This was a fairly disappointing sequel. The Blood Trials was overall good (not great) with a hopeful ending. The Blood Gift didn't deliver. The pacing was off--parts that didn't particularly matter/filler parts took up a lot of space while the bigger events seemed to fly by with a lack of details. The book honestly just felt like it was dragging on and failed to pique my interest. I really did have to force myself to finish. I'm sad that this is how I felt about this book, because I did really enjoy the first one. I do still have hope for N.E. Davenport's future works, but this one just wasn't it for me.

Not enough words to describe how much I love this. I can’t wait to read more from Davenport. Reed brings out the best in Ikenna and Ikenna continues to be one of my favorite MCs. There’s a grittiness to her I feel isn’t seen in a lot of MCs. The pacing was fast as with Book 1. I would’ve loved for this to have been a trilogy to really dive in, but I still loved it.

I loved the conclusion to the Blood Gift Duology. I loved how Nia had Ikenna be such a real person as she navigated her grief of lost love ones and betrayal. She really came into her own and I hope from more stories from this world.

I was obsessed with The Blood Trials and now I’m obsessed with the Blood Gift. I think Ikenna is fearsome, strongheaded and exudes feminine rage so effectively that I was all the way tuned in. She got the revenge she wanted, lost some allies and still got through the biggest battle of her entire life… well one of them anyway. From gods to blood magic to the war, this book definitely kept me on my feet.

I think, also, that we should have gotten two more books in this series (trilogy instead of duology) and that’s the only downfall — no fault to the author as I believe the publisher only wanted 2 — but we could have put so much flesh on a ton of parts that I was wanting more from. But regardless, I loved this novel and I can’t wait to read more from this amazing author!

I mostly enjoyed this book. I love the characters and the world building. I did feel a little lost in some parts, and I think some of that came from the pacing of the book. The ending threw me off a little as well. The main character also gave off some angsty, angry teenager energy and I wasn't always into it. In general, though, I was able to enjoy the audiobook.

great book! very rarely the second book in a series is just as good as the first! N. E. Davenport is great at writing “action” scenes & this book was just as disturbingly great as the first

I really wanted to enjoy this book but it feel disjointed from the first book due to a character regression. Ikenna read very immature and made many selfish decisions. Too much time was spent on romance and humbling Ikenna. There wasn't enough action and certain storylines were confusing.
Thank you, Netgalley, Avon and Harper Voyager for this ARC.

the blood gift, the sequel to the blood trials packed a punch! ikenna and her rogue pack of bio-enhanced soldiers are on a mission to not only take down the malevolent blood emperor that's ignited a second war on the world of illudu but take down the very tribunal of the republic they reign from to take out the corruption and bigotry that's been brewing in mareen since the age where gods once reigned. safe to say our favorite murder girl ikenna is out for blood, no pun intended and she was bout that action. the blood gift allowed for us to not only explore a bit more into the world of illudu and see how other places besides mareen operate but delve more into the blood-gifted, into the history of the gods, and even more riveting politics. ikenna is one of my favorite characters ever not only because she's a dark-skinned black woman who doesn't shy away from knowing how badass she is but her emotions, no matter how brash or impulsive feel real. you feel her all-encompassing, messy grief, at times her paralyzing fear for her loved ones' safety and the inferno that is her rage towards those who wish to do the innocent harm. the blood gift ups the anty in action but is also a culmination of vengeance, redemption and courage with an understated message of how intersectionality plays into the foundational structuring of society. and who doesn't love a lil romance, a dash of spice and the found family trope? now like others who've finished the blood gift i felt a bit blindsided by how things wrapped up, among minor issues with pacing all of which is traced directly back to the fact the author intended for the series to be a trilogy yet the publisher made the final decision of cutting it to a duology. which was ultimately the worst possible decision since the overarching themes were far too great and needed to be fleshed out amongst 3 books to be given the justice it truly deserved. my hope is that harper voyager gives n.e davenport the opportunity to continue the story of ikenna against the gods with even grander missions and more epic battles! i’m an ikenna amari stan forever!

As much as I loved the Blood Trials, this book just didn't work for me. Normally, I don't care about swearing in books - even high fantasy. However, this book went above and beyond to the point where I was getting distracted from the plot because there was so much unnecessary cursing and it started to feel like lazy writing.

