"But I see you, Morgan Pendragon. I see you truly for everything you are and everything you will be and I claim you as mine."

3.75/4 stars (unsure on which I'm leaning towards more)

Thank you to Netgalley and the author for sending me an e-ARC of this book!

I liked the concept of this book - Morgan waking up in an entirely new setting, and Draven telling his people that she's his paramour (it's basically just the fake dating trope in a Fae setting) And the concept of the Blood Rise was also really interesting (three brutal trials that they were competing in for the throne). I was absolutely hooked reading this book and it was very fast paced!

The Court of Umbral Flames was such an interesting place to read about, it was so unique! The character development was good in this book, but it annoyed me that Morgan couldn't trust Draven even after everything he'd done to protect her and others, but I suppose if you put yourself in her position, he did lie about things and keep secrets. I found them both quite infuriating in this book to be honest!

I also really liked Lyrastra, and it was nice seeing her and Morgan's friendship blossom. I'm so glad we got more romance between Draven and Morgan in this book, and both of them finally started opening up to each other (until the end...) The ending honestly annoyed me, which is another reason why this wasn't a five star read for me. You get all this character development and then it's just completely erased in the last part of the book. The plot twist was great, but the fact it's torn Draven and Morgan apart just seems unnecessary, and makes it way harder to root for them as a couple when everything is so messy! But the final plot twist had me so shocked - I'm definitely so excited to see how that plays out in the third book!

Overall, I did enjoy this book, but there were a few aspects of it that just took away from my reading experience!

An epic continuation of the first book!

🌹 Dark fae fantasy romance
🌹 Slowburn
🌹 Arthurian lore elements

I loved the Arthurian elements woven throughout the first book and was thrilled to see them continue in the sequel, even if they did perhaps take more of a back seat. This second book is definitely more heavy on the romance (not that I'm complaining) and character development, whereas I felt the first definitely pushed plot more and let the romantic tension build slowly. I think ACOTAR and ACOMAF are a pretty apt comparison in regards to plot/romance building between the two, as a series.

The side characters totally stole the show for me! Morgan and Draven are amazing but I will admit there were time when either Morgan forgot she was a badass or Draven turned into an alpha-hole and kind of lost me - I didn't see any of that in Book 1 and hope it is out of their system by Book 3. Overall a great sequel with a lot of promise for an indie series, but I hope to see Morgan staying true to her badass self in the next one!

I received an arc from Briar Boleyn and am leaving an honest review <3

Thank you to Starwater Press and NetGalley for the free ARC in exchange of an honest review!

Book 1 absolutely left us on a cliffhanger and Court of Claws picked up right where it left off. Lots and lots of world building and info dump, we’ve moved away from some Camelot lore and much more to learn! Draven is the prince of the Siabra people, another line of fae. There is a Blood Rite to see who will secure the throne of the Siabra and we meet a lot of ruthless competitions. This book we see Morgan and Draven’s relationship grow as well.

It ends on a cliffhanger!

Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)

Briar Boleyn's 'Court of Claws' takes you to a magical place filled with secrets and exciting characters. Boleyn makes this world feel real with lots of details.

The people in the story are interesting, and it's fun to see the main character change and grow. The story has lots of twists and turns, but sometimes it's a bit tricky to understand everything.

If you like magical adventures, 'Court of Claws' is a great book to read. It's like going on a thrilling journey!

I read and really enjoyed the first book in this series (Queen of Roses), but this one just sort of fell flat for me. This could just be because I read this one immediately after the first, I'm not sure. In reading this one, I just found the main character a little immature and that made it difficult to want to continue reading. Definitely inspired by ACOTAR, but just quite executed as well. Not my cup of tea, but I do think there's an audience of readers who will really like this dark fantasy.

I had a hard time getting into this - I love Briar Boleyn and think she's an amazing writer and storyteller but it wasn't for meeee.

