Bloodleaf (Bloodleaf Trilogy, #1)

by Crystal Smith

Aurelia is a princess, but they call her a witch.
 
Surrounded by spirits and burdened with forbidden magic, she lives in constant fear of discovery by the witch-hunting Tribunal and their bloodthirsty mobs. When a devastating assassination attempt reveals her magical abilities, Aurelia is forced to flee her country with nothing but her life.
 
Alone and adrift in an enemy kingdom, Aurelia plans her revenge against the Tribunal, desperate to bring down the dark organization that has wrought terror upon her people for hundreds of years. But there’s something deeply amiss in her new home, too, and soon she finds herself swept into a deadly new mystery with a secretive prince, the ghost of an ancient queen, and a poison vine called Bloodleaf.
 
Aurelia is entangled in a centuries-long game of love, power, and war, and if she can’t break free before the Tribunal makes its last move, she may lose far more than her crown.

• ISBN10: 0358242258
• ISBN13: 9780358242253
• Publish Date: 5 May 2020 (first published 12 March 2019)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Clarion Books
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[tweetybugshouse]

This is an interesting story i heard it suppose to based on a grim fairy tale i never read so i just gonna set that aside and review this as the story itself. We have two kingdoms Renalt and Achleva one which is ruled by the tribunal who hates magic and witches and the other where magic is less controlled. Our main character is destined to be wed to the sickly prince of Achleva.

Here where the story starts to pick up our princess runs away and uncovers a plot that will tear both kingdoms a part. Also mixed up in all this is a mysterious plant called blood leaf. Oh and our main princess can see and hear ghosts. I ended up rating this a solid 3 due to the fact that i not really sure that i sold on how the blood leaf works. I did get the whole one kingdom taking over another one by means of murdering and taking down some magic wall. It just was not solidly portrayed to me what the point of it was. It can heal death or poison someone. Also i was quite confused on the whole invitations that you got over the wall but still you got zapped really bad by the magic. In all this need up being a middle of the road read for me.

[Cocktails and Books]

4.5 Cocktails

I really enjoyed this start to the series. Aurelia/Emilie was so lonely and somewhat broken but at the same time, she showed enormous strength and compassion (despite very few people being compassionate to her). When she and Zan meet, you could instantly tell these two were destined. For what we had to wait and see. But it was an action-packed ride getting there.

I look forward to more from this series and what's to come.

[Terri M. LeBlanc]

The physical world of Bloodleaf is beautiful. I was able to easily see the city of Achlev and its magical wall. Smith's writing is lyrical and there are at least two scenes that brought tears to my eyes.

Since this is already listed as a series in Goodreads, I felt the ending was tied up a bit too neatly. I expected more of a cliffhanger. Not that the ending is unsatisfactory, but there is nothing I feel I absolutely need to know that would compel me to read the next book in the series.

I received a copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

[girlinthepages]

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.Thank you so much to HMH Teen for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

Bloodleaf arrived at my doorstep on one of the last days of 2018, completely unexpectedly and I was thrilled! Though I hadn't heard much about the title before, it came in absolutely beautiful packaging with a stunning cover that had me eager to dive into the book, despite sometimes having an on and off relationship with YA fantasy. Upon doing a little research, I also found out that the story was not only fantasy but a retelling of the Goose Girl fairy tale. I promptly brushed up on my fairy tale reading so I could go into Bloodleaf with a decent framework for the plot and was pleasantly surprised that I not only enjoyed the novel but that it did reignite a desire within me to read more YA fantasy!

Bloodleaf centers around Princess Aurelia, a despised member of the royal family and feared and scorned by most of her own country's subjects as they suspect her of witchcraft in a society where magic is feared and reviled in equal measure. In reality they are not that far off, as Aurelia is a practitioner of blood magic, although rather untrained from having to practice in secret her entire life. After an attempted assassination that forces her to show her hand in practicing magic, the plot begins to loosely follow that of the fairy tale Goose Girl, as Aurelia escapes to another kingdom disguised as a commoner while another girl has stolen her identity. Unsurprisingly, without the weight and scrutiny that comes along with her royal title, Aurelia is able to practice both her magic and her independence while trying to position her country as favorably as possible while in hiding.

