Enjoy Of Wicked Blood (The Quatrefoil Chronicles, #1) Imagined By Olivia Wildenstein Copy
beautiful elixir of magic, adventure, and slow burn romance, Of Wicked Blood is sure to enchant fantasy readers, “If any of us fail, Im dead, ”
Slate Ardoin is a skilled thief, who spent the majority of his childhood in dreadful care homes, Whilst Cadence De Morel was raised in the town of Brume reputed to be the birthplace of French witchcraft, Everything changes for both Slate and Cadence, when Slate steals a Bloodstone, he gets more than he bargained for, Not only does he get an expensive ring but also the endangerment it puts his life in,
I didnt know what to expect from the duo of Oliva Wildenstein and Katie Hayoz, all I know is that what I got was definitely not what I was expecting.
Both Olivia Wildenstein and Katie Hayoz blessed us with a refreshing, gothic twist on urban fantasy,
The descriptive abilities of both authors enabled me to vividly envision the little town of Brume and the enchanting dark, gothic tendencies which embellish the overall setting, I usually dislike the use of multiple narrative perspectives, however the differing perspectives from both Slate and Cadence only enhanced the overall telling of the story, The plot was definitely unique and interesting, the interpretation of the elements pleasantly surprised me too, however I think a massive contributor to my addictiveness in this book is the blossoming romance of Slate and Cadence.
Let us talk about the romance between Slate and Cadence, The intimacy and the contrasting characteristics of both Slate and Cadence complement each other perfectly, Yes, Slate is the cliché bad boy with a damaged background, so I suppose its a good job that I love this typical cliché because it only made me adore Slate even more.
There was however one major disappointment in this book and that was the ending, Like what the hell was that Is that going to stop me from reading the next book of the Quatrefoil Chronicles when it comes out Absolutely not, I can only hope that the follow up book to this promising series answers all those questions that failed to be answered in the first book,
Thank you to NetGalley and Twig Publishing for the advanced reader copy in return for an honest review,
Overall ,stars There are so many things that I loved about Of Wicked Blood by authors Olivia Wildenstein and Katie Hayoz! Set in the village of Brume, misty and magical, and said to be the birthplace of all magic, Brume itself feels like a main character.
Its here that we meet Cadence de Morel, one of the narrators, Cadence and her family have a deeply rooted history in Brume her ancestor is rumored to have trapped Merlin the Wizard in a cave just outside the town in a mystical forest.
The other narrator, Slate, is a hardscrabble hottie who has been in the foster care system for most of his life, A professional thief, hes tough on the outside but has a heart of gold, morally gray but easy to love,
Slate receives a letter from Cadences father inviting him to Brume, a letter thats impossible to ignore, He arrives in the midst of a traditional Brume New Years celebration of magic and meets Cadence, His anger at Cadences father for withholding information from him and leaving him in the system leads him to the de Morel crypt where he sets off a chain of events that could bring magic back in to the world but could also kill the descendants of Brumes founding families.
And Slate, himself, if the quests arent fulfilled, Past Brume history doesnt bode well!
The worldbuilding is fabulous the Quatrefoil is the symbol used for the magic borne in Brume many centuries before and it is seen everywhere in the town and holds a great significance both in the story and the magical quests.
There is a Quatrefoil quest that must be completed by a descendant of each founding family where each will find their piece of the Quatrefoil, Each quest was pretty hairy and scary, full of action and suspense, I want to point out that theres some LOL humor that I really appreciated it bonds the characters to me when they make me laugh, even in the grimmest of situations.
“Me, scared Im not scared, ” “Your nostrils flare when youre panicked, And right now, experts could go spelunking in those hairy canyons, I put a hand to my nose, Really”
The secondary characters are just as welldeveloped and emotive as the main, I loved getting to know their stories and peeking in to what life is like in Brume.
