Reviews - Bloodguard | The StoryGraph

1.47k reviews for:

Straight up, this was not good. For many, many reasons. Normally, I say things I love in my reviews but I genuinely cannot do that with this book. So here’s the things that didn’t work/things I didn’t like:

crocsnsocs27's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful fast-paced

permanentlyreading's review against another edition

3.0

Like it. Good plot. Characters were complex, interesting. Plot was interesting. Had some romance but wasn’t main plot which I enjoyed! I would def recommend to everyone!

leona_j's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 49%

Kinda boring

hreis1019's review against another edition

4.0

An interesting premise with high stakes, love, and plenty of political intrigue!

Leith, an immigrant to the wealthy kingdom of Arrow, has volunteered to have himself thrown into the Arena; a ring where he must fight all manner of threats to stay alive. While the stakes may be high in the arena, they're even higher outside of it, where Leith's family depends on the little money he earns in the ring to keep themselves alive. If Leith can make it through four more battles, he'll win the coveted title of Bloodguard, elevating himself to a member of the noble class and bringing his family with him.

Maeve, Princess of Arrow, finds herself trapped by the timeline of her coming of age, the time when she can rightfully inherit her grandmother's throne, but not without marrying another member of the noble class. With her choices being incredibly limited, Maeve is desperate to find a solution, especially after her fiancée is killed in the Arena. With no real other options, Maeve may have to hold out hope that a new warrior will reach Bloodguard status to save her from marrying her vicious cousin, Soro, or from being barred from taking her rightful place on the throne of Arrow.

FMC and MMC: This book is told from the perspectives of both Leith and Maeve. I liked the voices of both characters and using both perspectives allowed readers to get a more complete view of the events of the story. Leith's perspective represents the perspective of the poor people of Arrow and the surrounding kingdoms that rely on Arrow to survive. He gives us a look into the challenges of survival and his perspective offers more of the action in the book, especially during his fights in the arena.

Maeve's perspective really shows off the social and political conflict at the heart of Arrow. Maeve's struggle to gain power in the government and her complex relationships with other political figures and her family provide a complex tapestry that serves as the basis for the struggle for power in the Kingdom. Despite being disenfranchised from the government, Maeve is a powerful and smart woman in her own right and isn't afraid to make moves to help accomplish her goals.

Together, both characters worked really well and balanced each other out nicely.

Romance: The romance in this wasn't entirely insta-love, but it moved quickly. I think that the equality between Maeve and Leith helped accomplish this, but I do think that there could have been a more time spent developing the emotional relationship between the two of them.

I did appreciate that there wasn't a third-act breakup or a miscommunication between the two of them used to throw their relationship into question, I was worried that

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Maeve keeping the deaths of Leith's sisters and mother a secret would potentially be the root cause for a breakup, but luckily, I was only traumatized by chapter 45 when Maeve's entire family and most of her pets were brutally murdered and her house was burned down to help even the trauma scale between the two of them

. Having a common enemy seemed to help keep both of them fighting the Bad Guys instead of each other.

Trauma Train: This book had characters going through some intense trauma -

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Maeve's family getting killed so she'd marry her crazy cousin, the reveal that she killed her grandmother and that her father had just taken the blame for her, finding out that Leith's entire family was dead as he was traveling to help secure them passage into Arrow for their protection, Leith having to kill his best gladiator friend to survive one of the battles, etc.

. The whole book wasn't a constant trauma dump and most of the big things were contained within single chapters, but it meant that these events typically had a bigger emotional impact. I would caution you to read the trigger warnings at the start of the book because I imagine that there are some people who may not want to read some of the content in this book - it isn't overly graphic but could be emotionally distressing.

Although I enjoyed this book as a whole, there were some things that prevented it from being a five star read for me. Throughout the book, it seemed like the author got tired of exploring different plot lines and just came up with a way to end them instead of moving forward

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i.e. Leith's family being dead and then it just not ever being explored again in any real depth, the whole plot line with the smuggler who was supposed to get them out - considering this was the main motivator for Leith, it was weird to just say "they're dead" and leave it at that imo

. The ending of the book seemed really rushed

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Leith's final battle was really drawn out (and pretty cringe with the musical chairs element and spikes and moving sawblades???) and then he became a Bloodguard, killed Soro in like three sentences, then they got married (off-screen which robbed us of a wedding scene) and released the Phoenix with a lot of build up, only for the book to abruptly end. Based on what I've heard about the sequel, it'll be about another couple - my bets are on Giselle and Caelen - which is a bit disappointing because I didn't feel like Leith and Maeve had a complete story. I'd really like to see more of them as King and Queen and would like to actually see them accomplish the goals that they mentioned throughout the book like ending the Bloodguard arena and finishing the New Arrow development and I think that these are rich enough plot points that could serve as a sequel rather than being background noise in a different story in the same universe.

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. I also felt like there was unnecessary time spent introducing new side characters to the story who brought little to nothing to the table

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also, I hated that Guenther was introduced and we were given hope for him just for him to be killed in the most pointless way possible - we had already established that Soro was evil so this death just felt meaningless and like a way to add to the body count at the end for no real reason

. I also felt like the world-building could have used a little more explanation. It wasn't awful, but it ultimately felt like a really generic fantasy kingdom with a weird quirk that was never fully explored or explained

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the Phoenix

.

tldr: an enjoyable book with strong characters and an interesting premise with a lot of political intrigue. A solid, not exceptional, romance between main characters with elements without any third act breakup or miscommunication trope to get in the way of love. If you're looking for something with brute force and mental games, this may be right up your alley.