I love Ikenna and her world - I was so excited to see this was on Netgalley. I tried to read it months ago but realised it had been too long since I'd read book 1, so I needed a reread! Finally got around to doing that and I'm glad I did. Loved being back in the Republic and Mareen and seeing all the old gang again. N. E. Davenport has such a good way of storytelling - the worldbuilding especially is really good. It's very thorough and all the places she describes you can imagine being in the same world. It all just.. MAKES SENSE. And the character development is really special. Kenna manages to stay her old chaotic angsty self but also grow into this incredible badass woman. We love to see it.

I gave this 4 stars - but I will say it probably could've been two books instead of one. Feel like there were two big climaxes which would've been great to split into two.

THE BLOOD GIFT explores the magical side of THE BLOOD TRIALS in this sequel.

This book can be summed up as "Ikenna fights everyone she comes across". If you thought she fought a lot of people in THE BLOOD TRIALS, this one makes that look like a pleasant stroll. She decides to go up against: an emperor, the tribunal, a fair few gods, and every other person who crosses her path.

However, unlike the betrayals and close losses of the previous book, this time Ikenna is not fighting on her own. She has a strong team around her (though Enzo completely drops off the face of the planet - I would have liked him to have more than a one line reference given his importance in the last book.) I enjoyed seeing her having people she can rely on, compared to the uncertainty and animosity of the previous book.

Where THE BLOOD TRIALS felt more like it fit into the science-fantasy space with a lot of technology and a little magic, THE BLOOD GIFT felt more firmly in the fantasy space. The magic takes the centre, tangled up with the various, vicious gods of the world getting involved in the conflict with their own agendas. It is quite a different tone to the previous books.

The book ends with the series' primary goals achieved. However, it doesn't feel like a series finale, but rather like it's trying to set up more books in the series by promising a new threat for Ikenna and her crew to take down. If there are more books to come, then I think this will end up feeling more satisfying, but if not it feels like a big promise that won't be fulfilled.

DNF 40%. I really enjoyed The Blood Trials back when I read it last year : even though Ikenna frustrated me at times, I had fun with the trials and was looking forward to see how the story would expand in this sequel. Unfortunately after months of trying, I'm stopping The Blood Gift at 40%. Everything feels a bit too rushed—Ikenna's growth in particular—and I just can't seem to stay immersed in the story as a result. I'll still check N.E. Davenport's books in the future because I think they have potential!

While I loved The Blood Trials, the sequel falls slightly short due to what seems like a rushed conclusion. The author initially planned a trilogy but was offered a duology, leading to the second book feeling cramped with unresolved subplots. The narrative lacks the smoothness of the first book. Despite this concern, the book offers action and emotional resolution from the first installment, maintaining excellent worldbuilding. While it may not meet the high expectations set by its predecessor, it's still worthwhile for fans of the first book.

This series to me was like a little underrated undiscovered gem and I am so so pleased I got on board and kick started what was to be an exciting action packed ride! This conclusion was well-executed and however much I wish it wasn't so we'd get a book three. but... we move!

the pacing sets a different tone in this one which I think complements the story well. I fully embraced this world and I'd love to return someday.

3.5 stars rounded up

Tonally, this wasn’t a match for the first book for me. It was somehow less gritty, even though there was still plenty of killing, and Ikenna’s arrogance and impulsivity often came off as immature in a way they didn’t before. The ending played into this - everything is tied up more easily that I expected, and more neatly too… and yet still missing things. Other reviews mention that the author wanted it to be a trilogy, so I guess that’s probably responsible for the little plot holes throughout and the loose ties at the end, but it’s still left me with some ‘meh’ feelings.

As with the first book, I really enjoyed the worldbuilding. It’s a mix of fantasy and science fiction, expanding on the system of the gods that were hinted in book one, and it’s not at all info-dumpy, we get the information just when we need to. The action scenes were all well-written, with good use of tension and a variety of fight choreography.

Ikenna and Reed’s relationship continues to blossom, and we got some (spicy!!) spice and some much-needed conversations. He had a stabilising effect on Ikenna, helping her calm down and/or acknowledge her feelings when needed. However I felt the relationship development was weighted to the first half of the book, and it sort of plateaued later on. I also would have liked to see them talk about Verne more - we got some interesting insights into Reed’s relationship with him in the first book, but he was much less vulnerable with Ikenna then. There was a depth there left unexplored, given Verne’s importance to the both of them. However it was already a long book, so I understand that maybe there wasn’t room.

Ikenna is a particularly verbose narrator, which played into my frustration in the second half of the book - it was already a long book, and having twice as many words given to Ikenna’s interiority than necessary to make the point dragged it out for me. Despite all that, when I put it down I always wanted to pick it up again, so while it took several weeks to get through it, I never wanted to DNF. There was always something pushing me to the next plot point.

Fantastic sci-fantasy adventure! The Blood Gift was unputdownable! This second part of The Blood Gift duology was such a wonderful follow up from the first book. We follow Ikenna, who after the loss of her grandfather in the first book, now has her chance for revenge. Meanwhile the Blood emperor is growing in strength with no one to keep him in check.

