This book has A LOT of political intrigue throughout the book. When I read book 1 and dealt with the mid-book info dump, I didn’t realize how much of that was going to carry over. I wasn’t a big fan of the multiple romantic encounters right at the beginning of the book. 3 within the first 6 chapters is a lot for me. Especially with the way the epilogue walked right past it. So if you like a lot, and I mean A TON of politics in your fantasy story, this will be right up your alley.

The second book picks up only weeks after the first and follows Ikenna, Reed, and their new team through the ups and downs of preparing to go toe to toe with the blood emperor, and boy, do they!?! The book was action-packed with a solid pace, although the first couple of chapters seem a little slower as you familiarize yourself with the story again. There is more development within the new characters which I really enjoyed.

The only thing I wished was that the book felt like an ending to a duology and not the middle, as this book leaves on somewhat of a cliff hanger about Ikenna’s future and what happens next. It also leaves a lot of room for N.E Davenport to continue if she chooses to (I’m hoping that she does). Overall it was a really good story but the first book still has my heart ❤️‍🔥

P.S why is ****** still alive??????? 🥴😭😒

I read The Blood Trials and I immediately had to jump into this book to find out how Kenna was going to end this duology. I was not disappointed. It was so good. Ms. Davenport has the amazing talent of transporting you into the story and has you experiencing all the emotions. I loved it!

💬 Book Thoughts

#TheBloodGift gets a 3 star from me. It hurts to rate it so average since #TheBloodTrials was my favorite read last year. So I guess you can say I'm disappointed. Not in Nia the author but in the limitations put on her, which prevented her from fully telling this story.

And I say that because this book does not feel like a conclusion. In fact, for a majority of the time i was reading, it felt like a 2nd book in a trilogy. The pacing felt slow, then rushed, there was no true development in the characters, and what could've been an interesting triangle fell flat on all sides. Then we got to the end, and I shrugged and said ok I guess.

But I still highly recommend this series. Why?

1. Because there aren't enough Black Women writers in the fantasy genre if you ask me. And more readers would allow them more opportunities.
2. Overall, the series was a 3.8⭐️, which is basically a 4⭐️ star. I had fun reading it.
3. I'm down for whatever Nia writes next.

Thank you, #Netgalley, for the ARC!

This was an incredible installment to this duology. We got so much more in this book, more Ikenna, more character growth with all of the characters, we got found family in the group of friends, and even more romance. Not to mention more world building and war. This was another page turner because every single chapter left me wanting more. We learned more about Ikenna's Blood Gift, which I loved. This didn't necessarily feel like the end of a duology, it felt like the middle of a trilogy so I am hopeful that we'll get one more book! Either way, love this duology a lot.

Thank you #netgalley for an early read of #thebloodgift in exchange for my honest review

I read just under half of this book and then decided to DNF. Unfortunately, this book amplified the things I disliked about the first book and I felt a little confused about the tone and the details. The concept of this series is strong and I wish I liked it more. I do really like the main character. I would read more from this author, this series just isn’t for me.

In The Blood Gift, Ikenna comes into her powers. Magic. Basically banned by the Mareenians, her people, the gift may be the only thing that will save them when the Blood Emperor invades Mareen in an attempt to control the world.

At first Ikenna’s control of her powers is lacking. She improves through the narrative, but she is a young person whose lack of maturity is an obstacle to using those powers to help her team and Mareen. Faced with a very powerful foe, her magic alone is not likely to be enough to get the job done. Ikenna’s team will play a pivotal role in most of the good and bad events of the story.

I’m not sure what compelled me to read this book. The violence that disturbed me in The Blood Trials, is still present in this second book, although the motive behind it is less arbitrary. I supposed I was invested in Ikenna, the main character and wanted to make sure she found her way in the end. And if that also involved saving a lot of people, so much the better.

While it is not necessary to read The Blood Trials before The Blood Gift, the background provided there is helpful. The author does fill in a little. I found myself wishing there had not been so much time between the two books because it was a challenge to recall some of the details. And I found certain aspects of the story to be lacking depth without the backstory. The two biggest items were Ikenna’s relationship with her team (with the exception of Darius) and the betrayal of Mareen’s council.

The racism that was big in the first book, is toned down in The Blood Gift. Elitism, war, and disregard for life, carry over into this book. Hope, diversity, heritage, and self are also important themes that are woven through the story. The Blood Gift has a proper ending, but hints that there may be more to the story.

Through Netgalley, the publisher provided a copy of this book. My review is my honest opinion.

