Not my cup of tea I'm afraid. Was a bit too repetitive for my liking and just didn't grab me. I'm sure others will love it though!

I really enjoyed the story of Tabri, Arsan, Nell, and Ruan. Their struggle to find their bloodlines and help save their people. This an easy read book that held my interest until the end, it is sweet and full of adventure, fantasy and magic ~ It's a fun YA book

I like the character build up of the main character as well as the supporting characters. For me, the only down side of this book is that the antagonist is not so strong. Overall a unique and enjoyable read.

I really enjoyed the story of Tabri, Arsan, Nell, and Ruan. Their struggle to find their bloodlines and help save their people. This an easy read book that held my interest until the end, it is sweet and full of adventure, fantasy and magic ~ It's a fun YA book.

*I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.*
I feel so bad giving 3 stars to this book! I blame that gorgeous cover and summary. They raised my expectations too much.
Anyway, this is great YA, with little romance and an interesting enough plot. The heroine was OK, as was her romantic interest.

Basically nothing out of the ordinary.

I received an e-copy of this book from NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

This is a story about a girl called Tabri, who embarks on a quest to find out who she really is, along which she finds out about a prophecy that apparently marks her as the "chosen one". On her journey, she loses her mentor/friend, but also meets all these other people that become her new family in like 3 days. You win some, you lose some.

There are 4 houses, or bloodlines, of magic wielders, and the antagonist of the book comes from the Madnesi bloodline, which is almost on par with naming your villain "Scar". The motivation of the antagonist seemed to jump back and forth between his own desire for magical powers (that he intends to steal from Tabri) and him preventing the prophecy that dooms the Madnesi bloodline (which Tabri, as a Chaotic, is intended to execute). This was rather confusing, since it seemed like he knew Tabri is the first known Chaotic in forever, but was then surprised when Tabri announced her heritage. I don't know, maybe I missed something.

Another thing I would consider a plot whole is when Tabri talks about how there was no point in her getting jealous over Arsan and Ruan's friendship - the plot whole being that at no earlier moment did she refer to this jealousy. In a similar line, she talks about Nell's fighting and personality as if she had seen her fight before, when I'm fairly certain she hadn't had that opportunity. Generally, all the relationships in the book go from zero to family in no time at all (except maybe Nell).

While I did like the lore (especially the yeti), I'm sorry that there wasn't more worldbuilding. On the contrary, I was rather confused about where this was taking place - the setting and the names seemed original, until Arctic was brought up.

When talking about the bloodlines, though they are intriguing, I saw no difference between the different magic wielders. Everyone seems to have the same powers and fighting styles, so I don't understand where the bloodlines come into play.

As for the writing, it was repetitive and riddled with mistakes that call for an editor.

It was okay. The writing was a little slow and I just wasn't sold on some of the elements of this story. It was like suddenly all these bad things happened but then suddenly they were magically fixed or conveniently someone would be there to help them out. I did like the romance between the characters, and I think that was my favorite part of the story. But yeah wasn't that amazing sadly but I did enjoy it in some respect.

I understand what the author was attempting to accomplish with this book, but it fell significantly short. It started well but then lost focus. Things needed to be narrowed down and time invested on a solid beginning and a lead in to the middle. Instead I felt like I was reading various stories layered on one another, with multiple middles and an end, then another end. An editor is greatly needed for reasons beyond those listed in this review. This book has potential and I hope to reread it one day when it has been revised.

Overall, this was an interesting story. But I feel like there was so much thrown into this novel. And it lasted less than two weeks. Don't get me wrong, I like action and adventure. But to me it seemed like Sarai Henderson had so many ideas that she just threw together into one novel. Ideas are a wonderful thing, but not when they get jumbled.

The timing issue is a major flaw to me, because even with epic fantasies such as LoTR or GoT, we know that things take time. With the crazy amount of drama, it felt too clustered. Magic takes time to learn (or so I would assume). Even in the midst of battle, it seemed too... unrealistic. There is only so much stretching of the imagination one can muster without some respite.

I feel like this would have been better as a duology or even a trilogy. Simply because there was so much action that so much was not fleshed out. We have four magic wielder clans that each seem to have a unique magical ability, but they really are not explored that much. We get a little, but not enough to satisfy me. And we get a small mention of places, but again, no explanations to satisfy me. No maps either (I'm a lover of book maps).

Finally, I felt like there wasn't much character growth in this novel. Sure, Tabri learns that she is the Chaotic of the prophecy, but she doesn't grow. One minute she doesn't believe the prophecy, then the next, she does. It didn't make much sense. Plus, again, with the whole one week nonsense, the characters seemed too close after really meeting each other only a short time before. I suppose being in battles and such together would bring them together, but it just seemed awkward. Especially when Sarai tried to thrust two of them into a brief relationship.

Hopefully, the author will go back to this book and flesh it out. If it got turned into multiple books and we got more world building, I would be happy to give this a reread.

I wanted to like this book so bad. The idea is wonderful, the summary sounded great. But no matter what I did, I couldn't even bring myself to finish it because it's just so bad. The writing sounds the same over and over, the characters are written in a very juvenile? way (I can't decide the best way to phrase it, but this one seems to work). I think the book is self-published, but it reads like the author never had anyone else read it over. But:

"I sat curled up like a ball" - who talks like this?
"I shook myself free of my gaze ...."

