Blood Debts by Terry J Benton-Walker published April 4, 2023. Not a fan of the writing style or the first couple chapters - did not finish.

The characters and worldbuilding were absolutely PHENOMINAL!!!!!! The writing style was simply unique! The descriptions of the world were creative and also so vivid I pictured everything and the story came to life the farther I read into story!The magic was chefs kiss! The main characters had such depth and Prowse!!!!! The plot was carefully placed and will now live rent free in my head!!!! Wish and hoping for a part 2!!!!!!

Honestly I didn't really like this. I thought the characters needed more fleshing out, I thought the plot was confusing, but mostly I was just so bothered by the change in POVs and tenses. It was such an odd choice to have different POVs be in different tenses, and it really took me out of reading. I think that choice really sunk this book tbh.

Clem and Chris have my heart! It's a supernatural mystery with plenty of twists for all to enjoy. I also enjoyed the careful exploration and consideration of mental health and loved the setting in NOLA which is one of my favorite cities.

This books starts slow. Once I hit about 25-30% of the way it picked up pace and was amazing.

The book had some great twists and turns, character development, and a satisfying ending. I could do with a second but if it is a standalone I would be okay.

I love how the author talks about family love, hate, relationships, and forgiveness. This family is strong willed and can be strong knitted. It was a wonderful read.

I didn't love this as much as I was hoping which is a shame. The magic in this book is really amazing, and there were some truly fascinating parts to read. Also a few 'gasp' moments that surprised me (in a good way). However, there were far too many background characters and their roles were not adequately described, so even though I took notes I was still confused. For example, there are these magical 'councils' that oversee the different types of magic and there are people on these councils who are mentioned ex: 'so-and-so is priestess of etc' but there's no explanation of what that means? So I felt the world-building could have been fleshed out more.


Content Warnings:
Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Homophobia, Racism, Sexual content, Death, and Car accident
Moderate: Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Bullying, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Hate crime, Blood, Grief, and Gaslighting
Minor: Alcohol, Addiction, and Slavery

Today is my stop on the tour for Blood Debts by Terry J. Benton-Walker. Thank you so much Pride Book Tours & Hodderscape for my copy and for having me on the tour!

Blood Debts was one of my most anticipated reads for the year and it was FANTASTIC! I need to take a minute to really appreciate the cover too because it is absolutely gorgeous!

I loved the New Orleans setting, it’s a place I would love to visit one day and so perfect for stories with magic! I really enjoyed the magic system in this story, the generational magic aspect was so interesting and I really liked seeing each character’s relationship with it! The multi-POV format worked perfectly for this, I loved being in each characters mind as they came face to face with their struggles!

And the family drama was so good!! When a story starts with the family trees of the characters then you KNOW it’s gonna be good! I love the complicated family dynamics of the Mikaelson’s from the Originals & Blood Debts has perfected that! I really liked how even though there is a big secret that has divided the family, when one of them is in trouble they all come together!

On top of everything that is already amazing about this story there is also an intriguing and twisty 30 year old murder mystery that was so twisty and clever! I loved watching the twins try to figure out this mystery for their family and wondering whether this will be something that will bring them closer together or set them on divergent paths?

Blood Debts is a brilliant story full of twists, magic and vengeance! I am so exited to see what happens next!

I really wanted to try this book because I lived in NOLA for years and the cover got me hooked immediately. I knew i needed to set aside some qualms to read it, especially because it was YA. Way too many PoVs for my taste and some that didn’t really need to be there.

What a whirlwind! So many ups and downs within magical families specifically the 16-year-old twins Clement and Cristina Trudeau. Both are still grieving their father's death and caring for their sick mother. They investigate the 30-year-old murder of Alexis Lancaster-the mayor's daughter at that time. Their grandmother Cristine was blamed, and they want to clear her name. Set in New Orleans, a world of Voodoo and generational magic while addressing such current issues as mental health, homophobia, racism, and bullying. There's plenty of story to tell with so many characters, but this had a satisfying ending of good vs evil.
"I received a complimentary ARC of this book. All opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Wow this book was REALLY good. The magic system was something I haven’t read before, it was complex and beyond interesting. I love how the magic was linked with ancestors, and discussed how issues like slavery influenced the magic that the black characters had. The main story itself was easy enough to follow, and I found myself drawn into the story. While i guessed some of the plot twists it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the story. I loved how complex the characters were in this, they were all a little morally grey and i felt myself sympathising with those considered the villains. I am definitely excited to see where this book series goes!
(*3.5)

It is a good story if you are into complex rules of godhood, star-crossed lovers, and a great touch of revenge. The revenge part was among the best things I have read in years. I was expecting more from the ending. However, a sequel might be coming our way. I loved seeing Eshu in a different light; those who are santeria practitioners will find it interesting how he was depicted in the story. I highly recommend it.

A really great read with an interesting magic system and multiple POV. The history was interesting and the twists and turns were surprising.