The first book in this duology, The Blood Trials, was one of my favorite books of 2022 and I was so excited to be granted an arc of the sequel. However, this book was a bit of a disappointment for me. The biggest thing that was off for me was the pacing. It felt rushed and like the author was putting 3 books-worth of material into one book. Because the pacing was rushed, it felt a little underdeveloped in places and left me wanting more. The ending especially felt rushed, with so many things being revealed and tied up.

Part of why I loved the first book was the intricacies of the relationships between everybody and trying to solve the mystery of who killed Ikenna’s grandfather. Within that concept was amazing world building with a deeper conversation on misogyny and race. While I love the additional world building in the sequel, especially around Ikenna’s heritage and figuring out her blood gift, I felt like the sequel didn’t touch on the racism and misogyny as much.

The saving grace for this book was the relationships between everyone, including the “villains.” I generally enjoyed the romance between Ikenna and Reed; I felt like they were a good balance for each other and we got to see Ikenna open up a little bit. Again, the pacing was off and it felt like things got real serious real fast. Overall, a disappointing sequel to a fabulous debut that still had some good qualities; 3 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon & Harper Voyager for providing me with an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

so disappointing when a highly anticipated sequel doesn’t come close to the first. i didn’t enjoy this book at all and forced myself to finish solely because i love ikenna
my issues:
caiman’s redemption arc:
you mean to tell me the character that attempted to kill ikenna multiple times, one time including throwing her OFF A CLIFF and leaving her for dead, & being racist gets a redemption arc and gets to leave but zayne who did NOTHING wrong dies?? sorry no i can’t support that

selene: the girl who started this whole thing gets to walk free, but zayne is six feet under, again i can’t support that

just a random pet peeve: ikenna does not have a singular black friend, or a real one at that aside from dannica at this point

haynes: another innocent person who had to die yet caiman is alive living happily ever after

darius reed: the romance is like 2% of the plot so this doesn’t really matter but they have no chemistry at all and it’s so forced

what i liked:
ikenna, even though she literally forgave everyone for unforgivable things and made a lot of stupid decisions her attitude never really changed.

chance finally died.

The Blood Gift is an epic conclusion to this duology. Action-packed from the very first page, full of political intrigue, amazing displays of power, and some epic battles that had me on the edge of my seat. This is the kind of story where we might know how it will all end, but we have no idea how we will get there, or who will be left alive at the end. Not everyone we meet makes it to the end, and while it's devastating it helps propel Ikenna and our group forward in their mission.

Ikenna has lost a lot, she never knew her mother, was raised by her grandfather who was murdered, and was constantly being put down because of her mixed blood. She was raised to become a Pretorian, the most elite group of people tasked to protect the nation. At the end of the first book, she has found out who was behind her grandfather's death and opened herself up to her new powers. She has a plan, she is going to take out every single person behind his murder, and also stop the Blood Emporer who is currently on a mission to conquer.. well everything, and must be stopped. (if you haven't read that one yet, definitely go read it right now, the trials Ikenna and the other prospects go through are deadly and so action-packed you won't want to put it down.)

Ikenna has come a long way from when we first met her during the Blood Trials, she now has a true family and a purpose that will hopefully rebuild, and restructure their government. She has opened herself up to her powers and even has a budding romance with a guy who is a fighter just like her but balances out her chaos and stands behind her and what she wants to achieve.

I loved the way it ended, and with the little tidbit we get at the very end, I would love more of Ikenna and her team and see how they are going to face what could be coming next.

I really like the first book a lot (5 stars for it), and I was so excited to read this book. But I ended up being disappointed in this one. The pacing was a little off and the group seemed to meander a bit, especially in the beginning. (I still don't know why they made the alliance they did near the beginning because it didn't really seem all that important through the rest of the book.) Although they technically had goals, it was never clear which goal was the most important, so in some ways there were several climaxes. But some of them were disappointing climaxes because it seemed that sometimes the power of the gods made things a bit too easy for the characters.

I'm also really confused. This is the final book of the duology. But the ending left things wide open for another book. It's still called a duology and everything I've seen says it's the conclusion. So is there going to be a new series that come after this? Is it going to change and be a trilogy? I was expecting to feel a sense of completion at the end of this book, but there are still loose ends.

I loved The Blood Trials, and was looking forward to the conclusion of this duology. There’s always a risk when a debut has been a 5 star read, because the expectations are high for the sequel, and it can be hard to live up to, or exceed, an impressive debut.

