Blood Like Fate (Blood Like Magic #2)
Liselle Sambury
Synopsis: Voya Thomas may have passed her Calling to become a full-fledged witch, but the cost was higher than she’d ever imagined.
Her grandmother is gone. Her cousin hates her. And her family doesn’t believe that she has what it takes to lead them.
What’s more, Voya can’t let go of her feelings for Luc, sponsor son of the genius billionaire Justin Tremblay—the man that Luc believes Voya killed. Consequently, Luc wants nothing to do with her. Even her own ancestors seem to have lost faith in her. Every day Voya begs for their guidance, but her calls go unanswered.
As Voya struggles to convince everyone—herself included—that she can be a good Matriarch, she has a vision of a terrifying, deadly future. A vision that would spell the end of the Toronto witches. With a newfound sense of purpose, Voya must do whatever it takes to bring her shattered community together and stop what’s coming for them before it’s too late.
Even if it means taking down the boy she loves—who might be the mastermind behind the coming devastation.
My Rating: 4.5 Stars – rounded up to 5.
Cover 5; characters 5; plot 4; pace 3; writing 5; enjoyment 4; cry *
My Review: What can I say about BLOOD LIKE FATE that isn’t just THIS WAS AMAZING. Because it was. My review vlog will be live tomorrow so I’ll add it HERE when it’s live.
Things I loved about this book:
The Characters. Liselle’s character work is literally some of the best in the business. They are not only complete people but they’re flawed, interesting, diverse, and relatable. The way the Thomas family and the rest of the Black witch community operate is just so well done. By the end of the book I really couldn’t be happier with where things left off. It was really just a beautiful ode to their families and their ancestors and I loved it.
The community. This community of Black witches goes through some growing pains during this duology. The way they view themselves, pure vs. impure and how that ideology changes throughout both books is done so well. When we begin a person making a single choice can ruin the status of their entire family. And Voya sees things in a more gray area and her sharing that with the community makes them grow in a great way. Not to mention that there are SO MANY other families outside of the main five who get to take a baby step forward here and I enjoyed getting to see more of this world.
Which leads me to, the magic system. This is one of my all-time favorite magic systems. It’s so incredibly simple and yet vastly different from what you normally see. The magic isn’t really a thing you learn, you can’t just decide you want someone’s gift, that gift is given to you by your ancestors and for the most part it feels like the ancestors give the witches the gift that will best suit them. Listen, there was a girl in this book who her gift was to grow in fingernails at will and that may sound like a silly gift, but my nails SUCK and I would LOVE to be able to grow them at will.
It would be a disservice to readers to mention that as much as I loved this book, I do think the pacing was a bit off for the middle bit of the book. It did get a bit meandering and there were some parts that I felt myself just being like “CAN WE GET TO THE ACTION ALREADY.” but I’m a patient person and I was able to make it.
This book was so, so good and I clearly had a great time with it. I cried a lot, these characters really hurt me in a way other characters don’t. It was definitely a hit in the feels.
I received an eARC from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I am also friends with the author.
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To see more of my reviews, head over to the reviews page on my website.