Blood & Steel Review
Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Spice Rating: 🌶️
What is Blood & Steel?
Blood & Steel is the first book in The Legends of Thezmarr, a completed 4-part epic, romantic fantasy. It is author Helen Scheurer’s debut into the subgenre, having previously written YA fantasy. The main four books of the series need to be read in publication order they are: Blood & Steel, Vows & Ruins, Fate & Furies, and Shadow & Storms. Scheurer also offers a short prequel novella that describes the events leading up to our main character’s story in Blood & Steel for free. Sign up for Scheurer’s newsletter to receive the free prequel, An Alchemist’s Vow.
The series also contains a standalone book, Slaying the Shadow Prince which follows the story of important side characters and offers insight into the behavior and motivations of the main male characters. This book can be read in several places. First, it can be read between An Alchemist’s Vow and Blood & Steel for a chronological reading experience. It can be read after Blood & Steel allowing you to read in the publication order. Finally it can be read after Vows & Ruins. This is the author’s recommended reading order for maximum emotional impact.
The author is currently working on a spinoff series, The Ashes of Thezmarr which is intended to be a trilogy. This series can be read independently of Legends of Thezmarr, but will definitely spoil it for you. The first book of this series, Iron & Embers, is currently available with the next being released in July.
It is important to remember this is a dark, romantic fantasy intended for adults. As such, it touches on topics that may be sensitive or too graphic for some readers.
Blood & Steel Summary
Blood & Steel is a dual POV story following our main female character, Althea Zoltaire, and main male character, Wilder Hawthrone. Althea Zoltaire has lived her life with the certainty of death at the age of 27. It is quite literally written in stone. After living her life in the fortress of Thezmarr, the headquarters of the warriors and protectors of the midrealms, Althea has made it her ambition to use the few years she has left to become a Warsword (the most elite of the warriors). The only problem? Women have been banned from touching blades for the past 20 years. After being found with and illegal weapon and being reluctantly taken by Hawthorne to plead her case to the royals, Althea must find a way to prove her worth as a warrior.
What did I like about the book?
This book had me hooked from the very first line. I loved the premise that the main character was running short on time and needed to begin fighting for her dreams. The overall plot was interesting and the tension between the main characters is fun. While there were a lot of fun, tense moments between our main love interests, the book spends a good amount of focus on Thea and her training, her tribulations, finding friends and finding herself which was very fun. This book left a lot of room to grow further in the series.
What did I not like?
The characters in this book are older, which I loved, but it felt like an afterthought. The characters in this book seemed quite immature for being in their mid-20s to 30s. The romance in the book seemed to be lacking something. The characters basically go from not liking each other much to being instantaneously in love. They supposedly don’t care much for each other, but neither POV will leave any doubt that their relationship is lustfully driven.
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