House of Earth and Blood: Crescent City, Book 1
4.7 | 151,743 ratings
Price: 36.27
Last update: 03-19-2026
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- MaraAn absolute perfection of urban fantasy by Sarah J.Mass???? House of Earth and Blood ????
By @sarahjmass
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I have no idea why I was postponing reading Crescent City series!!! I absolutely shouldn't have doubted Sarah J.Mass!
Immediately the reader is thrown into a complex magical world, with many different magical beings, and at the beginning I was wondering how am I going to follow the story and remember all the species! However, once the story actually starts plotting, it simply enchants you and immerses you into it! All I know is I could not stop reading!
This was, again, just perfect! Amazing murder mystery as a center of the story with political and social intrigue entwined with it, and many secrets and characters that made this story so rich!
Bryce and Hunt, two main characters, both very much flawed and damaged, with immense trauma package, find themselves within each other's company, not realizing at first that they are actualy healing each other! The beautiful love story between them is so nicely interlaced into the story, it seemed so natural and inevitable! And, I honestly really liked the fact that they both had a bad side to them and were real and complicated!
My mind is absolutely blowed by this, I did not expect the twists, and I am trily amazed by the impeccable writing and absolutely brilliant mind of Sarah J.Mass!! Now, I am onto book two, and can't wait!!
What to expect:
▪️reluctant allies to lovers
▪️grumpy/sunshine dinamics
▪️forced proximity
▪️broody hero with a softer side
▪️urban fantasy
▪️mystery elements
▪️complex magical world - AriStellarBeing the fan of an author's work is both a blessing and a curse. You count down the days until their next—usually hyped up—release is to be published. You talk about it more and more the closer that said release day approaches. You try to enter any possible pre-order special is available, in the hope of getting a lovely exclusive pin, or a poster, or a print.
And then the book releases...
I don't know about you, but once that book hits shelves, I am violently torn between a crazed eagerness to read it, and a nearly crippling fear that I am going to hate the book no matter how much I have loved this author's stories in the past. Which, let's face it, is one of the worst things to happen in a reader's life.
Thank you, Maas, for delivering the goods once again.
House of Earth and Blood is not a perfect novel. I'm not even sure that such a thing is possible, to be frank, because our love of books is a very personal thing. But, this novel is a punch to the heart, in the best possible way. I absolutely fell in love with the story, with the characters, with the world that was created. And it is definitely a complex and intricate world of which we get a glimpse, but that is sure to open up to us even more, and I cannot wait to continue exploring it as the series progresses.
I'm a huge fan of badass female leads in novels. What can I say, I live vicariously through them. Ironically, I usually don't like so-called “badass” female leads in novels, because most of the time what we're given are annoying females that try too hard. I initially read the sample for HoEaB that NetGalley provided, and I was a bit unsure about Bryce. She came off a tad strong for me, and I was instantly worried that this meant negativity throughout the rest of the novel. Maybe my mindset was not in its proper place then, but I am so glad that I decided to read the full novel from the first chapter again, because my opinion of Bryce completely changed.
I love this woman.
Despite the fact that we are reading a fantasy, despite the fact that Bryce is half-Fae, she is very human in her actions and emotions. She makes her mistakes, she suffers through them, she learns, she picks herself back up, puts on a new pair of teal-colored panties, and she keeps going. She's believable and realistic in who she is, and it's very easy to become connected to her.
This is actually true of the rest of the characters. They don't always connect right away—I was unsure of Hunt at first, of Ruhn, of Jesiba even—but once they do, they stick and you root for these people. You suffer with them, you are excited alongside them, you want them to kick ass and come out winning on the other side.
Hunt—or as I like to think of him in my head, Orion...such a gorgeous name—had one of the best evolutions. I can see that Maas wanted to make him this dark, introverted being at the beginning, and I saw hints of it, but I couldn't quite see him that way full-force. I think that's one of the things that made me question him for those first few chapters of his appearance in-story. I see what you want me to see, because you're telling me what to see, but that's not really who he is, and that's coming out more so than the facade he's portraying. Athie is a deep, tortured, sweet and loving male who slowly opens up to the reader, and he swept me right off my feet.
That's probably why the sudden twist at the end of the novel's third part was such a slap to the face, and the biggest problem that I had with this book.
We're navigating a story that's centered around the death of Bryce's best friend, Danika, and her pack of shape-shifting wolves—one of the most heartbreaking moments of the book, by the way, even if the synopsis warns us about it (the writing in this piece, at the start, was wonderfully done and it tore through me). Eventually, we know that Danika's death, and that of the pack, is surrounded by the use of a drug called synth, which makes people—both human and non—have strength and violence to such a degree that they can tear others apart. And the culmination of that is that Hunt is involved in this so that he, and those with him, can use this drug to help themselves be freed from those who have enslaved them.
It did not fit with his character.