Its a fastmoving plot with just the right amount of action, romance and magic to keep me turning the pages until the end, Which, dang, seriously Why Just why you gotta do me this way
Needless to say, I will be reading the next in the series as soon as it hits the presses! I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Okay, I wont lie, Of Wicked Blood did start off pretty slowly for me, . but it picked up a couple of chapters in, Of course, this is when all the sassy and sarcastic comments come into play between Slate and Cadence, At first, they sort of despised one another because of all kinds of miscommunication,
Seriously, there's so many secrets, lies, and miscommunication throughout the entire book, Besides that, there's romance, mystery, and possibly a villain or two, I definitely fell in love with Slate and Cadence, He's a thief and he stole my heart and hers pretty quickly on, Even though they tried to be like, . I just met the guy/girl, . why am I jealous already Blah blah blah when you know you know, At least nothing was really instaanything,
In the end, I'm hoping there's another book coming out soon because I just want more from this group, I want to know what's going to happen in this small town now after everything that has happened, Also, where's that sleazy mayor at Ugh, so many questions! Great story, not so great ending!
The following ratings are out of:
Romance:
Heat/Steam: N/A
Story/Plot:
World building:
Character development:
The Setting: Brume, Great Britain
The heroine: Cadence Del Morel from one of the founding families of Brume and an ancestor of Viviene Del Morel who is said to have trapped the wizard Merlin in a cave, under a rock in the neighboring forest.
The town of Brume is said to be the birthplace of Magic and the residents celebrate new years by dressing as witches and warlocks, Though Cadence doesnt believe in magic,
The Hero: Slate Ardoin a, k. a. Remy Roland grew up in foster care and had a difficult childhood, He finds out that he is the son of a founding family of Brume when he gets a letter and a scholarship to the local college, He is quite angry to find out that he wasnt given away as a baby, his parents are dead and he has money, Cadences father knew about him but left him in foster care and didnt contact him till now,
The love story: Slate shows up on New Years eve and is attracted to Cadence right away, Cadence thinks she is in love with a man she grew up with named Adrian though Adrian has a girlfriend,
Slate is jaded from growing up in foster care and Cadence is a good girl who grew up as the apple of her fathers eye,
Both Slate and Cadence find out at the same time that they need to be involved in an ancient rite along with the other two descendants of founding families, Adrian and a woman named Gaelle.
They must each go through a very dangerous trial in order to restore magic and save Slate from a curse,
The story is good though and I like fantasy books, especially when they take place in contemporary times, I like the fact that their parents went through similar trials when they were very young and people were hurt and killed, It adds to both the story and the suspense, Like all fantasy books, the romance is secondary to the main story, so it was a bit of a slow burn but I liked the fact that you could really see early on how they felt about each other.
The trials were good, with each one getting progressively more dangerous, I liked the backstory but didnt really understand everyones motivations, especially Cadences father, He does some strange things and his motivations seem to be that he wants to bring magic back so he can be cured since he is in a wheelchair, However, we find out something that makes that seem less likely,
I voluntarily read amp reviewed an advanced copy of this book, All thoughts amp opinions are my own,
sitelinkBlogsitelinkGoodreadssitelinkFacebooksitelinkInstagramsitelinkTwittersitelinkBookBub Bahahahahaha,
How stupid was I to be apprehensive about a book written by cowritten by Olivia Wildenstein Maybe it was because I have such high expectations now from her past works that I'm afraid of being let down.
Bahahahahaha
I shall never be let down by the queen,
This is not to cast a shadow over Katie Hayoz, Her writing is delectable. I have zero experience with her work so suffice
it to say, I was astounded by the talent she has,
The characters: Slate and Candace are a sort of enemies to lovers deal without being real enemies but sorta Hard to say, Anyhow, Candace is a bit cold and Slate is sometimes crass, but an overall good guy who got a bum deal by putting on a cursed ring, Candance comes from an entirely different background than Slate so their clashing makes for good drama,
The story: The story is unique, Set in France, we get a lot of the school and surrounding area, I'm a sucker for books set in France, but I do wish we got more of the local haunts and people to get a better idea of the area, I also wish we got more of the squad and their relationships with our main characters, But I am sure the sequel will bring it all to light,
I follow Olivia in her FB group and on her personal FB and I just love who she is as a person and an author, She is author goals, let me tell you, Katie Hayoz is a new obsession for me, so I expect I will be haunting her social media platforms stat,
Thank you to the authors for the chance to review this book ahead of its release date, Ive read several books by Wildenstein and have loved them all so I knew I had to check this bad boy out! This was my first coauthored read by her and I first give major props to both authors because the writing blended super well together! I loved the Slate and Cadence, the unique story, the slow burn romance, and ahhh that ending has me needing book! Can you say book hangover! originally posted on sitelinkMy Bookish Escapades.
