Book: Blood Binds by Denisa Mih
Reviewed by Halliday in the Books
Aurora was just starting to find her place in the Black Guild. Now everything has been thrown into question all over again. She no longer knows who she can trust. In the palace, she knew she had been shielded from the worst of the worst. On the battlefield at least she expected honesty. However, it turns out that even her fellow soldiers have been keeping secrets. Now she’ll have to figure out who can really be trusted and how to get the truth from them. From there, she can figure out for sure what’s been fueling this endless war and how to finally put a stop to it.
I am very glad that I was able to read both books back to back. That’s not simply because the first book ends on a cliffhanger. It’s because this second book made up for so many of the shortcomings in the first. Readers finally get a fuller picture of the powers at play in the war. We start seeing more of the nuance and complexity in the politics of the world. Most importantly, we spend enough time with the secondary characters to learn who they really are. This is where I was able to feel more deeply for these characters and raised the emotional stakes.
Relationships between characters also become more clear, and the effects they have on each other. This is especially true for Aurora and Harbinger. We see their relationship deepen, and we gain an appreciation for it, even when it’s not perfectly healthy. Both characters have endured trauma and are still learning to carry it. There were still some moments I wondered why Aurora wasn’t drawing parallels between Harbinger’s behavior and her past trauma, but I had much more understanding around their treatment of one another.
Blood Binds is also the book where Aurora’s path forward begins to solidify. It’s difficult to root for a protagonist with unidentified motivations. Once Aurora knows what her plan is, you want her to succeed, even if she still has some growing to do. There are some frustrating moments along her journey where she could do better and she knows it. Nonetheless, I wanted to see her come out on top. This one is another cliffhanger and I haven’t seen the release date for the third, but the story feels more complete. My hopes for this series have risen, and I’ll be looking forward to the next installment.