The Blood Stones

Dnf 50% I tried. I really did but I had no drive to continue. I found the characters to be boring and if I'm honest I feel the author chose the wrong MC for this book.   The traitors son and senna would have been far more interesting   Also I couldn't see the point of this book? There was next to no plot and hardly any character development. Hardly anything had happened. And I get that Gehrin storyline you won't get a lot but I would still expect to see more connection between the brothers instead of being told. And to go from one brother hating him to being fine the next minute is a bit jarringBut to have no threads of storylines woven throughout the book was a choice and one that isn't for me. There was no hook to keep me going no questions and answers happening. Why was the kings son killed ? What is Master L plan? Why was he taking the kids to what purpose? Having his POV i feel we should have been told the why of things. We're told a lot of the political manoeuvring and they feel very shallow and unbelievable. The author has obviously put a lot of thought into the worldbuilding but in some cases it doesn't translate well to the page but I can see this being the strongest part of the story. I found the writing to be a bit jarring. It would repeat itself and meander on long sentences when it's not needed. Towards the end I skimmed a lot to try to get to the point of each scene and chapter and yet I couldn't seem to find one. Overall I find the story very shallow and it's not for me.

The Blood Stones is a broad and deep epic fantasy, capturing a world that feels lived in and real, populated with characters, cultures, and lifestyles that feel entirely natural within it. The side characters, in particular, often were more relatable to me than the POV characters, which made the world that much more vivid to me.

Themes of identity, loyalty, and family abound in this book, from multiple different angles and toward different ends. However, this is very much a prologue-book, so the only payoff you'll often have is moment-to-moment, seeing the pieces being set in place to be used in future volumes.

But at the end of the day, what we have here is a solid introduction to a world that I for one am looking forward to exploring as the series progresses.

(I was given an e-ARC by the author, but my thoughts are my own, and they are in this review.)

DNF - I was LOVING the first part of this book from the initial characters POV and I just wish the whole book was focused on that character and their story. There was too much time spent focused on too many characters (really just one POV) that I did not find interesting. I just stopped finding myself reaching for this book. Also I made it over 300 pages in and I would have expected to see more fantasy elements here by that point. Disappointed.

How can something start so strong and just go so low as it continues?
The world-building is interesting, the plot in theory also sounds interesting. The beginning is very strong, however the second half of the book could have used some extra work.
The most prevailing problem is the writing. There are a lot of very, very long sentences that could have easily broken up into smaller, shorter ones. Moreso, there are quite a bit of obvious extrapolations and expositions that add nothing to the scenes.
The time skip feels like the biggest mistake, as it did change the characters only superficially, without having any justifiable reasoning for those changes. The changes can be summed up as brainwashing or trauma. Also, one of the characters has a tense, even hostile, relationship with the main character before the time skip where afterwards they are suddenly best friends, with no explanation.
Overall, interesting idea of a story but very, very poor execution.