UptownOracle in Book Reviews

Uptown Oracle Reads… Blood of the Four

In the great kingdom of Quandis, everyone is a slave. Some are slaves to the gods. Most are slaves to everyone else. Blessed by the gods with lives of comfort and splendor, the royal elite routinely perform their duties, yet some chafe at their role. A young woman of stunning ambition, Princess Phela refuses to allow a few obstacles—including her mother the queen and her brother, the heir apparent—stand in the way of claiming ultimate power and glory for herself. Far below the royals are the Bajuman. Poor and oppressed, members of this wretched caste have but two paths out of servitude: the priesthood . . . or death. Because magic has been kept at bay in Quandis, royals and Bajuman have lived together in an uneasy peace for centuries. But Princess Phela’s desire for power will disrupt the realm’s order, setting into motion a series of events that will end with her becoming a goddess in her own right . . . or ultimately destroying Quandis and all its inhabitants.

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Blood of the Four
Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon

As a fantasy love, I found Blood of the Four to be a fantastic book and I adored the majority of reading it. It has some insane world building for the kingdom as a whole but also the city. There’s history and religion that’s fleshed out, but not info dumped on you. Plus there’s some fantastic descriptions as we explore the world with our characters. It really peaked for me as I love the world building element in any fantasy novel.

Having magic the way it is in this book was unusual and it completely paid off. Magic is a bit like an addiction if you go straight into it at full strength. Multiple characters show that if you delve into it too quickly then you become dependent on it, whereas the priests of the religion only take a little every so often and can manage. We’re shown different ways of handling the magic as well which was wonderful to read as these people are all different.

I loved most of the characters. At the start I loved Phela and was excited to see her story arc, and absolutely loved how she fell from grace in her reach for power. Even though she becomes the villain, it’s still fascinating to read her thoughts and her view on everything. Blane and Daria were great to see how they both tried to get away from their Bajuman heritage and become above the role of a slave. There’s also some great supporting characters that pop in and out, who although don’t have much depth were great next to the main characters.

I personally found Demos’s storyline to by whiny and entitled. And at the end of the book he still felt like he owned Myrinne because he loved her which annoyed me to no end. His thoughts show that if her attention is not solely to him that he will feel bad and like he’s ‘losing her’. Although this thought process is something that happens in real life, I really wanted to skip his chapters because it bugged me so much.

The other characters however saw a very distinct growth from the beginning of the book to the end. And I enjoyed watching them as their ideals changed and their plans were concocted.

The book is a standalone, and so definitely suffers from being packed so full of information and action. Although I do think that it was written extremely well and kept me intrigued to the very end.