In this case, the second book falls short of the first. It isn’t by much; that’s the good news. And it is my opinion that the responsibility for the shortcomings primarily falls to the publisher/editor. It is my understanding the author planned a trilogy, but was offered a duology, and it seems to me that the second and third book were crammed into one, making this a book that’s got things spilling over the edges, because it doesn’t have room to really develop some of the subplots. Any example I cite would involve spoilers, so I won’t do that. And I will only say that, when it came to the primary objective of the novel, having the story continue well past the point when that was resolved, was an example of changing goalposts at the 11th hour. It’s clear that some of the events in the last quarter of the book set the stage for what should have been the third book, and the existence of the epilogue speaks to that. In fact, I found that really frustrating, because it isn’t an epilogue that resolves. It’s an epilogue that teases future events, but because the duology is complete, we can’t expect to see those events explored.

This arc wasn’t as smooth and polished as book 1; given that it was an arc, my assumption is that there was still a round of edits pending when it was issued. I won’t hold that against anyone; however, I am going to call out some language.

We are increasingly aware of insensitive and offensive language, such as racist, bigoted, and ableist terms. Many ableist terms are part of everyday speech (blindsided and tone deaf being two examples). One commonly used ableist term is moron, and in this book, that word is used more than once. It wasn’t necessary; there were other word choices that conveyed the intended sentiment without being ableist and offensive.There are links below about ableist language for those interested in more information. I called out the use of this word in a review several months ago, and I want to be consistent about that, which is why I’m mentioning it here.

Aside from those issues, the book has lots of action. And it gives us some emotional resolution for conflicts originating in book 1. The worldbuilding in this duology is excellent and although I felt the volume of things the author tried to address in book 2 threw the pace off a bit, it’s well worth your time if you enjoyed book 1. 4 stars.

The Blood Trials was a five-star read for me. Unsurprisingly, I was excited for its sequel and the conclusion of this duology.
The Blood Gift, unfortunately, didn't quite hit the mark.
While I enjoyed the initial interactions between Reed and Ikenna and further descriptions of the pantheon of gods and the blood magic system, the pacing, plot, and character work left something to desire.

I found the character of Ikenna and the approach to wartime increasingly juvenile. Excluding the graphic violence and some sexual content, this read like YA, unlike its predecessor. The character work I applauded in the first book is missing, to its detriment. The secondary characters have no feeling of internal life once they are out of sight. They feel as though they freeze when off the page.

There is a problem with power scaling that worsens as the plot progresses. As the reader, I felt disengaged because the stakes of the conflicts just felt diminished.

Ultimately, I finished the book, but what The Blood Gift needed was space. It would have been served better as a trilogy. The breakneck speed left the characters behind in service of the plot.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this ARC. This review contains my honest thoughts and opinions.

I absolutely loved The Blood Trials and will scream and shout about it until my dying breath, so it hurts me to say this book just didn't make an impact on me as much as the first book did.

While it was going to be a natural progression of the story, I feel like this book struggled without having the trials from book one to drive the plot. I never had a good sense of where we were in the story since our main characters just had a overarching goal of "let's kill the Blood Emperor", and most of the decisions they made were based on political dynamics that the reader didn't have enough background knowledge to fully understand (though perhaps it was explained more in book one and I just didn't remember the details). Almost all of the "exciting" moments in the book were just combat scenes rather than people making clever decisions or something in the world unfolding in an interesting way, and pages and pages of melee is just never engaging or enjoyable to me. The 65 - 80% point of this book in particular was just incredibly boring because it was pure discussions about political restructuring that — realistic though it may be — absolutely should have been pared down more.

Really the only thing driving me to finish this book (beyond the fact that I'm physically incapable of DNFing the second book in a duology) was the character dynamics. I did really appreciate the loyalty Ikenna's team had for her, and all the moments where Kenna specifically said she was going to wait and discuss with her team before making a decision made me smile. I will confess that I really had no particular feelings about any of our side characters and none of them stood out to me in any way, but I at least liked the general vibe of everyone's loyalty and camaraderie. Also Ikenna getting to be a badass and just brutally murder a bunch of people is always fun and we stan our murder girl. Sadly, I didn't really feel anything at all about Reed and Ikenna's relationship in this book. I thought they had some good tension and chemistry in book one, but nothing in this book ever made me buy into the depth of the feelings they were professing for one another.

I think that the last 15% of this book was definitely the best part, which is the opposite of how I felt about book one, so I am glad that this book had a better ending. I am a little bit confused with the way the conclusion to a duology seems to be setting up for another sequel, and quite honestly I'm not sure I'd be particularly motivated to read one if it comes out.

N. E. Davenport does it again! Our favorite murder girl, Ikenna, is back and ready for battle with her team of elite super soldiers ready to overthrow the government. I'll start by saying I'm sad this is only a duology, I feel like with the ending of The Blood Gift we could have benefited from a trilogy or even four books.