I didn't catalogue everything, but these were two that I happened to make fun of with a friend. I REALLY wanted to like this book. I just couldn't. I hope the author has a chance to sit down and really edit this book some day in the future, because it has a great premise and idea. But the character development is non-existent, the characters go from wild mood swings with almost no provocation, and I still didn't feel a consistent writing style - and I made it about half way through before I stopped. I've read fanfiction that is better edited and thought out.

I enjoyed the story of Tabri, Arsan, Ruan and Nell - how they came together, fought and searched out the truth of their bloodlines and their destiny. It was full of action - too much at times so insufficient time was given to development of their characters and the landscape. I felt rushed - this may well add to its appeal to secondary aged pupils who like fast paced novels. The concept I enjoyed and I bought into the story - I had to sit and finish it last night. I will want to read more in the series as I need to know if the prophecy was fulfilled!

Whew. House of Chaos is a whirlwind of action that just does.not.stop. We start with a dash to the monastery and end with a dash to save the world. Between the start and end, Tabri is on the run. For the first time reading a book in the YA genre like this, I was shown how there was no rest instead of just being told how tired the characters were.

Y'all, really. I was actually tired after reading this one. I wanted breaks, but there wasn't ever a really good spot to stop. Honestly, it was brilliant.

Where it started to lose it for me was that because the action was non-stop, the relationships were also so dang rushed. Everyone was fast friends or fast lovers or fast allies. Tabri had met them all under duress and she had known them all of three pages before everyone was acting and speaking like they had known each other for years. It was so bloody annoying and I kept thinking I had to have missed a page or two. I understood why Henderson may not have wanted to slow down to expand on the relationships. But it just made it so that I loved the world, I loved the idea, and I didn't care a lick about any of the characters. We know nothing about them. Nothing. And only Nell has a slightly better background story.

In all, at least it was a quick and fun read. Hopefully in the next installment of the series we get less action and more character arches. I'll come back for the second to see if we get more of the characters since the world was done so well.

Thank you to NetGalley, Sarai Henderson, and House of Chaos Publishing for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was given an ARC of this book for an honest review from NetGalley. And I will say, I'm sorry, but I am about to be brutally honest...

I want to start out by saying that the foundation and concept of this novel are outstanding. It would make a fantastic series that most YA readers could get easily absorbed into, but I had quite a few issues with it overall. There are a lot of things that could make it a complete five-star book that will fly off the shelves that the novel is severely lacking in.

First of all, the word choices. It took me a day and a half to read this novel because it was a very simplistic writing style. Short sentences, low-grade wordage, and events that happen fairly quickly made this novel a weekend escape. I found the author used the same descriptions over and over as if a thesaurus or google was never used to help enhance their writing. The same colors -- black, white, red, crimson, blue-- were used consistently with no real defining characteristics that make them stand out. I can't even begin to tell you how many times phrases were repeated on the same page to describe the same environment or feeling. You can tell us the snow is white once, but it's really annoying to read it ten times on the same page, this does not create a vivid picture at all. Also, the idea that her magic warms here is a really nice touch, but using the same phrase every time the "warmth of magic" inside her is felt, it tends to lose its appeal quickly. There needs to be more emotion and feeling to make it come alive.

The events in this novel come and go so quickly they feel very unrealistic. One moment she is running for her life, then she is safely asleep, then she is on a ship, then she is flying over a cliff, then she is running...it is a constant conflict the entire story with no real break. This left little time to build upon her characters and create a realistic love interest or connection to any of them. It seems to all happen within a few day? But I think this journey she goes on should be spread out to allow readers to get pulled in, catch up, and get to know the story.

Speaking of characters...I have NO IDEA what any of them look like except for their hair and skin tone. Most of the characters were described as having basic colored hair and either olive or pale skin. There was not a lot of differentiation between them and I could not picture them. Sure, one looks exactly like the other except for this new characters hair is red and has pale skin, okay cool, what type of body do they have? Do they have freckles? Scars? Crooked teeth? A strong jaw? Did their eyes twinkle like a bright star in the sky when they looked upon them? No clue, because all we got was basic color options and no details. There is nothing that makes them humanistic or personable what so ever.

The same idea goes along with the whole environment they are thrown into. There is a lot of snow...white snow...cold snow...wet snow...melting snow...falling snow. There's snow, we get it we don't need to be reminded every few sentences that there is snow. Unless a heat wave has magically appeared without us know it and melted it, we assume there is still snow on the ground. But what else is there? Yes, yes, there are some trees and mountains but there is no imagery in this novel what so ever. It is so bland and unimaginable it feels like an outline for a novel, not something that is about to be released.

Finally, (I promise this is it..I'm sorry) there are so many over used phrases and cliques in here making it feel as though not a lot of time or thought was put into the manuscript. Quick as lightning, happened in a second, heavy as a brick...and can I mention how many times the word darkness or black was used to describe...well, darkness? Ugh...!

This was a short novel and I feel as though if the author had taken the time to get deeper into descriptions and really pull her reader into the world she has created (which could be brilliant if done well) this could have been a solid five-star adventure. I love the baseline, the thought, and the creation of this prophecy, but it was poorly put together. I would definitely reread this novel if it went through another round of edits and rethinking because it could be an exceptional piece.