While Bloodleaf has a lot of elements that are consistent with YA fantasy novels (a special snowflake heroine, an inevitable romance with the exasperating-yet-handsome-and-enigmatic-male-character, overlooking some key consequences for the sake of plot, etc...) it was the first YA fantasy book I can remember reading recently that centered blood magic as the forefront of its fantasy system. While it may seen morbid or disdainful, it actually makes sense that one's blood would be the cause and catalyst for magic, as the magic wielder must draw their power from their own essence. I liked how blood magic (which usually has a negative context in media) was shown as something the "heroes" of the series used, and the rituals were detailed and the impacts of the cost of the magic were important to the plot. The basis of a fantasy system in blood magic made the fantasy elements more tangible and the consequences carry more weight.While Aurelia was a so-so character for me (I think she made a LOT of poor decisions but also trying to remember she's supposed to be a teenager...) there were quite a few secondary characters who I enjoyed and who's stories I became invested in. I found myself completely caught up in Kate and Nathaniel's story, and felt my heart warm at Aurelia's tense yet loving relationship with her little brother and the games they played by leaving colored ribbons to communicate with each other, and how it turned from a game to a method of wartime communication and survival later on in the book. Smith did a great job of adding in little details that fleshed out Aurelia's relationship with the secondary characters in this novel which strengthened my investment in the story as a reader.

One of my biggest worries about reading fantasy novels is that they will put me in a reading slump due to their slow pacing, but I found Bloodleaf to be paced quite well and there was even a twist at the end that I was surprised I didn't catch! However, I did find myself getting a little mixed up with some of the world building regarding the historical figures in the past who set the stage for the events playing out in the book's present timeline, and would have found some sort of index or family tree or something helpful, especially as I think these figures will continue to play an important role in future books in the series.

Overall: Bloodleaf is a retelling of a less prominently used fairy tale and is based in a unique magic system that I found to be compelling and original. While Aurelia was just an OK protagonist for me, I overall enjoyed this story that merges fantasy retelling with witchcraft elements and sets up for some intriguing potentialities in future installments!This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages

[alisoninbookland]

I hate to sound so harsh because Bloodleaf was enjoyable enough. It just wasn’t as amazing as I was hoping it would be.

Full review here.

[Beth C.]

I went into this book hearing A LOT of hype about it. For me - it was a really good, entertaining read with a cool magic system and some characters (ghosts count as characters...right?) that I truly came to love.

It was a bit annoying that the "bad" characters were...simply straight-up bad. There was nothing redeeming about them at all. One (NO SPOILERS) has a back-story explanation that will make sense, but the other? Notsomuch. Even the worst of us tend to have *something* in us that keeps us from being a cartoon character bad guy...and the BEST bad guys are the ones who are torn, who have moments of verging on goodness. However, obviously - this was nothing that kept me from enjoying (greatly) the story. It is a nitpick flaw, at least for me, considering the strength of many of the other characters.

This is the start of a trilogy, and I have a couple of theories about how the remaining two books would go. One would be a straight-up spoiler, so I'm not going to write it here. I will just say it has something to do with a bloodied piece of fabric. The other has me wondering if books two and three will deal with the other two forms of magic?

Overall, once I really got into the book, I quite enjoyed it. The end moved extremely quickly, but even the beginning wasn't terribly slow. I will quite definitely be reading the second book at whatever point it comes out, and I it will be interesting to see where the story goes from here.

[Leigha]

I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

A princess goes undercover in another kingdom after a failed assassination attempt in this young adult fantasy romance.

No way to break this easily – princess Aurelia is the dumbest princess I have ever met. This novel should be renamed to Aurelia and Her Awful, No Good, Stupid Choices. It seemed to me the author had the plot outlined, but she didn’t know how to make it move in that direction without sacrificing her main character. Over half of Aurelia’s problems are her poor choices and lack of awareness. It would be one thing if she started the novel with poor critical thinking skills, learning them as she developed her magic. However, Aurelia continued to make either poor decisions or rash decisions as the novel progressed.

On top of a problematic protagonist, the novel suffered from too many tropes and a data dump of world building. It was easy to guess the twists for everything from Aurelia’s love interest to the big bad of the novel. I liked some of the secondary characters, particularly Kate and Zan, but they are never used beyond propping up Aurelia’s story line. I will say the ending includes a satisfactory resolution to the plot as well as the characters. Perhaps there will be a sequel, although I have no interest in reading it.

tl;dr A problematic protagonist, too many tropes, and unorganized world building left me not really enjoying this novel.