So I just read one of the best books of, Holy freakin' heck. This book was wickedly good and absolutely addictive! I'm gonna need book two asap!
I've read quite a few books from Olivia Wildenstein but I have yet to read anything written by Katie Hayoz.
Rest assured the latter will be remedied immediately after finishing this review, I did not know what to expect from this duo but what I got What I got was a brilliant book with amazing writing, a unique and compelling plot, swoony romance, and lovable, complex characters.
This book surprised me in a really good way and I just want to read it again,
You guys, I just found myself a new book boyfriend in Slate, Loved him from the start and I just fell in love with him harder the farther I got, Cadence was absolutely lovable! I love her love for books and history, I love her loyalty, her tenacity, and her strength, A girl after my own heart, And can I just say the banter and chemistry between Cadence and Slate Swoon,
The book didn't exactly end on a cliffhanger but there were still so many unanswered questions, I have a terrible feeling something more terrible is going to happen, I don't know what to expect from the sequel but I'm so excited to find out! I need more of the Quatrefoil gang in my life!
When is book two coming
I received an earc from Netgalley to read and review.
So at the beginning of this book I was intrigued, then in the middle I was really bugged and disenchanted, but the end brought me back a little more.
There is a fun story going on and a cute little town, Pretty quickly you figure out it is going to be one of those journey books where the heroes need to accomplish certain tasks so it feels a little boring once that comes out.
But even though you basically knew where things were going, it was still a fun ride, The story follows two main characters and it changes back and fourth between them every chapter,
I only had two main problems with the book, First, one of the main characters is rather vulgar, He curses a lot, which they do warn you about, so I do get that, but sometimes he just acted pessimistic and self deprecating, All of that combined made it rather annoying at times, However, after a while I liked him more, but I was never really absolutely loved him, That leads me to the second thing I disliked most and that would be the narrators I listened to the audiobook, I mean, there was nothing wrong with them, but I just didn't like either voices, It really disrupted me sometimes and I would be jolted out of the story by their voices, So this might be a better one to read instead of listen too,
But now that the book is over I really wish I had the second one, The beautiful magical town the world is set in is so cute and cozy! I want to live there, It feels like Oxford, Harry Potter, and the French countryside combined, For some reason it also reminded me a bit of the Ruby Red series, which I loved!
SPOILERS gtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgtgt
Nothing really surprised me much in this series.
Like I said earlier, right at the beginning you find out that each of them has to overcome a task to get the magical leaf token, So you know that the book is just going to follow the four of them getting it and then bringing magic back, There was no doubt in my mind they were going to accomplish this, So when it came to them actually doing their tasks I would kind of zone out a bit, I didn't like that it was so road mapped out,
One thing I didn't expect was the ending, I expected Cadence to wake up last minute and they would put the pieces together, The fact that we don't know how it all worked out is a bit of a twist, Although I do have some theories, and they may be a bit conspiracy theorist,
So I've thought about this a lot, When Cadence first came out of the hospital chasing after Slate and they find out the ring fell of his finger, Cadence's dad was really quiet, At first I thought it was because he died, I thought he realized that Cadence cared so much about Slate and he decided to be a good guy and sacrifice himself, Even though it might curse him more, he would grab the token and put it in the quatrefoil to save Slate, But then he actually spoke and I realized he wasn't slumped over in his chair dead, so then I thought it had to be something else, But then I remembered that he told Slate a few hours before to go jump off the roof and it looked like Slate was going to do it, And we know the dad really wanted magic back, So maybe he was still going to go save the magic, but he wanted Slate dead and away from his daughter, So when he thought Slate was going to go kill himself he went and fixed the quatrefoil himself, But then he came back and Slate was outside and he realized he hadn't killed himself,
Did you keep up with all that, Yeah, confusing, but that is my conspiracy theory, I mean I hope its not something like they finished all the tasks so the magic still worked, I can't believe I read this so early! Now I am going to have to wait forever to find out what happens next!
Reread: this time I read the book yes, my faecrate special edition which is beautiful! and I really got a lot more out of it.
I enjoyed it the first time I read it, but I really loved it the second time, The two main problems I had didn't matter as much, I loved Slate, whereas in the first one he grew on me, but I never loved him, Boy was I wrong. I just think the narrators weren't putting me off a bit,
But I am so glad I did a reread before going on in the series, because it was great!,