For context, here is the number of times various curse words came up:

F*ck: 261
Sh*t: 192
D*ck: 26
B*tch: 28
H*ll: 158

And that's not everything. I think I originally calculated it to be about 2 curses per page. As I said, it felt lazy after a while - like the author couldn't think of other adjectives/insults so she kept using expletives in their place.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review,

thanks to NetGalley for the eARC

⭐️=3.25 | 😘=5 | 🤬=5 | ⚔️=5 | 18+

summary: The Blood Trials book two

thoughts: I thought I was liking this but then it got kinda slow?? and my brain cells were nottt keeping up with the world building. like there was a dramatis personae but it was at the back of the book and I was reading it in that crappy NetGalley app so it was a pain to check it so I just went through all four hundred pages incredibly confused and reading as fast as possible to get it over with but also I had fun?? so??

This was a hard book for me to get into but I really enjoyed it once I got into it. I loved the complexity of the characters. Plot was also solidl.

I enjoyed reading this book and truly wish the author would have been given the chance to finish this series. With her only being given the opportunity to make it a Duology, it was left feeling rushed. There was so much more to tell about Ikenna and her cohorts. I hope that Davenport is able to finish this series one day.

I originally wrote my detailed review on goodreads and forgot to put it here. I finished this back in April and I was happy with the story! The Blood Gift is a wild, fantastic ride and a thrilling conclusion of Ikenna's story. Final rating is 4.5/ 5

I loved this book. I think it should have been a trilogy because the story definitely needed fleshing out but Ikenna can honestly do no wrong for me. I loved the growth that they all exhibited, and the found family. I also liked how people's sexuality was not made to be a big deal. I want more from this world.

Thank you so much to Harper Voyager and Netgalley for letting me read an eARC of The Blood Gift! I read The Blood Trials when it came out and I loved it, so I was super excited to read this one!
The Blood Gift 4/5 Stars
Summary from Goodreads: In this stunning conclusion to N. E. Davenport’s fast-paced, action-packed sci-fantasy duology, elite warrior Ikenna and her rogue cohort must outrun bounty hunters, their former comrades, and a megalomaniacal demi-god, all in the hopes of saving their friends and enemies from the racist and misogynistic oppression that threatens the continents from all sides.
After discovering the depth of betrayal, treachery, and violence perpetrated against her by Mareen’s Tribunal Council and exposing her illegal blood-gift to save her Praetorian squad, Ikenna becomes a fugitive with a colossal bounty on her head.
Yet, somehow, that’s the least of her worries.
Her grandfather’s longtime allies refuse to offer help, and the Blood Emperor’s Warlord is tracking her. She’s also struggling to control the enormous power she was granted by the Goddess of Blood Rites…and come to terms with the promises she made to get such power.
Amidst all of this, the Blood Emperor wages a full-scale invasion against Mareen and leaves a trail of decimated cities, war crimes, and untold death in his wake. As the horrors increase, Ikenna and her team realize they must assassinate the Blood Emperor and quickly end the war. But the price to do so is steep and has planet-shattering consequences.
The price to do nothing, though, is annihilation.
War has erupted. Alliances are fracturing. And Ikenna is torn between her loyalties, her desires for revenge, and the power threatening to consume her. With the world aflame, only one thing is certain: blood will be spilled.
I had a hard time with this book- don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed so much of the beginning and the ending, but lots of the middle felt really drawn out and I felt like I got a little lost multiple times while reading it. I still really enjoyed all of our characters- Ikenna and her squad are my favorite! There were also some really cool new side characters introduced in their quest to get allies against Mareen. But at some point, I feel like things in the middle took a turn, and I got lost, but we still made it down the right road at the end and I was able to figure things out again, which was great! Overall, I definitely recommend reading The Blood Gift if you enjoyed The Blood Trials, but be aware that it’s not for casual reading- you have to pay a lot of attention to really know what’s going on.

I want to thank NetGalley, Avon, and Harper Publishing for allowing me access to an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Blood Gift is the second in the duology that started with The Blood Trials. For obvious reasons, you should probably read that book before you dive into this review. I will say that I really enjoyed the first book but be warned that both books in the series are more graphic than the cover may intimate.

The Blood Gift picks up in one of the free nations as our heroine and her allies attempt to garner support from the smaller, outlying nations before they attempt to take on the daunting task of assassinating the blood emperor while also evading the many parties hunting them on behalf of their former home. If that sounds like a lot going on then I’m doing a good job because this is definitely a book with a much grander goal than the first book in the set.

Let’s start with the positives. Ikenna is a badass. I think it’s fair to say that she falls into the category of morally gray characters that still manage to have their priorities straight. She is definitely not above murdering her enemies, and there is a great deal of that. However, she does her level best to keep innocents safe, and will do almost anything to stop the cyclical chaos and devastation of war. Ikenna fights for the collective rights of all people, and she somehow has an innate ability to find allies even among her most ardent detractors. Ikenna is a very complex hero that has to undergo a lot of change and growth over the course of the series, and yet she exudes all the hope and vigor of impassioned youth. There are a lot of parts to like and dislike about her as a main character, but she is also surrounded by a cast of found family that balance her out and whose lives hinge on her leadership.

