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4.08 AVERAGE
4.08 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
fast-paced
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
fast-paced
This is book one of The Holy Bloodlines series and the main character is orphan and mortal Sera (Sedorah) Sinclair, who after losing both her parents in a traumatic fashion aged just five, hates Elyseans with all of her heart. Even when everybody around her and even her best friends, James and Layla, as well as her young cousin Miles, are mad about anything to do with the Gods and the Elyseans. Those who have gone through the Elysean Trials, which take place every four years, who survive and then attend the Academy of Divine Light and Beauty, before being chosen to receive Godstones, suddenly are given powers and the looks of the divine, almost unnaturally beautiful! She thinks of them as power hungry and behind their outward beauty, they can be completely evil. They show a good face to the commoners, the mortal as they call others, even though they themselves are not gods and thus not immortal. Her memories of the orphanage are traumatic, with one lady there treating her cruelly for trying to tell the truth of what happened as her parents died and the presence of an Elysean there. She would make her answer questions about the gods for hours on end, not allowing her to eat until she got all of them correct, often leaving her going past meal times, but also hitting her with a stick if she wasn’t fast enough, or was wrong. She was there until age twelve, when she was taken in by her long lost uncle Gary, but that was for the monthly sum her received from her trust fund, left to her by her parents, which she would receive when she was eighteen, not for any kind of love or family feelings.
Days before her eighteenth birthday is the opening day for the latest Elysean Trials and the day when the Elysean City is open to mere mortals and the fourteen Iriade mechanical birds are sent out to choose the next lot of candidates who are going to be fortunate enough to have the chance to become an Elysean! Not that Shea sees it that way at all and wants nothing to do with it. As they leave the Elysean City after the open day, one of the Iriade flies almost straight at her, but thankfully doesn’t stop. As she leaves high school after classes the next day, she gets annoyed about all the talk of gods and the Elyseans and has a bit of a rant, which her fellow students record on their phones! Just as one of the Iriades comes and hovers right above her. She refuses to go the trials, but her uncle is given a large sum to sign her life over, since she is still days from becoming an adult and he still has the final say on her life. She is dragged to the city and she finds out exactly what one of the Elyseans is like in the back of the limo. Yuck! It adds to the confirmation of what they are really like from her early childhood and the accident that took her parents. Now she is one of the fourteen, no one can enter or leave the palace until the first two trials are complete. The warning is that the candidates can be killed in these trials, no matter how simple or deadly they are. The trials are meant to test them all deeply, physically, mentally, and on their knowledge of the gods. Her attempt to run away at the start is stopped by Shade, an instructor at the Academy apparently, but who keeps himself separate from the others.
There are a handful of Elysean students from the Academy who are supposed to be there to aid them as needed, to gain the knowledge they will need to get through the challenges. Sera’s problems are that the students share her godless rant to one and all, leaving her as an outcast, with no allies or helper. Whilst the other candidates pair up or group together, going off to the library and elsewhere, Sera finds her attempts to get into the library thwarted by the quietest of the Elysean students, whose magic produces something terrifying and driving Sera to run and hide! She helps a servant, a lower level Elysean, who doesn’t have a godstone and dresses in grey rather than the brighter colours of the students and others they have met. She helps her carry her laundry basket up the stairs and is offered some words of advice in return. She meets this elderly woman every day and helps her out, not expecting anything in return. Being kept out of the library could hurt her in the first trial, but she had years of being tortured about knowledge of the gods so it is unlikely she could ever forget, even if she would love to. She keeps running into Shade and finds another source of research materials, even if she shouldn’t have access to them. Three of the male Elysean students have decided to pick on her as well, making life even more dangerous. She starts to find it ever harder to ignore Shade, even with him telling her it is dangerous for her to be anywhere near him! The further into the series of trials she goes, the more her attraction to Shade increases and her need for him makes her almost forget the challenges ahead.