#CourtofClaws I love this book! This is the second in the trilogy and goodness does it have the adventure! Morgan awakes in Draven’s bed with her last memories being of Lancelet being attacked. Now Morgan is thrown into the Court of Claws as Draven’s paramour. There is political intrigue, a possible romance (or is it all fake?) with Draven, a set of trials, and all this is happening while Camelot is in shambles. The plot twists in this one are great but be warned the ending will leave you ready to dive straight into book three with a cliffhanger and a plot twist.

I am SO glad I had Court of Claws already in my hands when I started reading Queen of Roses, just so I could delay the impatience just a little bit longer.
ICYMI, The Blood of a Fae is a dark fantasy Arthurian retelling, centered around the trials and tribulations of Morgan Pendragon, and her quest to unseat her brother, King Arthur, from the throne.

“I see you truly for everything you are and everything you will be and I claim you as mine.”

CoC kicks off right after the cliffhanger left behind in Queen of roses, and focuses even more on the tension and evolving relationship between Morgan and Draven. A major theme throughout this one was the miscommunication trope, secrets, and lies by omission, it killed me - why can't they just TALK (':
Thanfully, some of my favourite themes and tropes were still present throughout;

🗡️ Deadly Trials
💗 Spice
🗡️ Enemies to Lovers
💗 One bed trope (tents count too)
🗡️ Forced Proximity
💗 Touch her and die
🗡️ Found Family
💗 Fake relationship
🗡️ Enemies to Lovers

Book two dives deeper into Dravens story, spends less time world building - without sacrificing the momentum in book one, and features a hell of a lot more action. Court of Claws gives us more about Morgans past, her heritage, and the potential for her rule, while discovering the limits of her power.

I can't wait to see where this story goes, and I'm counting down the days until I can get my hands on book three. Thank you Briar and NetGalley for the ARC!

“Morgan Pendragon is far from insignificant. She's a force of destiny and you would do well not to trifle with her or ever let her name cross your lips again.”

I really enjoyed this book. Morgan must watch as Draven and his fellow competitors fight to the death in three deadly trials, to ultimately win the throne.
I still find Morgan to be terribly frustrating, as she is too stubborn and unforgiving towards Draven. There’s lots of witty banter, plenty of spice, and some interesting plot twists! Overall, I’m giving it 4.5/5 stars, I can’t wait until October to read book 3!

Good gracious.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I would lay myself at the feet of many of the characters in this book.

I'm going to try to be as spoiler free as possible in this review, but no doubt I'll spoil significant plot points from the first book. So uh. You've been warned?

Morgan is the heroine to beat for other fantasy authors. In this book, she goes through that classic fantasy book trope where she's mad and petulant at the MMC (Draven) for doing something that saved her life. But man is her reasoning SOUND! Some of these fantasy heroines are like "boo hoo a big strong handsome man saved me" and Morgan is like "A big strong handsome saved me but is also lying to me about everything and I deserve better" and H*LL YEAH YOU DO!!

This book is less infuriating than the first book but not in a bad way. It is a very different piece of work than the first. It did not suffer from second book syndrome where pieces of it just drag as things are transitional. Briar Boleyn got around that by making this book a story in and over itself - not just a journey to the finale.

This book is everything I want fantasy romance to be. It is accessible, interesting, SMOULDERINGLY SEXY, and great fun.

A couple of bullet points:

- I would DIE for Beks.
- The LGBTQ+ representation is on point for this book again. Not stereotypical, not forced, just people living their happy lives. Once again I am sad that we have to read fantasy books to get such normalcy.
- Nightclaw and the Bearkin are easily the best animal sidekicks in the world.

Pick up this book if you like
-True enemies to lovers
-Spice that is there for the plot not just to be spicy (its GREAT spice, but it furthers the plot. It's not gratuitous)
-Very cool worldbuilding of different fae races
-Gauntlets/magical competitions
-Morally gray gray gray characters
-A heroine that is really fed up with the patriarchy
-A unique magic system that is very personalized to the user


Five star read, cannot WAIT for the third book in this series. I inhaled this book.



