This was my first ever post apocalyptic book that I had ever read and it was amazing! In this book, the awakening gives humans special abilities. Of course this divides the people. This book reminded me of I am Legend a bit. Loved the atmosphere of this book. I found it a bit hard to get into it in the beginning but it was fine after that!. Will definitely continue with the series.
4.5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.


It was hard to read the book completely. It had great characters, a great world but there was something that wasn't gripping me and that made the story hard to finish. If anything, I enjoyed the characters a lot. So in grateful to have something positive out of the experience.

My Rating : 4
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Kindle/ Netgalley/ June2020
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Thank you so much Netgalley for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions ar emy own and not influenced in any way.
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This book follows our main characters Gaciela, Maria, Sean and Santiago in a Post apocalyptic setting where a set of people called 'Awakened' possessess supernatural abilities(Blood magic hello!) and the others do not.(good ole humans). It follows the war between the two races and how the Unawakened will stop at nothing to wipe the superatural beings clean.
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First, I loved the concept of Blood magic the awakened people possess. I mean, you can either make someone healthy, or just kill them. This book had four main characters and multiple point of views which I absolutely love, and that gave a really good perspective on what was happening and how each character reacted to certain situation. Although all the characters were pretty cool, I absolutely loved Sean(Awakened) and a second close was Graciela(Human). Their take on the situation was the same, but they are completely different people and in the opposite side of the war!
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Second, the story line and the plot was freaking amazing. It totally reminded me of X-men but with Avengers mixed? Does that make any sense? If you combine Jean from X-men with Black widow how cool would that be? Except in male form and with blood magic. It really pulled me in and the progression of the story made each chapter more interesting to read. Plus the romance in this book is very very subtle and does not affect the story whic was a plus for me. I am a romance lover, but I appreciated this book more without much of it.
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Now coming to the pacing of the book, It was quite hard for me to get into the book at first. After a few of procrastinating, I finally pushed through 7 chapters, and then it picked up. After that, I read this book in 2 days! Even without the pacing, this book is 601 pages long. It was a feat to finish, but once the action started, you won't even notice the pacing. There were a lot of interesting take of arguments from each side and it added to the interest factor of the book. Did I already say Sean was my fav? Ah well.. He is. and ya'll should stan him unconditionally. And the way he weilds his power? I wish we had the audiobook to hear the song he uses!
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Overall, I absolutely loved the concept of magic weilding in this book, the war setting in the post apocalyptic world, the characters were unique and had distinct personalities, the pacing was slow at the start, but picked up once you were few chapters in, and the everyday struggle , that little bit of zombie-ness of the storyline.. This book is a complete package. If you don't mind the size of the book, I think any fantasy/ Sci-Fi lovers would fall in love this book! I can't wait for the next book to come out!

3.5/5 RTC

Blood Awakens was an interesting take on the post-apocalyptic genre. When the Awakening causes various people to sprout new abilities, the world is thrown into chaos. Groups polarize and begin hunting both the Awakened and the unawakened. Every day life has become chaos and the ultimate fight to survive. The overall atmosphere reminded me a lot of The Darkest Minds.

This story revolves around four main characters: Sean, a blood guide. Mara, a charmer. Santiago, an empath. And Graciela, Santiago's sister and unawakened. Sean is a big leadership role throughout the story and as a blood guide, his ability to use others' blood is both feared and respected. Mara was a fierce warrior and instantly one of my favorite characters. Graciela was so kind and amazing, the lengths she went to take care of her brother were amazing. Santiago was a character I really struggled with, which I'll explain a bit more about.

I usually struggle with the post-apocalyptic genre, because it is very depressing. There's only so much fight for survival/hunger games vibes I can handle. And I was feeling that for the first 20-30% of this book. Every chapter was a struggle for me and I was having trouble connecting with the story and characters. I think the main reason was because the beginning is very Santiago heavy and I can't completely like him. There were so many little comments he made that were sexist, and so narcissistic. Santiago was also a very selfish character, so I had to take many breaks from him.

