The Blood Gift

3.5 stars

I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I will burn the world down, I promise Reed and myself. I will annihilate the world for him, for us, for the team if it comes to that.

Picking up where The Blood Trials ended, this continues the story of Ikenna and her quest to avenge her grandfather while also fighting for her nation. This is a duology, you can't just dive in here as you'd miss how the chess game started. It's a scifi fantasy world with war, gods, magic, and power hungry individuals. Ikenna's grandfather was a Legatus for Mareen, she finds out that he was murdered by other tribunals and this sets her off on becoming a Praetorian (Mareen fighting elite) to get access to investigate who was behind the murder. In book one, enemies and friends were made and lost and it ended with Ikenna being made to, slash, deciding to go on her own, along with five other friends she made along the way. She knows who was behind her grandfather's murder, and for the most part, has gotten her revenge, but now it's about once again trying to put a stop to The Blood Emperor.

We're literal children of war, born and bred to fight. To do battle. So that's what we do, and we take the punches that come with it and keep going. Children of war don't have the freedom, or the luxury, to do anything else.

The first was very fast paced, this started off giving Ikenna and Reed, a Praetorian who trained her in the Blood Trials and her grandfather's protege, a breathing moment to explore and define their developing romance. I appreciated this pause to sit with the characters more and how Reed calms and centers Ikenna. Ikenna has a lot of rage from her grandfather's betrayal, the racist and sexist society of Mareen, and just general stress and conditioning that comes from a society at war. Her feeling and not swallowing her rage endured her to me and added some thrilling get it action but it also crosses over into frustration at her not stopping and thinking for a moment. I would have liked to have seen more growth from Ikenna here, it made her character seem childish as times, especially later in the story when Ajani comes in and you compare and contrast the characters.

As if in answer, my nausea ticks up as I wonder: What did the goddess do to me? What precisely did Amaka make me evolve into? What does becoming her Chosen and Blood Daughter entail?

The alluded to danger of the Blood Emperor from the first comes into play here, as he's actually gathered some allies and is attacking Mareen. Ikenna and her friends get taken by some Accacians (Blood Emperor's people) and brought to the Emperor's second in command, Ajani. This starts off another journey of plans to defeat the Emperor and who can't they trust and who can they, as Ajani comes to Ikenna with a plan to kill the Emperor. This whole plot was intriguing and had just enough of suspense to keep me on my toes as Ajani stays mysterious enough to wonder if Ikenna can trust him.

But what I can do as long as I've got breath left to breathe and blood in my body is what I've always done best: fight.

Ajani comes to Ikenna because he thinks she is the only one who can kill the Emperor, he's heard about the gold in her blood. Questions I had in the first about Ikenna's magic get answered here and the Gods fantasy part of the duology gets flushed out more. There's more explanation of how the Pantheon gods were chased out of Ikenna's world but how they can still bestow gifts on people, like Ikenna. We get to meet the God of War and Ikenna's patreon goddess and learn the gods have their own whole story going on in the background to Ikenna's world. This storyline was fascinating to me but, as you can tell, there was a lot going on in this book, probably too much. I do think some could have been cut out, like Ikenna traveling to a Queen to get an ally. I liked the Queen character and her story but that thread never really got utilized and in the end, only made the story feel cluttered as it took away from other more interesting or important threads.

I'm a warrior first and foremost. We all are. Always have been. Always will be. So let's warrior the fuck out.

The built up and looming danger of the Blood Emperor makes his appearance halfway through the book but by 70% Ikenna pretty much dealt with it and I ended up being a little disappointed by how it felt too here and gone (a little of The Night King from GOT feelings). The last thirty percent deals with and reveals if Ikenna's trust was misplaced in Ajani, the future of Mareen, and a new looming threat. Ikenna also had to take on another opponent and I thought this was rushed even more than the Blood Emperor.

We will do this because we love one another.

The Blood Gift gave me more of the world flushing out I was missing in the beginning and I'm definitely fascinated by the Gods aspect of it. I cheer on Ikenna's warrior attitude but do get frustrated when her rage has her blinded to reason and would like character experience and maturity to show growth. With a new enemy on the horizon, a frenemie in the wind, and a country to stabilize, Ikenna and her crew definitely have material for a new adventure.