Fans of Susan Dennard's New York Times bestselling Witchlands series have fallen in love with the Bloodwitch Aeduan. And now, finally, comes his story.
High in a snowy mountain range, a monastery that holds more than just faith clings to the side of a cliff. Below, thwarted by a lake, a bloodthirsty horde of raiders await the coming of winter and the frozen path to destroy the sanctuary and its secrets.
The Bloodwitch Aeduan has teamed up with the Threadwitch Iseult and the magical girl Owl to stop the destruction. But to do so, he must confront his own father, and his past.
I've finally read Susan Dennard's Bloodwitch! Took me most of the week due to crazy hectic work life and then just other crazy life things. This is Aeduan's book, i.e. the book I've been waiting for ever since Truthwitch ended! Lol! Though my memory is fuzzy on all things Truthwitch and Windwitch, naturally, I do remember having a fierce fascination with Aeduan ever since he started hunting Iseult and Safi. That this was "his" book had me immensely excited, though I was quick to remember that even though the book has his "title" and he's on the cover, this story isn't just Aeduan's, sadly, as I definitely could happily read a book that was more focused on him!
So as I said, there was no recap that I could find about Truthwitch or any of the books in the series. I had taken notes for Windwitch, but they were kind of lacking, and I was soon to remember that it was because SOOOO much happens in these books and I must not have taken too many details down and was just focusing on the big events, well, I tried to take more nonsensical notes this time! Anywho, we soon find ourselves back with Iseult, Aeduan, and Owl. Aeduan had been hit with many arrows and was weakened severely and for whatever reason his Bloodwitch powers were not healing him the way they should be.
We do get to have a little more insight to Aeduan and his past. I know we had some point of view chapters from him the last few go arounds, but I can't recall if there were many or not. This time, I'd say that there was a nice even dose of chapter time for each of the characters. Moving on, we get to see more of Aeduan's past in brief flashes and omg, some of them had me tearing up. I was a wreck.
Meanwhile Safi is still a "guest" of sorts with Vaness, Vivia is trying to keep her place as Queen-in-waiting, but it seems her father has other ideas. Then there's Merik who is trying to help Ryber out and possibly find a way to cure Kullen, but then finds himself a prisoner to Esme who's a Nomatsi. I so wish I had a better memory for the history on who's who for this world! That's the trouble with fantasys, there is SO much history to remember and all the different groups of people and which ones are evil, which ones are good, and which ones you can never really tell anything about! Lol.
While my mind is really scatter-brained at the moment regarding this book, I can say that it was still an amazing read! I loooooved having Iseult and Aeduan spend time together, even if Aeduan was always leaving Iseult it seemed. They definitely don't have a relationship like Merik and Safi did...from what I can vaguely recall.
What bothered me most about this book was how everyone was separated! It was driving me nuts! Best friends are apart, lovers are apart, no one knows if so-and-so is alive, though we all know the whereabouts and life statuses of everyone, the characters don't and it was bonkers! For me at least! And then of course there were the characters that were somewhat secondary that I knew I was supposed to know who they were and their importance, but naturally, I couldn't figure it out. I was basically taking social cues from whichever character we were "following" at the time.
The pacing to this one was still pretty good though! It amazes me that in the three years that this series has been running, it's only been like two weeks for the characters! Granted by the end, it might be more like three if that, but it's just wow! So much time has gone by for us and yet, no time at all has gone by for them. It's almost like each book is a just a day or two total, but then we hop around to each of the characters for the duration that it hardly feels like time has moved at all. But yet it has! Because SOOOO much goes on for these characters in that short amount of time!
This book pretty much had it all, action, adventure, romance, betrayals, shocking surprise after shocking surprise! It's a little mind-boggling sometimes, but as I tend to do with magical fantasy reads, I just roll with it! I guess the only thing I would've liked to seen more of was a little kissing! True, there were still some spine-tingling moments in the area of romance, but I wish there was just a teeny tiny bit more! Lol! The me from the start of this blog never would've imagined myself saying that! Lol!!!
So while my memory might have made this one a tad hard to get back into after so much time away, I still found that I enjoyed Bloodwitch! I mean, it centered around my favorite character of the series! And it ended on some high notes, yet in true Susan Dennard fashion, there were some cliffhangers. More mind-numbingly agonizing ones, but hopefully book four of the series won't be too far behind this time around! Bloodwitch was totally worth the wait and it fulfilled all my reader's heart's desires! Now I just need to have book 4 asap!
Overall Rating 4/5 stars