However, the saving grace came in the form of Mara. Mara isn't introduced until a bit of a ways into the book. But as soon as she started having a POV, I was in love and ready to invest every single minute into her story. Mara is a powerful, and intense fighter. Not only with her ability to take away a person's willpower as a charmer, but physically and mentally. She's also a very guarded character, but I loved getting to know her throughout this story. After her introduction, I found it so much easier to care about the characters, except Santiago. He's got some growing to do.

Graciela and Santiago begin their story somewhere in Central America. They have been run out of their home and begin working their way to Texas in the hopes they can find an Awakened sanctuary. Sean is the head of one sanctuary, out in California, and Mara is his second-in-command and defense trainer. The four ultimately cross paths and try to assimilate the siblings to life in Hope. However, a group of Sanguinators, twisted blood guides, are determined to have Graciela and drain her blood for their own sustenance.

This main conflict was very slow to come to fruition, but there was so much to learn about the world, that I wasn't worried about the plot. The world building was very interesting, but at times there was not enough and other times, there was too much I was confused. Of the awakened, every power has a name, but these titles are not always explained which was quite confusing.

Overall, I am interested to learn more about the world and while I'm not the biggest fan of Santiago, I love all of the other characters I met.

I have received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Blood Awakens was AMAZING! I honestly didn't know what I was going to get when I got that lovely email of being accepted to read this ARC. Yet, I wasn't disappointed one bit. Maybe it's because I just watched both zombieland movies that anything post-apocalyptic makes me happy or even more intrigued? No idea, but loved everything about this one.

This book follows about four people throughout the entire thing but you should definitely look out for Sean and Graciela. They were my obvious favorites but they were interesting when they were completely different people but wanted the same goal. He has this super cool power to control blood flow. No idea why anyone wouldn't want that superpower because it seems pretty freaking cool or kind of gross if you don't like blood. So, he can either heal someone or kill them. Plain and simple. Then there's Graciela who has no powers. Just a regular ole' human like us folks.

Each chapter sucked me even further into their stories. Again, I just loved every damn second of it that I can't wait for the next book to come out!!

This book was hands down one of the best books I've read this summer. Starting from the very 1st page all the way too the end. Each and every single one of the characters suck you in, and I can't wait to read book 2. Did I mention that the book cover alone is worthy.

Rating 4

Fantasy, violence, family, love and sanctuary. Our heros all experience these emotions and events which change their lives and the lives of those around them. If you ever wanted a book that incorporated empathic abilities and the ability to control one's blood, without biting them, this is the perfect book for you. The pace varies throughout but you will be drawn in and will often ask yourself, "How would I have handled that". The author leaves room for a part two but many will want a Sean only edition. Would love to see this in movie form.

I was really surprised by this book. A futuristic fantasy story of how the world could be if some of us had special powers, and some of us didn't! It kinda reminded me of Darkest Minds but better, tbh.
It was fresh and unique and I'm really looking froward to reading more of this series!

I tried several times to get into this book, but it just wasn't happening for me. The dialogue felt unnatural and I never managed to connect with a character. This shouldn't be considered a "bad" review, but a "shrug" review. I'm sure there are going to be big fans of this book out here, alas, I am not one of them.

This book was received as an ARC from Jessaca Willis Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA), Members' Titles in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

I have never read a book like this before and I mean this in a spectacular way. Fantasy books are my all time favorite genre especially when it involves powers, superhuman/vampire qualities to the characters and plot. But these powers were so unique that they were packed with impressive abilities but also consequential at the same time. The battle Sean had to go through to witness his brother being murdered and the connection he got with his dark power to read and connect to blood was unlike anything I have ever read before and it lead to many obstacles that were exciting and unexpected. But then just when this power seemed unreal, it came with major consequences that Sean and Graciela were not remotely prepared for and they seek to Central America to find a cure for this dark power and put an end to it once and for all. This book is packed with drama, adventure and conflict to the max and was an invigorating experience.

We will consider adding this to our Adult Fantasy collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

Going to be honest, i struggled with this book in the beginning, thought it was very slow and not enough time spent on world building.

We bounce around between Graciela, Santiago, Sean and Mara. We get introduced to other characters along the way but they are the main 4.

I did find Santiago extremely tedious, he spends most of his time unconcious and to be honest contributed nothing to the story whatsoever, would have preferred that time was spend on other characters.

