not to mention that Lena used the "horrible" necromancy power Emris was so against to bring him back to life which again...when it's Lena doing it, it's all chill apparently. I decided at that point that his character was either complete bollocks or the author just needed a love interest for Lena so it didn't matter. 

I just can't believe Constance is the villain but Lena is the hero? I don't think so. Lena criticised Constance for "not caring about her people" when Lena herself was trotting along, taking her time when they needed to hurry and clean up the damn spell. She was literally told just before that they don't have much time and she's faffing about taking her sweet time and then she tried to back out? Seriously? I'm supposed to like her when she's literally done nothing all book, nothing heroic and then she's all "my enemy, my sister" about Constance. Uuuhhh no. You barely knew her for two seconds.