Blood Rose Rebellion by Rosalyn Eves
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It has magic. It has a unique setting. It has "Rebellion" in the title. I had good hopes for this book.

The premise of the story was sufficient enough that it caught my eye. And a lot of people were comparing it to the Red Queen series, which I did enjoy. So I thought, "yessss, get me on board." But I found that the only similarity was that people were separated by their class & magic abilities.

The character, Anna is among the higher class of people called the Luminate who are granted the the power of magic during a binding ritual. It is said that she however is barren & the ritual didn't take. But during her sisters' debutante spell casting, Anna breaks the spell & reveals a power that other's would either take advantage of for a rebellion or kill her to prevent one.

It had me there. I was pretty much stoked to have her be a kickass character and not let others define what she should do. But she wasn't. She was ehh. Honestly her cousin Matyas seemed to outshine her. I was also hooked to be introduced to this awesome rebellion that could happen. But it somehow didn't stand out as much as I would have liked it to. And as much as I enjoyed the magic system or the abilities characters throughout the book had, it wasn't enough to binge read through.

However, I did really enjoy the historical setting. And how the author intertwined Hungarian mythology and 19th century history in a fictional fantasy setting. It's probably the only reason I kept reading. I'm also happy that she included a glossary to help the reader get informed about the right way to say and read Hungarian names and phrases. I would recommend that you read that first or bookmark it to reference back to while reading.

Although, the book didn't end on a high note with me, I'm glad I read it. It's not often I will read a book and end up wanting to read about the actual historic events during the period. But I did, and I wouldn't have known about the authors' choices for adding/inventing certain things for the book if I didn't read towards the end for her authors note.

It's not often I dislike a book. I hate it when I do. I actually enjoy most books I read. And try my best to always see the great things the author did in the story. And despite what I didn't like, the author still did really great things. And I would recommend it for just that. If you enjoy mythology, read this. If you enjoy a Eastern European setting, read this. If you enjoy a good easy read, this isn't a hard book to get through. And most importantly, if you enjoy debut books from authors, read this.




*disclaimer: I received this book from the Blogging for Books  program in exchange for an honest review.*

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