I received a copy of Song of Blood and Bone (Earthsinger Chronicles, Book 1) by L. Penelope from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
If you take an epic fantasy novel, pepper it with gods and magic, add a lovely dose of love and sexiness and top it off with sibling drama you would have Song of Blood and Bone. I feel that finally, the fantasy genre, is creating worlds I would actually love to explore.
In this novel, Jasminda is a bi-racial girl trying to eek out a life in a land that constantly monitors and judges her. All she wants is to live a quiet peaceful existence, but her race makes that almost impossible. She has a little bit of magic but a world full of problems. One more problem gets added during a huge storm when she stumbles upon an injured solider trying to make it home himself. As their lives intersect, we learn secrets each of them hold and watch as they try to make their worlds a better place.
There is an evil king held at bay by a sometimes faltering barrier, called the Mantle, where his citizens make desperate escape attempts and it’s neighboring land where the population is filled with rising paranoia and xenophobia. These timely issues resonated deeply with me, and made this novel really stand apart from others in the genre.
I can’t wait for the next book in the series! I also heard on a podcast (linked below) that this book was previously independently published and catch the attention of St. Martin’s Press after winning the 2016 Self-Publishing Ebook Award for Best Fiction.
Links about the book:
https://bookriot.com/2017/11/24/fantasy-romance-series/
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