Ikenna has grown since the first book, she's working on her rashness, which often got her into trouble and undoubtedly still does in the second. But it's very clear she's working on it. She's also learning to let people in after the death of her grandfather, which leads to some brilliant found family moments. I particularly loved that an antagonist from the first book becomes one of her biggest supporters in the second. These characters were fully fleshed out and allowed to make mistakes, often very horrible mistakes, and atone for them, or not.

A novel about way more than just epic set pieces (though the worldbuilding really is fascinating), it is also about love and loss, found family, fear and anguish. There might even be hints that there will another spin off, maybe duology to follow and I cannot wait to find out if this is true. Though I am very happy with how this final installment wrapped up. A firm favourite I will be recommending a lot.

'High-octane action sequences marred by slogging pace' perfectly describes THE BLOOD GIFT.

I had a similar issue with THE BLOOD TRIALS in that about 70% of the way Ikenna succeeds in her primary goal but then the story continues as it wraps up multiple side stories and sees the rise of another, more dangerous villain. While it's tolerable in the first book, here it utterly killed the pacing and made me lose total interest, so much that I put the book down for a week to wait for the opportunity to skim the rest in one go. I really hate to say I found majority of it boring, but I did.

That said, I still found Ikenna to be the most engaging character, tough, resilient and compelling if only for her no-nonsense personality. I also liked Reed as well, but the rest of the supporting cast I never felt like I really got to know before the book ended.

WILL I READ MORE BY THIS AUTHOR? Depends.

Thank you Netgalley and Harper voyager for the e-Arc, for exchange for my honest opinion and veiws.

The first book Blood Trial blew me away and now Blood Gift has topped that. I was drawn in and couldn't stop reading as every page had me hooked right up until the finale. I found the pacing of the story just right and I was able to absorb and read it much better than the first book because I was slowed down by trying to remember who everyone was and the different classes.
A good balance of action and storytelling I will definitely be ordering this book for my library, this was a good end of the duology.
Can't to see what stories N.E. Davenport writes next, so happy to see more protagonists that look like me that are strong and beautiful.

The Blood Gift is the sequel to The Blood Trials which was one of my favourite reads last year. I was so excited for the sequel & it did not disappoint!

This book is as action packed and fast paced as book 1 but we get to see so much more of the world as Ikenna travels to multiple locations as she works out how to kill the Blood Emperor.
The blend of scifi & fantasy was so good and the magic system was so interesting.

Ikenna also has a group of rogue warriors and I love them so much! They have such interesting dynamics especially as some were enemies before deciding to join Ikenna in her quest.
We get to see each of them grow and the relationships change as the story progresses and they all prove to each other that they have each other’s backs.
I loved that they didn’t immediately all become friends but still developed trust over time.

The story is absolutely action packed and had me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I was STRESSED but I just couldn’t stop reading.
This book does not shy way from showing the battles and it does get quite graphic. It also does not shy away from showing the people who suffer most in these grabs for power.

There are discussions about elitism, classism, racism, sexism & corrupt governments and I really loved seeing how Ikenna and her team try to make systemic change to deal with these.

The ending left me shook and I hope we will be getting more stories of Ikenna and her group of warriors. I absolutely need more!

Amazon Summary
Ikenna is now a fugitive with a colossal bounty on her head. Yet, somehow that’s the least for her worries. Her grandfather’s long time allies refuse to help, and the Blood Emperor’s Warlord is tracking her. She’s also struggling to control the enormous power she was granted by the Goddess of Blood Rites … and come to terms with the promises she made to get such power.

Amidst all of this, the Blood Emperor leaves decimated cities, war crimes, and untold death in his wake. As the horrors increase, Ikenna and her team realize they must assassinate the Blood Emperor and quickly end the war. His killing may have planet-shattering consequences. But to do nothing means annihilation.

My review
This is a epic conclusion to an amazing duology. I love the blood trials so much and this was just as good: I loved seeing the characters relationships develop further and really

Great world building again and the plot was actioned packed. A very enjoyable read.

I like the first part of this duology but didn't loved it. This one was very entertaining and I enjoyed it.
Fast paced, well plotted and gripping.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This is the second and final book in The Blood Gift Duology by N.E Davenport following Ikenna an elite warrior and her rag tag team of cohorts as they outrun their energies.

Fast paced, action paced sci fi final book that was decent but not perfect round up of a series,
This duology should have been a trilogy in my opinion, a lot of things that built up in the first book didn’t have enough time to get marinate, both the first and especially this book had pacing issues which I thin) steamed from fitting a complex and packed story into a duology instead of a longer series.

This is still a series I enjoyed and would recommend but the publishers or the author fumbled the bag by choosing the formatting of this story.

So, the good news is, compared to the first book, Ikenna frustrated me a lot less. The bad news is, this left space in my head to start noticing a lot of things about the writing, and none of it made me very happy.