I really enjoyed the setup and world building of this duology, and over all I was pleased with the end product of The Blood Gift. However, the first half felt very cumbersome and much slower in pace compared to the Blood Trials. The author actually brought up my main concerns in their acknowledgments, and that is the fact that this is both their second novel and the conclusion to a short series. It is not uncommon for second books to take on more of the slog of character development and stage setting, and that definitely happened here, but was quickly followed up by the landslide of action typical of a third book. I also see a lot of sophomore novels that tend to relegate a lot of story development to what accounts to writer monologue. So much of the scene setting and tension of the story is taken up during narration, in this case Ikenna’s internal monologue, rather than letting the natural tension of the scene play through. It may mostly be my preference, but I prefer to keep the action moving in a story and let dialogue do the work that it can, rather than leaning heavily on talking to the audience. That said, this is a fairly minor complaint on my part that may not affect your enjoyment of the book and/or series.

In conclusion, I enjoyed the books and I will be adding both to my shelf. If you like books like The Hunger Games or Nyxia you may find this an enjoyable new world to fall into. This is also the sort of title that has a pretty even split of sci-fi and fantasy elements that make it pretty enjoyable to fans of both genres. My last suggestion and my final word on this duology is a heartfelt request for an edition that has a cover design more fitting the grim nature of the books. Perhaps when a boxed hardback set comes out?

Thank you for your time, and happy reading.

Someone please explain how we got here!?!?!? Because you can't tell me that NE Davenport fit all of that into one book. It just aint no way. At first I didn't see what everyone was talking about regarding the pacing because the book was going smoothly. Then all hell broke loose.

The events of this book really could have been broken down into two books but my assumption is that this was a publishing choice. That being said, I think she did a good job of making it all work together. While there was plot, I felt more connected to the characters and their desires. I enjoyed getting to see more of Dannica and Caiman and the playful banter the formerly known "Gamma" squad he with one another. The icing on the cake was the love shared between Reed and Ikenna. I was reminded early on that this is an adult sci-fi book and appreciated the spicy scene we were given! My vengene for revenge was nearly as strong as Ikenna and wanted to paint Illudu red with Selene's blood.

Which makes one part of the story the most unbelievable, even more so then the idea the squad could ever battle multiple gods. (which should probably stay in the drafts). I was irate that Ikenna broke character in one of her final acts... Ain't no way the Ikenna Amari I know would like that slide. On top of the fact, there wasn't enough fails before the win! You mean to tell me that she was able pool all that power and do all that damage without training. Nah, pull the wool over someone else's eyes because I'm no fool.

I'm conflicted and this fall somewhere along the lines of a 3 or 3.5 read! However I will say I thoroughly enjoyed reading it while I was in the midst of it. Very compulsive read!

We got so much more this final chapter of the duology. More gods, more romance and more badass action scenes.

I loved that the author chose to delve more into Ikenna and Reed’s relationships and what they meant to each other. My favorite part was probably the gods and how they were total assholes lol. We read more about the magic system/world building when it came to the gods.

A lot of people couldn’t get passed the first book or just dnf’d it completely because of the mc’s personality. She’s rude, impulsive and a huge hothead. If you want to know if she’s grown since the first book, you might as well not pick this up bc the answer is no 😂😂. I do admit that I was pretty close to putting this down bc she was so damn annoying. She never thought things through or stuck with any plan. But that’s part of her charm I guess 🤷🏾‍♀️.

Ikenna is a total badass and she really comes into her power throughout the book. Some of my fav parts was the bond she had with her friends, they were ride or die til the very end. They had great comradery amongst each other. And I swoon for Reed 🤤 what a man 😍

A solid followup to The Blood Trials but it wasn't as good as the first one. This one felt more YA than book 1 did. While the plot was still enjoyable and just as fast paced, it felt too neat and tidy which didn't feel true to the books. As others have said in their reviews, this definitely would have worked better as a trilogy with more time spent on developing both the plot/ world as well as the characters.
Overall, it was still an enjoyable read but ultimately fell flat especially compared to book 1.

This took a different tone than the first book. Instead of the betrayal, rightfully placed paranoia, and always guarded main character. We got moments of vulnerability, found friendships and love, and, obliviously Ikenna being the vengeful queen that she is, VIOLENCE.