Isle of Blood and Stone (Tower of Winds)

by Makiia Lucier

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Oh yes, this was a good one. I thought that Children of Blood and Bone was going to be the best book of the month, but I think it’s got a pretty good competition with Isle of Blood and Stone for me.

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I couldn’t put this book down, every time I’ll try, I need to come back and pick it up just so I can see what happens next. Also, despite the fact that there is both adventure and mystery in this book, it’s a slow burner, without actually feeling slow. Like Rachel Caine’s mastery over the pacing in her Great Library Series, Makiia Lucier is seemingly the same with how she took me through many many events without rushing through them and we come out in the end with extra information concerning the mystery, having seen an extra side to the characters and more importantly learned something new about her world. Elias is an explorer and the kingdom in its entirety depends on people like him because to Del Mar, being amongst those who might makes these discoveries is a very great honor. That being said, we don’t actually get to ‘see’ anything outside of Del Mar just yet.

While this point would’ve bummed me out in another book, given how I love to lose myself in new worlds, Makiia Lucier’s amazing control of the pace makes me feel like, for now, seeing Del Mar in itself is enough. On one hand, she shows me almost every single thing in the kingdom throughout the events in the book, while giving me a very real imagery of how she envisioned her old fashioned world from their customs and practices to their prejudices and all the way to some of their fauna and flora. And on the other hand gives me these very small, but numerous trivia like information about the other known kingdoms that despite how little they actually are, feels like it’s enough for a first book in anticipation for a sequel to actually visit said kingdoms and maybe discover newer things. If I had to really pin it down when it comes to genre, then the more prominent one in this book would be mystery and the adventure aspect will be taking a second seat.

Despite that last comment, both genre are actually blended in really well so that neither of them feels neglected. I mean the solving of this mystery literally takes our main characters from one location to the next where the before mentioned information unfolds, alongside the newly discovered mystery solving hints. Personally, I thought the mystery was a very fun one to solve. There were more than one mystery that played into the very big mystery, but the biggest question was “Who?” And I’m so glad that my suspicions turned out to be right in the end. I should mention this just so I won’t be giving the wrong idea about the type of mystery she has going on, Makiia Lucier doesn’t give a lot of obvious information, but she slips in these very subtle hints that for me, made some of the characters feel weird in that moment and that eventually led me to my suspicions. So I’m really glad that I didn’t expect big obvious reveals because of my earlier reads, because I would’ve probably missed that.

My only issue with this book comes down to the maps, my ebook copy contained one map at the front like most fantasies, but given that this book deals with two very special maps, I was bummed out that neither map of those special ones ever came into light in my book, because I would’ve loved to cross reference the things I’m reading in the book with the corresponding map I can see to try and play explorer from my side with the characters.

Speaking of characters, we have quite a few in this series but the main ones are Elias, Mercedes and Ulises. Elias is very laid back with a thirst for adventure and he’s not the type of protagonist who will let his emotions get the better of him every time, he’s also a refreshing POV to have as the main one given how YA fantasies tends to favor female characters as the protagonists, which I don’t really have anything against, but I do like changing it up sometimes. Ulises is our young King and he’s basically the one who took the backseat from the three of them, he’s there when we need him, but unless it’s a really big deal, the story would be mostly told from either Elias or Mercedes’s povs without him. Regardless, in his case the best thing I liked about him was his justice and morality, which is another refreshing thing to note when taking in his age.

Lastly, Mercedes is hands down the very best YA fantasy female protagonist I’ve seen in a very long time and maybe ever. She’s smart, she’s brave, she goes through many things and more importantly, she’s very aware of what is to be prioritized and actually prioritizes it! Despite the fact that I enjoy YA a lot, the romance, 9/10 times is almost always the weak point in the books for me. In this one, the romance actually makes sense; it’s in the farthest backseat there is, it’s presented in a way that doesn’t take anything from either one of them and more importantly, the romance here is built on respect which should be a given in any relationship, but I unfortunately found myself very pleasantly surprised at how this aspect was presented here.

Heard this is going to be a duology and the second book might be from Reyna’s POV which is actually pretty interesting of an idea and I definitely look forward to more, BUT don’t quote me on that just yet.

Final rating: 4.5/5