House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City)

I came to Crescent City with great anticipation and high hopes, having really enjoyed both Sarah J Maas's Throne of Glass and Court of Thorns & Roses series. So when I heard this was Maas's first foray into an adult novel (as opposed to the usual YA) and one which was going to have closer ties with our world, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. In fact, I'd pre-ordered this well before it came out. But, boy, was I disappointed. Here's why - spoilers are included, so if you don't want to know anything about it, look away now! Firstly, this is not what I'd describe as an adult novel. In fact, the writing seemed less sophisticated than TOG. The only thing that made it more 'adult' was a littering of swear words which felt forced/contrived - as though that's what the author feels is needed to elevate a novel from YA to adult. Really, the dialogue felt incredibly YA still (almost childish in a way when it came to the 'romance' and Bryce's inclination to call all strong males 'alpha holes'. It was a sort of high school language almost. This novel isn't set in our reality either. Not, of course, a valid criticism of the book; just something that (probably via fan rumour) had been mis-communicated. However, I would have loved for Maas to do a new spin and start a novel in this reality. Like I say though, it's not a reason to have a dig at CC; just something to be aware of if you were hoping for this novel to be set on 'earth'. Next, let's talk about sex/sizzle. Way disappointing. Now I realise that this is the first in the series, and Maas may want to leave some titillation for later books. However, this was woefully disappointing for an 800 page grownup novel. When it comes to writing smouldering fiction, Laura Thalassa is waayyyy better - her Bargainer series knocks Maas out of the park. Even Natalia Jaster brings it on more. And I found Natalia Jaster's writing in Trick (admittedly the only novel I've read by her so far) to be a lot more sophisticated. I struggled getting into this book - it started slow and there was a ton of info dumping at the start. It didn't seem to build as naturally or organically as TOG. I'd hoped to see Maas getting better as a writer but this felt very paint-by-numbers. There was one part (a couple of hundred pages in) which was a 'wow' moment. But that was then obliterated by a storyline that I found less than engaging. It seemed to go round and round in circles regarding the search for a stolen fae artifact and somthing called synth. A bit like a fantasy detective story but without being very gripping. I hung on in there though because, well, it's Maas. The book finally picked up in the last 150-so pages but it was all quite predicable. In fact, the whole thing just felt like a re-skinning of Maas's other novels, with nothing very original (just a change of scene and character). We have...

Since it was first announced, I’ve been waiting for this to be released. I loved ACOTAR and TOG etc., and generally love anything that Sarah J Maas does - this is no exception but it was nowhere near as good as her previous work. Saying that, I adorned the journey that the main character, Bryce, goes on. The themes are more adult in nature but her journey through grief is universal and I love how it’s portrayed - even if it’s hard to read sometimes! Bryce is a solid female character with a hatred of ‘alpha holes’ and a vulnerable yet independent streak that is so often missing from female character led stories. I really like her, for all her flaws more than anything else. Overall, I did enjoy it - a lot - but it didn’t capture me as much as her previous work. For starters, it felt like it took a long time to get going - the first third of the book felt long and drawn out. Then, there’s a major plot twist (which I won’t spoil), that comes out of nowhere and it’s so frustrating because it’s a great twist and the remainder of the book becomes fast, punchy and addictive. The plot twist though has no real foreshadowing (and I’m not convinced it makes that much sense for those characters to be doing those things at that time due to injuries/the laws of time and physics), it just...it really threw me out of the story and I had to decide to ignore the fact that it makes no sense and instead just keep going - driven by my love for the characters and the typically addictive nature of the love story. (Lets be honest, Rhys and Feyre will always have the best love story) Unlike her other series, I probably wouldn’t reread this one - I’m glad I read it but I have no burning need to go back to it (where as I couldn’t get enough of TOG and kept rereading it). It feels like there’s going to be a sequel and now that all the clunky world building is done, the sequel is probably going to be amazing. Overall, I would recommend but maybe don’t put it at the top of your list... but if you’re a massive Sarah J Maas fan...then what the ‘hel’ are you waiting for? Go read it!

Typically, I enjoy SJ Maas books - I enjoyed most of the Throne of Glass books (thought the final one was a bit of a disappointment from halfway) and I really enjoyed two out of the three ACOTAR series, but definitely not the novella which was fluffy rubbish. I had expected this book to be a great starter for a new series, as typically the first books in a new series are the ones that SJ writes the best. Plus this was meant to be an Adult series rather than her usual YA / teen fantasy, a bold new move that should indicate a good level of confidence in the novel and subsequent series However, the information exposition overload in the first few chapters was a warning for the strength of the rest of the novel. It became a compilation of SJ’s of plot repetition from previous novels. There’s a Mary Sue main character (Bryce) that has the most obviously implied talent (no subtly at all with that one - when the sword mysteriously started humming a quarter in, I knew that was going to go down) but of course some extra mad skillz because why not make her super powerful like the other female characters in the other series’ (Celena and Feyre) but with no real justification or logic as a half human / Fae. There’s obviously a SUPER powerful hero (Hunt a replacement for Rhys and Rowan) that has been abused at the hands of female villains (Maeve / Amarantha) but has instant feelings for the main character possibly because it’s not possible to play the “mate” card across different species. There’s no clear reason why Hunt, a hardened and haunted ancient fallen angel, suddenly softens to Bryce other than the fact that she’s very attractive but very much out of character, he enjoys their ridiculously annoying banter and made up words such as alphahole. That, or, the character is so badly shaped that to a reader, it makes no sense. This book reads as though it has many different attempts of plot threads but they’ve been thrown together in a frantic rush to get them all into one book. This has resulted in a romantic pairing that isn’t believable (or based mainly on lust), main characters that I don’t really like or care about, supplementary characters that I also don’t care about or understand why they were needed in the first place, lots of “watching” the plot unfold but not really “doing” anything aka not much action - mainly exposition, and a jumble of plot threads: grief over dead friend, insta-love with mysterious misunderstood killer, crazy boss that has unlimited supplies of random crap that coincidentally happens to be useful, villainous female torturing hero, crazy one-of-a-kind super powers defying all odds, drug addiction, unjust class structure etc etc (the list goes on) all within the new structure of a paranormal fantasy world mix of every single possible type of creature, categorised in a new system, layered into a hierarc...