The Blood Gift is really great because we can see how Ikenna's squadron acts when they are actually a team, and you can tell how much everyone has grown from The Blood Trials. Ikenna's growth through her ancestry and powers is something astounding to read, and it's incredible to watch her grow into her own in ways you didn't think were even possible in the first book. Also, we're all swooning after Reed, right??

The ending to Ikenna and the squads battle to fight injustice was engaging the whole book. I couldn't put it down with betrayals, lost that tore me to pieces , and the love of the squad putting me back together. We saw new power being brought to life and more enemies emerging. Wow, this is another amazing story by N.E. Davenport.

Overall, I enjoyed this duology. It was entertaining and I really liked Ikenna and her no bs attitude. I love the worlds that N.E. has created and the characters she surrounded Ikenna with. I really loved Ikenna's whole cohort and I want to be their friend.

That said, I do think I enjoyed The Blood Trials more. There was just SO MUCH packed into The Blood Gift. One thing would happen, I'd want to know more, and then we'd move on to the next. No one thing got the time and attention it deserved. I really wish this were a trilogy because then we could spend more time with Ikenna exploring her blood gift, Ikenna & the Gods, the other lands, etc. It all moved way too quickly, I hardly had time to fully understand everything.

Because of the speed, I also found some of the plot lines unrealistic. Ikenna barely understands her own blood gift but she's now killing emperors, Gods, and the entire Republic leadership? And helping to restructure the whole Republic? I love Ikenna, but I didn't understand how she rose to these levels and abilities so quickly.

Finally, part of me wishes this was a YA book without the spice, because I think I'd appreciate it more. There are so many incredible NA/Adult fantasy series out there and this one just didn't match those. However, I will recommend this series to specific audiences.

Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

A stunning, epic conclusion to the Blood Gift duology! I read this one immediately after the first, so any parallels or comparisons to each other are purely for that reason. I DEEPLY loved the "trials" aspect in the first book, so for the second book to quickly move on from that and directly into a fast=paced war was definitely entertaining. I loved the found family aspect with Ikenna and her rogue squad, her individual relationships with Reed, Dannica, and even Caiman. I think what I loved most about these books/series was that Ikenna was obviously very powerful and was continuously growing into this power but I never felt that she was overpowered, if that makes sense. I honestly loved how other characters (Ajani/Nkosi, specifically) kept her humbled. 😂 She and most of her squad had profound character growth since the first book and I'm very happy this series ended up a duology, instead of a multi-book series.

I will note I do think this book should officially be categorized as a NA book, instead of a YA (personally). I was not expecting that spice @ 17%?! Kenna & Reed are 🥵🔥 Chemistry levels insane.

The Blood Gift is the thrilling finale of the action-packed Blood Gift duology. After a series of betrayals and immense powers bestowed upon her, Ikenna is back to fighting for her life with the help of her team. When the evil Blood Emperor seeks to brutally invade her country, Ikenna has to decide who and what she is most interested in saving. As battle rages, Ikenna must wrestle with her new powers, the responsibility of looking after her teammates, and a complicated romance.

For readers who enjoyed The Blood Trials, they will absolutely love The Blood Gift! Ikenna is the same determined, murdery, and brave heroine from the first book. The fight scenes were incredible, absolutely bursting with action and making it impossible to look away. Ikenna has a great squad of found family and true friendships. Of course, there is plenty of betrayal and double-crossing going on, especially with the inclusion of a new character who is focused on the power of the Blood Emperor. I loved the group scenes with the squad, they were filled with humor and felt very realistic.

The Blood Gift is a fast-paced and exciting finale, which brings the conclusion of the story to an intense finish. At times, the politics got a little convoluted, but everything became clear in the end. Luckily, I think the door has definitely been left open for future stories in Ikenna’s world. I’m excited to read whatever N.E. Davenport writes next! I would recommend this for readers who enjoy Pierce Brown (Red Rising), Deborah Falaye (Blood Scion), and Saara El-Arifi (The Final Strife).

Thank you so much to N.E. Davenport, Harper Voyager, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on Instagram, Goodreads, Amazon, Storygraph, and Barnes & Noble etc

I absolutely LOVEEEEED The Blood Trials and The Blood Gift was one of my most anticipated books of the year.
Unfortunately, I don't think this book is for me. The political intrigue and mystery that pulled me into this story feel completely gone. The writing and style also feel very different from the first book— it reads more fantasy romance than anything.

I wish I cared more about Ikenna and Reed as a couple because the first 20% is mainly that. However, I do not so it dragged, and reading an extra 7% hasn't made me want to continue reading. DNF.