The Blood Gift (The Blood Gift Duology Book 2)

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Ikenna has a magical gift bestowed upon her from the gods of their enemies, that she must hide while also using it to keep herself alive as her mixed heritage makes her a target.

Davenport’s ambitious debut is gritty and bloody, and balances emotional arcs with fast action. Fans of Pierce Brown’s Red Risingand Evan Winter’s The Rage of Dragonswill find similarities in Ikenna’s journey.”— Library Journal on The Blood Trials Bent on revenge as much as discovering the truth, Ikenna pledges herself to the Praetorian Trials–a brutal initiation that only a quarter of the aspirants survive. She subjects herself to the racism directed against her half-Khanaian heritage and the misogyny of a society that cherishes progeny over prodigy, all while hiding a power that–if found out–would subject her to execution…or worse. Ikenna is willing to risk it all because she needs to find out who murdered her grandfather…and then she needs to kill them. Mareen has been at peace for a long time… Ikenna joining the Praetorians is about to change all that. The Blood Trialsis a fresh, intense gut punch of a book that has everything I love most in sci-fi and fantasy. I rooted for Ikenna, the trials gripped me, and the political mystery at the heart of it all kept me constantly on my toes.”— Susan Dennard, New York Timesbestselling author of the Witchlands series I wish Davenport had trusted her readers more with being able to identify themes, motivations, schemes without having to explain them in vivid detail(and often repetitively). There was a large amount of info dumping and narrative hand holding in this book, which may be a good thing for younger readers but I was under the guise this is an adult fantasy. Normally I can overlook some info dumping but the way it was done was either through Ikenna’s internal dialogue or awkwardly long conversations where things are overly explained. Frequently these conversations or internal dialogues are happening in the middle of an important event which I found unnatural. I wish The Blood Trials would have done more showing and less telling and trusted us as readers to infer the rest.

Despite the first person POV, the wonky pacing (like, two books worth of plot is crammed in here), some iffy worldbuilding choices, and the use of idioms and slang that make no sense in the context of the world the author has built, I really enjoyed reading this. I am excited to see what else this series has coming, if all the wild shit that was pulled in this one was just the beginning. This was very fast paced. And having recently DNF'd two fantasies that were slow moving and threatening to put me into a reading slump that was much appreciated. There was truly never a dull moment because something was always happening. It's their last night out before they set out for military academy and Ikenna is on edge over the recent loss of her grandfather. After learning his death was no accident she decides to head to the academy and avenge his death by finding out who his killers are. At this military academy thousands are competing for a spot on the special ops team in a fight to the death. I did enjoy my time with The Blood Gift, and fans of The Blood Trials will likely enjoy it too. I just wish that the book was a bit longer or was split into two books to give Davenport the time to really flesh out the characters and plot a bit more. Speaking of Reed, I really liked the development of his character and thought his dynamics with Ikenna were tension-filled and thoroughly enjoyable, I can’t wait to see how things develop in the sequel.

Easy to read and comprehend, this book is a great transition read for readers interested in reading more adult SFF that still has a young feel to it. I thought the world was interesting and I liked how it was expanding as we got closer to the end. There were several twists and turns I didn't see coming at first. On top of that, the pacing was top notch, delivering a rip-roaring action thriller that didn’t shy away from character moments, relationships and emotion. The fight choreography was tight, and there were some spectacular action set-pieces throughout the novel. As well, action was often seamlessly blended with conversations and relationship building in a way that I loved. This also played well into a side of Ikenna that I liked, which was the more calculating, observant side she inherited from her military leader grandfather. It balanced well with her outward aggressiveness. Since discovering the treachery of Mareen’s Tribunal Council and revealing her blood-gift to save her Praetorian squad, Ikenna has become a fugitive with a colossal bounty on her head.

