Hi ForeverBookers,
I’ve just finished reading “House of Earth and Blood” (Crescent City #1) and I bloody ADORED it! It was soooooo good. I loved how it was adult but also fun and had many funny moments as well as tense moments.
4.5 Stars!
“House of Earth and Blood” tells the story of Bryce Quinlan, a twenty three year old, half fae girl. Her father is King of the Autumn court. And her brother on her father’s side, Ruhn is special or is he? I liked Ruhn but not as much as Hunt, who enters the plot near the beginning of the novel but not right away. Near the beginning, Bryce loses her best friend Danika. She dies in a horrible killing. This killer is revealed later, near the end of the book. Bryce gets put with Hunt, a fallen Archangel to determine who is the killer. Bryce works at Griffin Antiques, a gallery under the lead of Jesiba Roga. Bryce doesn’t like her boss. This was a funny relationship to read. I enjoyed how annoyed Bryce got with Jesiba. Hunt needs Bryce’s help to discover things about himself, and she, in turn learns things about herself, some shocking things! What are these things? I’ll let you read for yourself but they shocked me and kept me turning the pages! I finished this near 800 page book in a week because I just loved the story.
I read “House of Earth and Blood” because “ACOTAR” #6 has been announced to release in September 2026 and “ACOTAR” #7 in February 2027. I’ve heard that the “ACOTAR” series and “Crescent City” series are linked so I wanted to read the background in case there are crossovers in the stories. NOTE: I’ve already read “ACOTAR-ACOSF.” I’ve only read “TOG-QOS” in the “Throne of Glass” series but I don’t believe you need to read the “TOG” series as they’re separate universes. I don’t particularly like the “TOG” series either. “ACOTAR” and “Crescent City” are MUCH more my vibe and so are more enjoyable to me.
I read “House of Earth and Blood” for a few readathons, which were:
Reading Rivalry: GH - Fantasy - the genre highlight is fantasy this month. “House of Earth and Blood” includes angels, sprites, as well as half-humans and other fantasy creatures so it definitely counts.
Always Fully Booked 2026 Reading Challenge -
Always Fully Booked - On The Cover Challenge - A bird - There’s clearly a bird perching on what I think is Bryce’s hand on the cover of my hardcover copy of the book.
Spoilers Below
“For Danika, for the Pack of Devils, she’d do it. Do anything.”
Danika is the most significant person in Bryce’s life at the beginning of House of Earth and Blood. She gets killed within the first 100 pages of the book. I knew this death happened before I started reading but I thought it would have happened nearer the end. Anyway, Danika had learned of the Horn, a mystical artefact throughout “House of Earth and Blood.” Lots of characters want the Horn as it’s got power. What power? I’ll let you read for yourself but that’s revealed at the end of this first novel of the “Crescent City” series. This Horn is the artefact that most of the plot of “House of Earth and Blood” is working towards uncovering. Where is it? I’ll let you read for yourself but that reveal was shocking, at least to me but it did make sense.
“You’re two minutes late.”
He was going to throttle her. Someone should have done as a long fucking time ago.
Bryce smiled in a way that said she’d like to see him try. And sauntered toward him, scooter and helmet left behind.
Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable.
Hunt growled, “There’s no way that scooter is there when we get back.”
Bryce batted her eyelashes, fluffing out her helmet hair. “Good thing you’ve made such a big entrance. No one would dare touch it now. Not with the Umbra Morris as my wrathful companion.” - 200
This happens at around a quarter of the way through the plot. This was a funny exchange between Bryce and Hunt. Hunt is the “Umbra Mortis,” which is the bringer of death in other words. He carries out killings for the archangels. She clearly doesn’t care about being late when he does. I loved all of their back and forth conversations. It kept the character dynamics interesting for me. I loved how towards the end we could really tell a difference in their relationship to how it started. They care about each other by the end of the story, so much so that they’re in love. It wasn’t an instalove relationship either, like so many fantasy series implement these days. Bryce and Hunt truly had to work at it, becoming friends first and then, towards the end lovers, or not even lovers yet as they don’t actually make love in this book. That’ll hopefully happen in “House of Sky and Breath,” the sequel.
