Reviews

A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy

bookgramsaga_'s review against another edition

5.0

I really enjoyed this book. It was beyond my expectations.

literaryxqueen's review against another edition

5.0

THIS BOOK Y'ALL! THIS BOOK! Woo. I had to take a moment to think about this when I closed it. I've been waiting for this book my whole life. Waiting for it so long I've started writing my own - but that's for another story. Fae. Khimaera. Humans with magic. Bloodkin (vampires?) - AND THEY ARE BROWN AND OF COLOR AND THERE IS SO MUCH DIVERSITY WITHIN THIS ONE BOOK I'm actually, literally, emotional. Thank you so much Penguin Random House for the ARC...know that I WILL be purchasing the finished copy. Buy this book. Read it. Love it. And then wait for the sequel with me!!!

mrszeee's review against another edition

4.0

I honestly think it was a solid read. Yes, it could have been longer, yes there were parts that gave itself away, but overall it was a great setup to book 2.

scythefranz's review against another edition

2.0

This will be a short review since I don't really have anything to say about this book. A River of Royal Blood is an okay book for me. It should be compelling but it isn't. It should be a fun adventure but it isn't either. It is boring most of the time and doesn't get my full attention when I'm reading it.

The characters seems flat for me. I didn't get attached or connected with them. Or even to, at least, like or hate them. The ending is predictable and disappointing. The twist, however, is good but it can't redeem the whole book for me.

The only thing that I like about A River of Royal Blood is the magic system. And probably, Baccha.

bookishlykenia's review against another edition

4.0

4.5 star rating!

I really enjoyed this book, it was fast paced and the idea of the heir was well written I think. How the sisters had such a bond and then changed once they found out what had to be done. Our main character had growth and she was strengthen throughout the journey that is by far not over.

We see her become weak to become strong. I’m excited to see her evolve even more in the next book.

One thing only that I didn’t like but wasn’t a big deal was the main character had said something I don’t think suited her character. Like the voice I invisioned while reading the book was different from what she says and it thought that scene was off a bit. But it was only that one scene. I don’t want to spoil anyone so I’ll just leave it at that.

But gosh this was really good and it helped me out of my slump!

kendylthomas's review against another edition

4.0

4.25/5

manaledi's review against another edition

4.0

This has all of the fairly standard elements of a high fantasy book - fae, humans with magic, tension between various magical beings, sibling drama, everyone is beautiful, complicated love interest, young heroine learning herself and her magic to save the world - and all that said I solidly enjoyed it. But also the blurb says it's North African inspired and I didn't see it at all.

daniella84's review against another edition

2.0

Going into this I was expecting the main focus to be the whole 'princesses must fight to the death' thing but ...it wasn't. A lot of this was talking and exposition about things I wasn't immersed in the world enough to care about, also a LOT of miscommunication/secret keeping which is a big thing I dislike in books. I also felt I couldn't really understand our main character's motivations - she seemed to change very quickly from wanting to be a normal girl to wanting to win the competition,

Spoiler

especially after her father was killed, and we time-skipped over the 2 weeks in which she seemed to do almost a complete 180 in terms of motivations

. The twist at the end didn't get me (she was a little TOO much of a good ally) and the sister dynamic didn't feel established enough for me to actually care about the fight to the death when it came down to it. I HATED the romance, and didn't find Baccha endearing in the way I think we were supposed to. I think I was expecting this to be more about the sisters (maybe even a dual POV) and them coming to terms with what they had to do, training etc, but instead I feel there were a lot of times where we lost sight of a end goal/purpose and were looking for answers to things that ultimately didn't really matter. If this weren't a duology I feel maybe some of these issues could have been solved by having the plot condensed down, but its not so :) Did like the allusions to like colonialism/racism etc but I don't think we got enough of these politics to do much meaningful with it.

pizzaaa's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark hopeful inspiring mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

neethya's review against another edition

4.0

Das war eine unglaublich coole, kreative Fantasy-Welt. Mit vielen Details zu Mythologie, Geschichte, Politik, Rassen und Magieformen angereichert, blieb daneben aber leider wenig Platz für Handlung. Action und Spannung kommt dann jedoch im letzten Drittel auf, sodass ich jetzt hohe Erwartungen an den zweiten Band habe, das alles entsprechend zusammen zu ziehen.