The final trial reveals something to her that gives the truth of what happened in the accident that killed her parents and why she has always blamed an Elysean for what happened. What she didn’t know, was the true extent of what had happened to her in that accident and how it had obviously changed her. She has huge choices ahead of her and a final trial to survive, with numbers of candidates already highly reduced. She has gotten too emotionally attached to Shade and should have stuck with her initial thought of Elyseans and not to trust any of them. Does she want to die, well at parts of the trials it sometimes seems it would be easier, but she also has to overcome the hatred from her fellow candidates. One direction may lead her to the answers she has sought for most of her life, the other will have her wondering if she made a huge mistake. Only time will tell! A fascinating tale, with a world where Sera is at odds with nearly all of the population who are almost brainwashed to believe in the godlike status of the Elyseans, not direct descendants of the gods themselves, but granted power and magic by the gifting of godstones which give this to them. They were normal mortals before this, unless they were born from Elysean bonding, or succeeded in these trials. Nothing about that process makes them gods or immortal, but most believe they are. Sera’s own childhood made her experiences so different to all of her peers and made her question matters all the time. Something that stands her in good stead at times, but her mouth gets her in more trouble than it should as she speaks her mind without stopping to think how others will react. Hopefully her desire to live and find out the truth about the Elyseans and her parents death, will allow her the strength to carry on and show others exactly what most Elyseans are like, with their powers allowing them to do whatever they wish, with little to no backlash! I can’t wait to grab the next book in this series and see what happens next and also what happens to Maia, her only semi-friendly face in the trials. I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.
Days before her eighteenth birthday is the opening day for the latest Elysean Trials and the day when the Elysean City is open to mere mortals and the fourteen Iriade mechanical birds are sent out to choose the next lot of candidates who are going to be fortunate enough to have the chance to become an Elysean! Not that Shea sees it that way at all and wants nothing to do with it. As they leave the Elysean City after the open day, one of the Iriade flies almost straight at her, but thankfully doesn’t stop. As she leaves high school after classes the next day, she gets annoyed about all the talk of gods and the Elyseans and has a bit of a rant, which her fellow students record on their phones! Just as one of the Iriades comes and hovers right above her. She refuses to go the trials, but her uncle is given a large sum to sign her life over, since she is still days from becoming an adult and he still has the final say on her life. She is dragged to the city and she finds out exactly what one of the Elyseans is like in the back of the limo. Yuck! It adds to the confirmation of what they are really like from her early childhood and the accident that took her parents. Now she is one of the fourteen, no one can enter or leave the palace until the first two trials are complete. The warning is that the candidates can be killed in these trials, no matter how simple or deadly they are. The trials are meant to test them all deeply, physically, mentally, and on their knowledge of the gods. Her attempt to run away at the start is stopped by Shade, an instructor at the Academy apparently, but who keeps himself separate from the others.
There are a handful of Elysean students from the Academy who are supposed to be there to aid them as needed, to gain the knowledge they will need to get through the challenges. Sera’s problems are that the students share her godless rant to one and all, leaving her as an outcast, with no allies or helper. Whilst the other candidates pair up or group together, going off to the library and elsewhere, Sera finds her attempts to get into the library thwarted by the quietest of the Elysean students, whose magic produces something terrifying and driving Sera to run and hide! She helps a servant, a lower level Elysean, who doesn’t have a godstone and dresses in grey rather than the brighter colours of the students and others they have met. She helps her carry her laundry basket up the stairs and is offered some words of advice in return. She meets this elderly woman every day and helps her out, not expecting anything in return. Being kept out of the library could hurt her in the first trial, but she had years of being tortured about knowledge of the gods so it is unlikely she could ever forget, even if she would love to. She keeps running into Shade and finds another source of research materials, even if she shouldn’t have access to them. Three of the male Elysean students have decided to pick on her as well, making life even more dangerous. She starts to find it ever harder to ignore Shade, even with him telling her it is dangerous for her to be anywhere near him! The further into the series of trials she goes, the more her attraction to Shade increases and her need for him makes her almost forget the challenges ahead.