Sean was the stand out for me, troubled, brave, a leader, but there wasnt enough back story, years were missed out, i would have liked to have seen his story from the murder of his brother to how he managed to set up Hope, but it was all skipped over.

I did very much enjoy the explanation of teleportation and what it felt like which was very cool.

It was left on a cliffhanger for the sequel. Would i read it? Not sure to be honest.

Jessaca Willis was able to deliver with her debut series "Blood Awakens". This groundbreaking urban fantasy series started off slow and my initial intake was standoffish but once I was 1/4 through, the momentum started to build up and it became a little more than difficult to put this down. From the beginning to the end, each and every individual character has their own story to share and the author was able emphasized that with the detail writing that could easily immersed anyone to the story. The struggles and life alternating moments everyone suffered through were easily felt through the pages and to sum it up this phenomenal story particularly speaks for itself. In conclusion, "Blood Awakens" is honestly one of the best books I have read this far in the second half of 2019 and would highly recommend anyone looking for dystonia fantasy novel that would surely blow their breath away.

I was not quite sure what to expect when I decided to read this book. It was reminiscent to the X-men but instead of being called "Mutants", the changed humans were called the "Awakened". The Awakened are humans who have developed "powers" that separate them from humans without those powers.; The humans who do not have these powers then discriminate against the Awakened, many times in violent fashions just like the humans and mutants in X-Men. In fact, the powers of the "Awakened" were similar with empaths, extremely strong humans, those who could listen to people's thoughts, almost a carbon copy.

This is a book that has multiple point of views which is good when all the characters are interesting. They were not, I wanted to read more about Sean's point of view but instead we got a lot of Santiago and Graciela, the two most boring characters in the whole book. The book started with Sean and then ignored him for many chapters (months passed in this book). When we meet back up with him again, it is not clear how he got to where he was and what happened after we first met him. It really took away from the story. The author attempted to redeem Santiago but it was too late, he had become so unlikable that I was simply not impressed. Overall, this is a story about how humans are unable to handle those that are vastly different from themselves and without being able to get along, death and destruction will follow.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. Initially the text font and spacing threw me off, but the story took me over. First, hurray, for characters of color that are well done and represented on the cover. And the themes of family and unity and love are true, despite the allure of easy success. Second, the world building is done well. I feel the complexity that an Awakened person must survive. Great first book!

This was totally drawn in starting with the book's cover. Once I started reading I couldn't put it down, I had to know what happened to these characters in they journey to find sanctuary. All in all the well-written characters and great world building made this a very enjoyable read.

That COVER! Kudos to the designer, Daqri Combs, because dang. If you're as blown-away as I am, you can find her other work at www.coversbycombs.com. She's brilliant.

Okay, now for the actual book.

Blood Awakens follows four people as they navigate the emergence of the Awakened and society's immediate hatred of them. Sean is what society now calls a blood guide: he can hear heartbeats and control blood flow, which can either heal people or mercilessly kill them. Graciela is an Unawakened, meaning she has no powers, but she's heavily involved because her brother is an empath. They may be different, but they all want the same thing: safety. But in a world filled with hate and bloodlust, is that even possible?

I think the writing is absolutely wonderful for a debut series, but there are definitely a few times where it seems a bit clumsy. That being said, I cannot wait to see how Willis grows as an author. She's definitely somebody to keep an eye out for in the genre!

This novel is filled with suspense and keeps you on your toes, and the characters are all easy to love and empathize with. Not to mention, the idea of a blood guide is so unique- I've never seen a similar power before.

would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for letting me read this gripping book

and what a book it is....the awakened, people who having amazing abilities but are hounded by the unawakened and killed because the are different and possibly dangerous.....

along the way we meet several characters they are all looking for sanctuary, a place to stay safe and be among people who can help

there are good and bad in both the awakened and unawakened, but can anyone survive the blood guides...the ones that can command blood....a battle is coming...

i found this book gripping and was held captivated by this story and wanted to find out what was going to happen to everyone and i wasnt disappointed...its a rollercoaster of a ride and a book that will make you lose sleep, and for anyone who loved the program alphas or any marvel films this book is for you

have found another author to add my list to keep an eye out for...