PS - that epilogue? holy. wow. Arthur really is the most evil villain ever.

As promised, I added a star for book 2.

The story picks up right where it left off. The Vesper situation worked itself out.

Dragon and Morgan are navigating their way through the Blood Rise all while falling more and more for each other. Secrets lay between themes and it provides a provocative tension. Morgan’s character is much more developed in this book and Draven is once again central to her thoughts.

My favorite new character is Lyrastra. She is a perfect villain turns friend. She is witty and fierce and somewhat terrifying.

The story progresses nicely but not too fast.

With that being said, however, some parts do feel rushed, particularly the Blood Rise itself. During the scenes of the blood rise, it was exciting and stressful. However, after each round, I found there wasn’t a lot of discussion about it, and it seems like somethings so central to the book would be discussed more thoroughly. I also felt very confused once again at the end. Without giving anything away I will say I do not understand why Morgan is so angry at the end. It made no sense to me. I sure by book three it will all make sense. However, I am sufficiently hanging from this cliff that was provided and I MUST have the next book. I will recommend this book.

"Get the fuck away from my wife"👹

I didn't enjoy it as much at the previous one but it was still a great ride. I'm always up for a competition with the character's life at sake 🙏

Their relationship/dynamic felt off for a while, I struggled to really get in the vibe what with all the pretending going on (I won't go into much details to not spoil). Some dialogue lines felt very unnatural, I just couldn't imagine someone saying those words in that way if they were in the same state of mind.

Still, Draven was still a real cutie, less bad boy now that we got more information on his past. Meanwhile Morgan was extra passive for most of the book, up until like 85% I was just waiting for her to actually do something.

I was very confused by the rooms, buildings, arena etc I couldn't understand where the characters were, how the rooms were set up etc. Also a certain point of the magic/power system, again I can't get into much details but one character was able to control their body very conveniently for the plot.

We get a tragic death but we can't even get into the sadness of it all we don't have time to grieve before they argue about their relationship, again. I thought I was gonna cry but nope straight back to the drama.

I was so mad with Morgan at the end, she behaved very unrationally. unreasonable girlie with unreasonable feelings and unreasonable reactions.

finally, the word "cantankerous" was very much a novelty and it did make me laugh.



[I received an ARC copy of this book and am giving this review freely]

Draven made a huge sacrifice by bringing Morgan to his homeland for safety and healing. He returned to the land that he was exiled from for committing a crime of passion. Although he has no regrets of the events that took place that night.

Morgan doesn’t know who Draven truly is. She begins to learning information about his homeland, and she realizes that there is more to the world than she was originally told. The secrets start to come to the light and Morgan might not be ready to face her past. But in order to save her kingdom she will have to.

This is book two in the series. Briar provided us with a new court, characters and answers to questions from the previous book. We got to know Draven in a deeper level in this book and his back story was heartbreaking.

The crumbs we were given about Morgan’s parents and her abilities had me itching to know more! I have my suspicious about her real identity, but I’ll keep those to myself for now.

After the hunt for Excalibur goes awry, Morgan awakes to find herself in unfamiliar territory, surrounded by scheming liars. Desperate to return to her kingdom to save her people, Morgan agrees to follow along with Draven's charade, but what will she do when she realizes that she is in for more than she bargained for? Court of Claws is an epic continuation of the Blood of a Fae series, with cutthroat action, conniving nobles, obscure secrets and unforetold destinies that will leave you on the edge of your seat!