The final trial reveals something to her that gives the truth of what happened in the accident that killed her parents and why she has always blamed an Elysean for what happened. What she didn’t know, was the true extent of what had happened to her in that accident and how it had obviously changed her. She has huge choices ahead of her and a final trial to survive, with numbers of candidates already highly reduced. She has gotten too emotionally attached to Shade and should have stuck with her initial thought of Elyseans and not to trust any of them. Does she want to die, well at parts of the trials it sometimes seems it would be easier, but she also has to overcome the hatred from her fellow candidates. One direction may lead her to the answers she has sought for most of her life, the other will have her wondering if she made a huge mistake. Only time will tell! A fascinating tale, with a world where Sera is at odds with nearly all of the population who are almost brainwashed to believe in the godlike status of the Elyseans, not direct descendants of the gods themselves, but granted power and magic by the gifting of godstones which give this to them. They were normal mortals before this, unless they were born from Elysean bonding, or succeeded in these trials. Nothing about that process makes them gods or immortal, but most believe they are. Sera’s own childhood made her experiences so different to all of her peers and made her question matters all the time. Something that stands her in good stead at times, but her mouth gets her in more trouble than it should as she speaks her mind without stopping to think how others will react. Hopefully her desire to live and find out the truth about the Elyseans and her parents death, will allow her the strength to carry on and show others exactly what most Elyseans are like, with their powers allowing them to do whatever they wish, with little to no backlash! I can’t wait to grab the next book in this series and see what happens next and also what happens to Maia, her only semi-friendly face in the trials. I received an ARC copy of this book from BookSprout and I have freely given my own opinion of the book above.
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Ooohh. I guess i’m diving in to a new series.
Interesting concept, a mix of academy, trials, mythology. Pacing is a little rocky personally and Sera isn’t my favorite narrator i’ve ever read but the strength of the plot and potential for the rest of the series is driving me to keep reading.
Sera is somehow both incredibly OP but also insanely weak and the constant back and forth is a little frustrating. When she passes out at least once a challenge it gets hard to follow the actual action. She knows so much and yet is still so clueless. My one complaint about fantasy series told in first person is the difficulty in learning the magic system through a single persons lens, especially when they are new to the magic as well.
Read the kindle edition that had the bonus chapter from Shade/Adryans POV where I think we are being lead to a Crescent City type reveal which i’m interested to see play out.
Interesting concept, a mix of academy, trials, mythology. Pacing is a little rocky personally and Sera isn’t my favorite narrator i’ve ever read but the strength of the plot and potential for the rest of the series is driving me to keep reading.
Sera is somehow both incredibly OP but also insanely weak and the constant back and forth is a little frustrating. When she passes out at least once a challenge it gets hard to follow the actual action. She knows so much and yet is still so clueless. My one complaint about fantasy series told in first person is the difficulty in learning the magic system through a single persons lens, especially when they are new to the magic as well.
Read the kindle edition that had the bonus chapter from Shade/Adryans POV where I think we are being lead to a Crescent City type reveal which i’m interested to see play out.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I usually love reimaginings or involvement of Greek mythology within the plot but the pacing and excessive inner monologue from the fmc that achieved nothing began to grate on my nerves. About 76% of the way done, I began skimming to just find the action. I was most interested in the beginning or the book and the last 3 pages, everything else felt like filler. The FMC is not brave, not strong, and has no desire to improve herself, instead giving up at every moment. There were also too many plot holes and I just couldn’t care enough to continue reading the series. It had so much potential but unfortunately flopped miserably in my eyes
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
“It was my soul that was empty. So empty it terrified me to close my eyes.”
medium-paced
I want to give this a higher rating. But I wasn't the biggest fan of the FMC. I think she will get better in moving forward, but she was insufferable through most of the story. A lot happened at the end so the cliffhanger was at a perfect spot, because I need to know!!
I was obsessed with this book and could not put it down! Love the slow burn and the world of new and old gods. I actually stopped reading another book I’ve been obsessed with to read this because I fell in love with it so quick. Cannot wait for the next one!!