ARC review of The Blood Orchid by Kylie Lee Baker

I am so honoured that I got to read this book before it goes public to the world. Thank you so so much to NetGally and HarperCollins for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts!

Publisher synopsis:

Whatever power you think you have is an illusion.
Whatever your dreams are, they belong to me.
And wherever you run, I am already there waiting for you.

Since Zilan entered the world of royal alchemists, she has learned that alchemy comes at a price. She has lost loved ones in her search for justice against the evil Empress and all she wants now is to find some way to bring them back. Resurrection is her specialty, after all.

In search of the myth of Penglai Island, where it’s rumoured life can be fully restored, Zilan starts a new adventure. But when old threats come back to haunt her and the path to Penglai Island means facing down unpredictable, sometimes dangerous, alchemists, she wonders just how high of a price she may be willing to pay. . .

This book absolutely destroyed me! I was in tears by page 50 and I was constantly bursting into more tears just because of the writing, Kylie Lee Backer really knows how to write a beautiful and heartbreaking story. It was fast paced it kept me engaged and constantly on the edge of my seat (I read most of this book over the course of an 10 hour long plane flight and needless to say I did not sleep AT ALL). Let’s get into it…

Plot

I really enjoyed reading this book! So much so that I often times completely lost track of the time. The story just had this way of pulling you in. One minute I was at chapter 6 the next I was finished with chapter 17 and it felt like no time had passed at all (though I think my eyes would have to disagree on that bit 😂)

The plot was fast paced, it was gripping and easy to understand. We were fed a pretty steady stream of information but not enough that it spilled the beans completely on what was coming. You still get to do a bit of guess work on that for the time being. I think the author did a lovely job of wrapping it all up by the end (I personally don’t like ending a story it feels like saying goodbye to your best friends even though you have only been with them for 311 odd pages!)

I may have already mentioned this but I will say it again! I love the way Kylie writes! She is so good at blending the darker aspects of the resurrection alchemy with the strong messages of change and accepting your own self worth that are both deeply ingrained into the plot. There where a few heavier topics that I found while reading this book such as Zilan having a hard time accepting that she can’t save everyone she loves and that death can’t always be reversed.

On a happier note, there are also very strong messages of self-empowerment. The MC is constantly battling with herself and we get moments where she is in complete doubt of her own self worth and then moments when she is totally confidant in herself and everyone can ‘back the f@%& off’. It also makes you feel emotions…sometimes that’s not entirely comfortable but thats okay! She also makes it really easy to sympathise with Zilan who is a little on the morally grey side and I usually find it challenging to connect with those types of characters. But there are comedic interludes and they somehow managed to keep the tone mostly light while you’re being bombarded with the overwhelming darkness that is woven into the story.

The Romance was not really a big plot focus of this book but what little there was completely broke my heart! Because of the situations Hong is in thanks to what happened in the end of book one, all of the interactions with him hurt so bad. I won’t go into to much detail because…spoilers for book one. Although there wasn’t a lot of romantic love in this book, I would say that the story revolves more around the familial bonds that she has with her brother and sister who are featured heavily in the book.

Characters

The characters were well developed and fun to read. The arcs from book one were continued very well into book two and we even got to see how the characters had to evolve past what you were sure they were capable of in book one. I think in particular, the character that completely blew my mind in terms of redemption arc was Zheng Sili. Holy cow! Was I worried when he came back in to the picture. But, no need to fear, nothing too bad happens and that was one good character arc (nicely done). I think my personal favourite character by the end of the book was Gēgē I mean how could you not just love his banter and dialogue!

Representation

This book had nothing in the way of LGBTQ+ representation. There are no characters that are even mentioned having any sort of same sex relationship. Also, no people who previously did not identify with their birth sex and that did disappoint me quite a bit. On the other hand, the entire cast of the book is Chinese, so we get our Asian rep from that. It is also a frequent point in story that Zilan is a (Hunxie) a half foreigner, because her dad is Irish, so there is also that.

Thought provoking?

Yes absolutely! This book made me think on so many different levels: there’s the ‘what is going on here’ and then we have the ‘holy shit what just happened I need to go back and see if I can find out what let to that’ bits. There was also a mystery-ish aspect to the story with the whole trying the uncover the truth about what the eight immortals did when they were on the island? (So glad that got wrapped up, it had been nagging me ever since chapter 4!!)

In the first book there were a lot of conversations about the costs of alchemy and this book really drove that point home: how people will do pretty much anything to get what they want. We also witnessed Zilan wrestling with her own self loathing at what she did at the end of book one. I liked the subtlety that the author wrote it in such a way that if you weren’t looking it could have easily flown under the radar and not gotten noticed at all; like so frequently happens in the world today.

From the very beginning of this Duology I had a feeling that it would be hard to find any book like this. There are things in it that I’ve never come across in any other books I’ve read; specifically the way they use alchemy and the way its tied to the elements. I really like the fact that alchemy is tied to your qi (your life energy) and I also really loved that the story was driving home the fact that humans will do so many horrible things to succeed and to get what they think is rightfully theirs. It’s mildly terrifying when you take the time to think on it.

Humour Factor

Some of my favourite scenes of fun were with Zilan’s cousins. They really are just so endearing and dry. God do I love me some good dry humour! I swear at some points it was all that was holding me together when shit hit the fan (which it does quite a lot and hard).

Sign Off

This book was absolutely beautifully done I loved every second of it and I can’t wait until I can get myself a physical copy!!

The Blood Orchid comes out on the 22^nd of October in the US and the 1^st of October in the UK. So make sure to mark your calendars so you know when to head the the bookstore and grab yourself a copy!!

And just as a reminder pre-orders help authors so much to get their work out into the world and make sure it gets to go to print so we can read it!

So it you want to help support them then definitely go pre-order this book for yourself!

Here are some links if your interested:))

BookshopUS BookshopUK

As Always thank you so much for talking the time to read my thoughts about this book and I hope you will consider coming back

-Sam

9 ⭐️ out of 10. The final score. You can find out more on how I score the books here.

1 Characters: where they enjoyable to read and or well written and fun?

1 Plot: was it easy to follow and cohesive throughout and engaging to read

1 Enjoyment: did I enjoy reading the book, was it fun?

1 Writing: did they need a thesaurus at any point during?

0.5 Romance: how much did the romance make me blush/squeak/giggle?