Just when I thought this story couldn't get any better, Boleyn throws many more twists and spicy scenes at us! As with the first book, I could not put this one down because it was an absolute page-turner, and I was itching to know what was going to happen next. The slow burn, enemies-to-lovers romance made me so giddy! I am a sucker for witty banter, which was almost nonstop between Morgan and Draven; the tension between the two was palpable. I am so glad that we get to learn more about the Fae and other areas of this world! Boleyn's world building continues to amaze me with Aercanum's complex and fascinating geography, and I would love to have a map to better visualize where all of the cities/kingdoms lie. The action in the second book is intense and the visualizations are so intricately detailed that I felt like I was there with them. This book took me on a near literal rollercoaster: laughing, crying, wanting to through it across the room. With that jaw-dropping cliffhanger, I cannot contain my excitement and anticipation for book 3!! Go read this series now to catch up before it comes out because I promise that you will not regret it!.

Book no 2 was way better than the first one. The romance that was missing in the first one is definitely here and I loved all the found family that we get to meet too. While Morgan grows and learns more about her roots, I found that she was a bit immature at times and was getting on my nerves a little bit. Reading about Draven just made me wish we could have his POV and understand everything that goes on much better.
The end is leaving you hanging, anticipating the next book. At least we will not have to wait too much as I cannot wait to see what it’s in store for our loved characters!
A huge thank you to NetGalley for providing this ARC! All thoughts in this review are honest and my own.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC version of this book!

The second book was exactly what I needed. It had everything that I thought was lacking in Queen of Roses. A great dark romantic fantasy for the Sarah Maas lovers out there. I will be reading the third book!

This book was a very fresh take on a fae world.

Alright, I thought I was at a loss for words after reading Queen of Roses, but that pales in comparison to how I feel after finishing Court of Claws!

Court of Claws picks up immediately after Queen of Roses. However, we meet Morgan and Draven in a completely different setting, a far away kingdom where Draven is the banished prince!?

In this book there is definitely more romance and the relationship between Morgan and Draven grows much more intense. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very much a slow burn, but that made it so much more enjoyable! The yearning is no joke!

Romance aside, this was such an entertaining book. The story is so good and honestly, if you took out the romance it would still be a really great fantasy novel.

The characters in this book are so much more layered as well. As the story progresses, so do the characters. Boleyn found the perfect balance between introducing plot and revealing character information, especially with Draven.

I also really loved Lyrastra. Even though she’s pretty terrible in the beginning of the story, Boleyn did a great job showing all sides of her character and really adding dimension to her. I NEED to know what happens with her in the next book!

The last 100 pages of this story felt like a rollercoaster with all of the revelations. I felt like I didn’t have a moment to breathe! 😂 And don’t get me started on the cliffhanger, it was even crazier than the first book!

I absolutely loved this book and I can’t wait for the next one to come out!

Synopsis:
Court of Claws by Briar Boleyn is the 2nd book in the Blood of a Fae series.
Morgan Pendragon finds herself in the court of the Siabra fae, far from her home Camelot. The court is deadly and Morgan wants nothing more than to return to help those she left behind, but Kairos Draven, her once bodyguard, wants to keep her close.
Surrounded by constant deceit, Morgan works to navigate not only surviving in the fae court, but also understanding her true identity and her connection to those around her.
My Thoughts:
I absolutely love this book and I cannot wait for the next one in the series to come out. I love the reimagining of the King Arthur Legends, and I love the description of the Siabra court.
I absolutely love Draven’s character as well as Crescent and Becks. I did struggle a bit with Morgan’s character in this book. I felt at times she was unreasonably rude which was off putting, and that she was not thinking straight when it came to a number of her actions, however, I hope her behavior will be explained away in the next novel as perhaps being due to the hardship of having her world turned upside down in a short amount of time.
All in all a great read!

These books have had a bit of a buzz around them so I had been eager to see what they were like. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get into them at all. I found them to be quite drawn out and by the time I should have been invested, I was nowhere near. Not for me at all.

This book was so so good! Somehow I loved it even more than the first one. The plot was so easy to read as the author was constantly providing beautiful world building and exciting events to pull readers into the story. I can’t wait to read the next one!