The expanded magic system and brushes against the pantheon made the battles and conflicts much more epic. It was interesting to see that the gods were just as fallible as the humans in this story, which added more complexity to the overall story. The stakes in this story kept escalating from bad situations to worse ones almost continuously with rapid, satisfying action and we get a deep insight into the politics and history of the world. The political undertones of the book are deeply embedded in the story, and Ikenna's fury at the system and the numerous enemies in her path make her a character to root for. This is.… an amazing debut. I will be shouting from the rooftops about The Blood Trials for quite some time. Ikenna has my HEART and her science fiction world mixed with old magic has set my expectations for the genre that much higher. I like duologies, typically, because it seems to me the author knows they don't have enough for a trilogy, but still want to tell a compelling story. I hate to say it, but this probably should have been a trilogy. Book should have ended about 70-75% in, but it was easy to see we had more. So, oops, the big baddie she just killed... that's not the end. There's more. So lets do that. Oops... there's more. Now this is stupid. Like any number of shows/series where you spend half a season or more leading up to the big finale with ultimate evil only to realize there is someone else behind it and an even bigger evil. Then biggerier and eviler. It's too much. The copy of The Blood Trials I received for review was an un-edited ARC, which feels particularly worth emphasizing. The overall summary of my feelings about The Blood Trials can be distilled into the following -- the premise is super cool but the book itself felt like a work-in-progress. Plot-wise, this is a complete departure from book one, which makes sense considering where we left off. There's no mystery left. Ikenna and her team are hellbent on getting rid of the corruption within Mareen. Before they can do that, they need to take care of the Blood Emperor, who is once more terrorizing the planet. It's a very straightforward plot of "how are we going to defeat the bad guys", but it's fairly fast-paced and overall entertaining enough. And I mostly liked the characters. But a lot of this doesn't feel like it's the end of a series. This is reinforced by the end of the book, which basically implies there's a whole new story waiting to happen. Things are set up by the author that never get any payoff. For example, the book starts off with Ikenna trying to broker an alliance with someone on the wrong side of the law. She demands soldiers and weapons, only she doesn't really do much with either of them afterwards, or with the alliance in general. There's maybe one or two off-hand mentions, and that's it, which makes me wonder why the author bothered to include it at all. It also leans a lot more fantasy than science fiction compared to The Blood Trials.

The first has to do with Ikenna. Look, I get that she was always going to be special as our main character. She has the Blood Gift and all of that. But her level of special receives like three upgrades over the course of this book, and I guess it's not something I expect to see if we're talking about an adult fantasy. This much Chosen One-ness is something I see more often within YA, and it irked me. I also had trouble buying into her supposed development. One of my biggest issues with the first book was how little she thought things through, and how she kept deciding that people were murderers based on very flimsy "evidence". Only now I'm supposed to believe that she has become some sort of strategic mastermind.Ikenna is essentially always on the defensive, paranoid, and angry. Because of this, it is extremely unenjoyable to read from her perspective. I didn’t find her internal monologues interesting. In fact, I found a lot of the places her thoughts went downright stupid. She would essentially come up with an idea of who and why killed her grandpa and would be irrevocably convinced of this idea without any proof. Mind you, Ikenna is an adult (around 20 years old). She really just read like an angry petulant child most of the time.

Just like the first installment this book too overstayed its welcome. At least in my house. Again, it's a thing where I understand thematically while it was important, and maybe in an alternate universe there exists a third book in the series where that third act could have been explored more, because while as written there isn't enough material to be a whole book the ideas presented could definitely be explored more and then what feels like a let down of a second act finale could be expanded? I'm not sure. I found the world-building really frustrating. The world of Iludu sounds beyond intriguing. Some people have gifts that are legacies of special talents bestowed by the gods before the gods were banished. This is a world with a long history of war that it seemed like the reader was supposed to be familiar with but was never explained in a comprehensive way. The first portion of the book swung from huge passages filled with info-dumping to situations where explanation would’ve been helpful but was notably absent. The synopsis of The Blood Trials explains the situation in Mareen better than the book itself, which about sums up my frustration with how world-building is handled in the book. All the characters in this book were written really well, including the “evil” characters. Also, there’s just something about sexual tension in a book that is mainly advertised as fantasty and action. Let’s just say my ass thought this was YA at first. Please please let there be more of that in the next book.It irritates me so much that marketing + people's misconceptions of ~women writing fantasy must mean its young adult~ + the cover are causing people to either undervalue or misrepresent this book. It's a very violent, very adult, very messy piece of sci-fi that's pretty damn good. And the cards she has in her hand are older and steeped in the blood of the gods. It's not a fair fight, Ikenna won't even pretend—her arsenal is loaded for bigger beasts. Tonally this book had a different feel from book 1 which was more adult and gritty. This one felt more YA than book even though this is an adult fantasy. When I was hoping it would go further into embracing the adult fantasy space. It didn't help Ikenna is very childish in this one and people such as Ajani who is only a few years older than her constantly refer to her as a child. At times it got a little too over the top for me and the dialogue didn't really fit this very heavily structured environment they grew up in where the children were adultified at a young age. Ikenna's trials and tribulations: awesome. The ridiculously violent training that leads to hundreds of young people being murdered: awesome. Ridiculous, but awesome. The awful interlude where you have to sit through her watching cannibals roast and eat a fellow student: violent, disgusting, and a great indicator of where this book firmly sits. Amidst all of this, the Blood Emperor wages a full-scale invasion against Mareen and leaves a trail of death in his wake. As the horrors increase, Ikenna and her team realize they must end the Blood Emperor to end the war. But the price to do so is steep and has planet-shattering consequences.