Hunt, who strives to keep others safe, who works and does the horrible things that his handler, Micah, tells him to do so that he can keeps streets safe? Hunt, who deals in killing demons that come through rifts? Yes, he has been suffering for over two hundred years, and he has been tortured within an inch of his life, and the love of his life was killed in the midst of this. But to make him be a buyer, when he comes to know the consequences of the usage of synth, did not fit in with who he is. As the last part of the novel progressed, things were smoothed out a bit and it sort of fit in. But this nagged at me so much that I was not able to let it go.
I did, as a matter of fact, stop reading for the day once I hit this point, and had to force myself to pick up the book again the next day so that I could continue.
It doesn't take away from the story, mind you. I said it once, and I say it again, I love this book. I felt every single emotion that was in here, and that's one of the best things that I can ever ask for in a story: make me feel. And you certainly feel. You feel to the point of tears sometimes. Lehabah's end did it for me, that little fire sprite was one of the good ones. Bryce's phone call to Hunt when she's in the middle of taking out demons after the Gates open and knows she might very well die, did it for me again. Danika and Bryce's reunion after Bryce makes her Drop did it for me a third time. And then that bittersweet moment, near the end of the book, when Bryce gets just a glimpse of the pack and Connor waves to her, brought tears to my eyes once again.
But I still think that there is, and was, so much to explore. And while we're taken to the brink of those moments that can be darker, like the ones that Hunt described having experienced during his years with Sandriel alongside Pollux, we're not taken there. It's not that I want to see my beloved characters suffer, it's that sometimes that suffering can have room for that much more growth. Sometimes when we bypass that, things appear a little too easy.
At the end of the day, though, this was stellar. My worry was for nothing, and I am going to be suffering until the second book is so much as announced. I'm still not over the losses in this first installment, I still remember the epic scene of Bryce against Micah, of Hunt's plummet over that helicopter, of Lehabah's sacrifice. I am so curious to see how the obscure Aidas ties in with this story and what more he has to offer, and I can't even imagine how the Asteri will likely play a part in the future of this world.
Bring it on, Crescent City. I'm waiting. - Kendall v MeadA wonderful opener to the series.In terms of SJM series’ this is the one I decided to read last because the blurb didn’t sound all that interesting to me. Once I decided to start this book it took me about six or seven tries to get past the first one hundred pages, however once I did I was hooked.
I’m not even sure how to summarize this book without giving away major spoilers so if you’re intrigued I’ll send you to read the blurb (but I promise the book is better than it sounds) and I’ll just give you my thoughts here. A lot happens in the first one hundred pages and the first few times I read them I couldn’t appreciate them in all their gut wrenching glory because of how dense they were. While I’m more than okay with reading heavy fantasy novels I wasn’t anticipating it after finishing ACOTAR and TOG. I don’t typically compare books or book series but I was a little blindsided and this led to me needing to read this series when I was in the correct headspace to appreciate it. Once I dived into that headspace I can honestly say the first one hundred pages of this book were exquisite and they deserve all the hype. Maas did such a beautiful job creating a world that was fantasy at its core but was empowered by modern day elements such as smart phones and technology. I really enjoyed getting to read about the different parts of the city and the details between sections were so intricate and were well thought out, Maas had a vision and she brought it to life. I also really enjoyed the character set up coming out of the first part of this book and I liked that this set up was able to expand and grow throughout the book. I felt like I was always learning something new about each character and the way their stories were intertwined in an independent way was very unique.
I adore Bryce. I felt like she encompassed all of my favorite aspects of Aelin and Feyre but SJM ensured that she was still her own character. Bryce’s back story was intriguing to me because she grew up with parents and friends who loved her, she excelled at her passion, went to college and graduated, and she had everything going for her until tragedy struck. This juxtaposition from happy go lucky Bryce to one filled with anguish and trauma was heartbreakingly wonderful. I saw so much of myself in the way she handled her anguish and, as a retired dancer, I understood her agony over not doing it anymore. Despite her trauma I liked the little life she had built for herself and I enjoyed how she owned every aspect of it. She was smart and sassy and the world was hers for the taking. I also really enjoyed Hunt. I thought his trauma balanced out Bryce’s well and I enjoyed watching him break out of his shell as the story went on. We started to see glimpses of him smiling and caring for others again in a way that was timid yet strong. Both of these characters felt like two wholes that intertwined around each other to create one beautiful bond. They were still independent people but, as the story went on we were able to see them open up and lean on each other. Their bond felt natural, like they were always meant to be.
My one issue with this book, hence the four stars instead of five, was the pacing. While I do think the first part of the book is well written - and I was able to enjoy it after a few tries - I do think the dense material impacted the pacing of the rest of the book. There were times where I wished more time was spent on a new area Bryce had visited or more background was given on how specific cultural phenomena came to be but it felt like there was no time. After the first portion of the book I felt like the whole thing needed to be plot to keep the story going but it felt like there was no time to stop and smell the roses.
Overall I did enjoy this book and I think it was a wonderful opener to the rest of Bryce’s story. I would recommend it to those who love a good romantasy but I would also recommend it to those who love high fantasy, this book gives you the best of both worlds without one taking away from the other.