Plot-wise, this is a complete departure from book one, which makes sense considering where we left off. There's no mystery left. Ikenna and her team are hellbent on getting rid of the corruption within Mareen. Before they can do that, they need to take care of the Blood Emperor, who is once more terrorizing the planet. It's a very straightforward plot of "how are we going to defeat the bad guys", but it's fairly fast-paced and overall entertaining enough. And I mostly liked the characters. But a lot of this doesn't feel like it's the end of a series. This is reinforced by the end of the book, which basically implies there's a whole new story waiting to happen. Things are set up by the author that never get any payoff. For example, the book starts off with Ikenna trying to broker an alliance with someone on the wrong side of the law. She demands soldiers and weapons, only she doesn't really do much with either of them afterwards, or with the alliance in general. There's maybe one or two off-hand mentions, and that's it, which makes me wonder why the author bothered to include it at all. It also leans a lot more fantasy than science fiction compared to The Blood Trials.

Other than all the major plot conveniences that riddle this story, I have two major criticisms.

The first has to do with Ikenna. Look, I get that she was always going to be special as our main character. She has the Blood Gift and all of that. But her level of special receives like three upgrades over the course of this book, and I guess it's not something I expect to see if we're talking about an adult fantasy. This much Chosen One-ness is something I see more often within YA, and it irked me. I also had trouble buying into her supposed development. One of my biggest issues with the first book was how little she thought things through, and how she kept deciding that people were murderers based on very flimsy "evidence". Only now I'm supposed to believe that she has become some sort of strategic mastermind.

But I could've ignored that, because I didn't have very high expectations for her anyway. However, I couldn't ignore all the issues I had with the writing.

The author relies very, very heavily on similes/comparisons, whether they're necessary or not. Ikenna can never just be angry, she has to be angry like a thousand raging suns. Something can't just hurt, it hurts like fifty daggers stabbing into her stomach one after the other, the last one dragging her intestines out of her, so a final blade can twist into them until twenty gallons of blood come pouring out.

I just don't think the writing is very good in general, and if you're someone who tends to see patterns and stylistic choices within the writing, you might be bothered.

Loved

5 ⭐️

Will definitely be looking out for this author again


Thanks netgalley for the arc copy

Thank you for my earc of this book.
I loved the first book and was v excited to continue the story.
Though I loved being back with these characters, there were times it felt a little slow which drew me out of the story a bit. Overall I really enjoyed it though

This was a fitting and action packed conclusion to the duology that I enjoyed, although not quite as much as the first book. It was really interesting to see the character development of both Ikenna and Reed and I thought moving the action into the Blood Empire was a wise choice as it successfully expanded the world. The dialogue was more polished in this second book, which was great but there were certain writing choices that I felt were a bit overused - the short phrase with full stops between each word became pretty annoying. The plot was more expansive here and I thought the story concluded in a satisfying way while leaving enough room for further books set in the same world. Overall, I really enjoyed this duology and I will definitely pick up future books from this author.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I requested the ARC for this conclusion without even reading the first book because of all the comparisons made to Red Rising and I totally see it - The Blood Heir was brutal and when I finally read it, I had such a great time. I was extremely excited to see how the duology would wrap up but this book was a disappointment at so many levels.

To cut it short, the pacing was just all over the place. It felt like 2 books being crammed into 1 with the plot just jumping from one event to the other. This resulted in not enough character exploration or development of relationships between characters. We don't get to sit with the characters or acknowledge their trauma. There's a rag-tag group kind of situation and two of the characters are so inconsequential - they add absolutely nothing to the story and at this point I don't even remember their names.

There are two main conflicts which needs resolution and both are quite hyped up but when it comes to it both gets resolved fairly quickly because the MC has turned into an ultra powerful human and literally goes on a killing spree in the last 20% of the book. I personally, would have loved to see her strive harder and go on a journey to learn and understand her powers more intimately.

The best analogy that I can think of to describe this book is that it pulled A Game of Thrones ( last season) where the main antagonist who was so hyped up but turns out to be a douche of a mustache twirling variety is dealt with at about 70% mark and then we just go and deal with some political stuff but we are mad so we kill off everyone.

To conclude, there was a lot of buildup but not enough pay-off with so many plot points still left unattended. What's more the book still managed to have an ending that left things wide open for future books. Why not just have a trilogy and deal with the above mentioned 2 conflicts separately in each book?

Sadly, I am not invested enough to continue if/when more books do come out in this world.

First of all thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this in advance of it being published. I really enjoyed the first book and was excited for this one to be published. I loved the plot of this book and with the direction in which it went was quite clever. I enjoyed the way the characters developed. As I was reading it, it kept me intrigued on what was happening and it mean that I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened.

The Blood Trials was one of my favourite reads when I read it. The Blood Gift was just as good. Again, more strong females - I love that so much! For some reason both times I went in thinking they were YA (they’re definitely adult). But I’m glad they’re adult. Stories feel so much more real when they’re unfiltered. N E Davenport is a great writer, and I look forward to reading any future books she releases! A great wrap up the the duology!