The relationship between Bryce and Ruhn, her cousin/half-brother is significant. Ruhn is known as her cousin to most and her half-brother to only him, her and their father, I believe, and Hunt when he enters the story. Before I started reading, I expected Ruhn to be like the wicked step brother, but he isn’t at all. It’s clear that he just wants what’s best for his sister and is only going to help her in her quest. His father, however, King of Autumn is a bastard. Not literally, but he’s horrible. He’ll support Ruhn in whatever as long as his kingdom gets something out of it, however he doesn’t like Bryce. I think I know the reason for this hate, but I don’t want to spoil it here as it’s a main point of the plot.
When Ruhn is trying to work out the location of Luna’s Horn, which no character knows for most of the plot, Bryce tries to help him. What she doesn’t know is that SHE is the location! It’s in a tattoo on her back, that Danika knew too. That’s one of the reasons why Danika was killed, so she didn’t reveal the location.
There are many betrayals and sacrifices in “House of Earth and Blood,” as there are in lots of fantasy books. The main betrayal I’d say coincides with the end of the story. Micah Domitus, the Archangel sent to watch over Bryce and Hunt and check that they’re doing what they’re meant to be doing is actually an antagonist in the story. This was a big surprise to me, as I thought Micah was a good character with no ill intent. How does this ill intent come out in terms of the plot, and where are our main characters at that point? I’ll let you determine for yourself but I really enjoyed this part. It was good to see Micah brought down as I never liked his character. He was too smarmy. As for sacrifices, Bryce literally begs the angels to take her as punishment, rather than Hunt. Of course, they don’t do this. Bryce has to work to get Hunt back to his former self. Can she? I’ll let you read for yourself!
I’ll lastly just cover the friendships in House of Earth and Blood. At the very beginning, when Danika is still alive, Bryce has her and the “Pack of Devils” as her friends, as well as a funny sprite named Lebanah, who she works at the gallery with. Bryce and Danika are planning to make “the Drop” together. “The Drop” is a thing that every supernatural creature makes at one point in their life. They need an anchor to help them come back to earth. However, when Danika dies, Bryce disassociates herself from the pack as the memories of Danika are to painful for her to bare. She obviously can’t make the Drop with a dead partner, or can she? I’ll let you read for yourself, but this was an interesting twist that I didn’t see coming. She has some romantic relationships previous to the start of the story. One of which is with Connor, one of the “Pack of Devils.” As we get more into the story, we see Bryce as quite a loner, until Hunt enters. He is to stay with her as her companion to protect her, according to Micah and the angels. As I’ve stated above, things progress between Bryce and Hunt at a slow pace but they do progress. I would have liked this to go slightly faster but I get that in this particular book, the relationship between Bryce and Hunt isn’t a main plot point. I hope it is in book 2 or 3 or maybe even both.
What I will say is while I did LOVE this book, the ending was very drawn out. After the main battle at the end (I’m not going to say who it was between, don’t worry), it could have ended and still gone onto the next book. We really didn’t need the political meeting at the Summit, I didn’t feel. Yes, let Hunt save Bryce at the end but I didn’t feel we needed the scenes of the Summit meeting. It could have happened without those and been just as good, if not better.
Overall then, I really enjoyed reading “House of Earth and Blood” and can’t wait to go onto “House of Sky and Breath” in the not so distant future. I’m really looking forward to seeing where it takes both Bryce and Hunt as individuals but also as a couple! The plot in “House of Earth and Blood” was great, and kept surprising me at lots of points. The ending was dragged out as I said but in the “TOG” series this happens too, I feel with Manon and the witches (IYKYK) so it’s not really a surprise that it happened here too. The “ACOTAR” series is far more succinct. I enjoy that plot a lot more.
I’m going to read a contemporary book next, I think to signal the start of the warmer weather so come back soon for that review. It’s book 2 to a series that I started at the end of last year if you want to guess what it’s going to be. Leave it in the comments!
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