I think maybe I am just not the right audience for this book. I truly thought I would love it. an urban fantasy set in New Orleans along with magic and mystery, murder and mayhem with black representation seemed perfect. But I just could not get into the YA story. The characters were too immature for me and I found myself frustrated with the pacing and point of views. the premise was really great and I really truly think this could be a great fantasy series for the right crowd.

Unfortunately, the premise of this book was great but I found its implementation a little lacking.
The idea of the story was great, but the moment I started to immerse myself in it, the point of view changed. Regrettably, I had to stop reading as I couldn't fully engage myself in what I sincerely believe is a great story for young adults.
Maybe I am too old for this book, and I fiercely believe adolescent readers could love it, but the execution did not allow me to get carried away in its very promising premise.

My thoughts are overwhelmed after reading this robust and suspenseful debut.

I love that your mood while reading this goes from light and playful to all in your face/whiplash. The characters actions are unpredictable and can become really intense. The amount of "wtf" moments are innumerable, that I incorporated working out on while reading to help me regain focus.

Though Blood Debts is told from many perspectives, I found it fairly easy to follow along who each character is, their relationship to the BD cast and the role they play (most often sketchy lol).

I found myself constantly daydreaming of this title, replaying scenes in my head throughout the day and unconsciously reaching for my kindle to continue reading on. Many nights I have gone to sleep in the early hours of the morning breaking my promise that "I will go to sleep after this chapter".

When I found this book on NetGalley, I was super intrigued and thought that the synopsis sounded like a fun read! I mean... magical families? Generational curses? Twins who have to save the family? LGBT themes? what more could I ask for from a book?

Well, apparently, I needed to have asked for good prose and writing that draws me into the story. Right from the get-go, the writing was sloppy. I could tell the author was trying to incorporate modern slang/terms into the teenage dialogue, but it just wasn't working. Getting myself through the first 5 chapters was a slog, and I could not force myself to get through the rest.

Additionally, while I typically love books that tackle difficult topics such as race relations, capitalism/consumerism, and politics, Blood Debts felt like it was trying to shove an ideology down my throat rather than allow me to read the story to glean what commentary the author was making. I was incredibly frustrated by this and didn't think I could enjoy a story with such aggressively in-your-face social commentary that overshadowed the characters and plot.

Unfortunately, this was a DNF for me, and I don't foresee myself picking it up again in the future.

*** While I received a free ARC of this from NetGalley, all thoughts and opinions given in this review are 100% honest. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this ARC***

I'm a little conflicted about this book. There were things that I liked a lot about it and things that just didn't work for me. I felt bogged down about a third of the way through and took a break before coming back to it. I like the worldbuilding and the characters and the idea of the present generation having to deal with something that happened three decades earlier.

But some of the tone seemed to be a bit inconsistent, and one of the events in the end seemed way more, uh, graphic than I was expecting. We also mostly get the story from the first person POV of the siblings, Clem and Cris. But then there are some third person POV chapters, one from a minor character that doesn't seem very important except for an action he takes (why did we need to see parts of his story? They weren't relevant for anything else going on), a few chapters from a more important character yet those chapters really didn't add much, and one chapter from a character who was important to the story but again didn't add much from that POV. So I think leaving out those random third person POV chapters would have made the book stronger.

Really enjoyed this, good world building and really fascinating magic system. The mystery plot was compelling and I like how it was a family story. The two areas where the book shines is characters and themes. The characters are well defined and feel really real. Their personalities and problems feel relatable and they grow in ways which make sense throughout the book. Themes were powerful and I liked exploring this city and the dynamics between people living there. I would say the writing was good but the moved from 1st person present tense to 3rd person (maybe past tense but don't remember) were a bit jarring.

The overall concept of this book was nice and I liked the writing. I enjoyed the mystery aspect of the story and was interested in it.

Unfortunately it all just fell flat for me after a while. I didn’t love any of the characters, to be honest they annoyed me for much of the book. Things like who the culprits behind the mystery became very predictable early on so I began to lose interest pretty quickly.

There was a random character introduced in the book and I can understand his role in the next book it felt unnecessary and random in this one. I wish that it was omitted altogether or maybe his pov was more towards the end to act as another cliffhanger.

While this story may have not been for me I do believe maybe teens will be able to relate to the characters, the way they handled grief and began learning about themselves.

- The world of BLOOD DEBTS is fantastic. A New Orleans with several branches of magical families, warring for power on multiple levels. The imagined world here is so rich it feels like it could be real.
- I loved Clement and Cristina, both prickly and headstrong in their own ways, and deeply loving of their big, loud, fractured family (the aunts! I loved them all!) Also, it has multiple queer characters, which I haven't seen mentioned much in the marketing.
- However, for me, this book was a lot of telling rather than showing. It was mainly the kids running from adult to adult and prying pieces of secrets out of them, then rehashing everything they know in the next scene, repeat. I think this might have worked better as an adult fantasy instead of YA/New Adult, with POVs from the many adults and their grudges rather than the teens, who are the only ones out of the loop.