Series Spotlight - Crescent City by Sarah J Maas
Welcome to the Series Spotlight, here we’ll be showcasing a specific series each month, telling you about the book, the author and whether or not you need to pick this series up if you haven’t already. For January, in lue with the release of the third book we’ll be showcasing the Cresecent City series by Sarah J Maas.
First a little about the author, SJM is a well known fantasy author, so far her books conist of the Throne of Glass series, the A Court of Thorns and Roses series and finally the Crescent City series. Throne of Glass is currently her ownly finished series and the only one that focuses more heavily on the plot than the romance.
Moving onto the series we’ll be focusing on. The first book in the series, House of Earth and Blood came out in 2020 and was a massive hit. If you haven’t read this series you’ll find it’s quite different to the other two series. This one is set in a semi-realistic world where the characters have the technology that we do such as phones and live in apartment buildings, the world itself is different from ours but when SJM describes the city, it’s something you can picture being a place here just minus all the supernatural beings.
The book starts off with our main character Bryce Quinlan, who worked hard all day and partied all night, until one night a demon murders her closest friends. Bryce finds herself in the middle of the investigation when the accused murderer is behind bars but the murders continue to occur. She will do whatever it takes to avenge the deaths of her friends.
Bryce is soon teamed up with the notorious Hunt Athalar a Fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. His brutal skills and incredible strength have been set to one purpose-to assassinate his boss's enemies, no questions asked. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he's offered an irresistible deal: help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach.
As Bryce and Hunt dig deep into Crescent City's underbelly, they discover a dark power that threatens everything and everyone they hold dear, and they find, in each other, a blazing passion-one that could set them both free, if they'd only let it.
House of Earth and Blood is an extremely strong start to a new series, after the first 100 pages of the 800 page tome (there is a bit of info dumping but considering the size of the book, 100 pages of info dumping isn’t too bad), you can really start to dig your teeth in and get invested in Bryce and her journey for vengeance, all the characters are well-flushed out and intriguing, including some of the side characters who you won’t be able to help but fall in love with.
We can’t go into too much detail about the second book as we’d like to avoid spoilers for anyone who hasn’t started or continued the series yet. But what we can tell you is House of Sky and Breath is action-packed and weaves a captivating story. The book also goes in a direction you wouldn’t have seen coming, nothing in the first book gives you the tiniest hint about what’s to come.
Of course we can’t tell you anything about the third book, House of Flame and Shadow, as we have not read it yet and at the time of writing has not yet been released. However we are extremely intrigued to see where this installment of the Crescent City series takes us.
If you would like a copy of any books in the series you can pop into the shop or contact us via email or phone. We have copies House of Earth and Blood & House of Sky and Breath in paperback and we will have plenty of copies of House of Flame and Shadow in hardback for release day, Tuesday 30th of January!