Bloody Rose: The Band, Book Two

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In the end, it’s like Ron Weasley said : « you’re gonna suffer, but you’re gonna be happy about it. » Bloody Rose is also a love letter to found families everywhere. Again, parenthood is for sure a major theme, but this book truly embraces the “it takes a village to raise a child” proverb. All the members of Fable were forced to grow up seeing their parents go to battle in very different ways. Some got by on the love from their secondary family members, and others only found their true family when joining Fable. Regardless, this book really helps prove that blood will only ever just be blood. And that a family is what you choose and who will always choose to unconditionally love you. The winks to the first books were wonderfully executed. It wasn’t « let’s put that character here with no purpose » or « NAME-DROPPING TIME ! ». It made sense, and added something to the story – was even part of it – without ever sounding fanfictionnesque.

Well Vellichor would probably be it. I love that sword. But since carrying it around in real life might be troublesome, let’s instead go for the ‘Transforming Tome’ that could turn into any book I wanted to read. I’d still pay the authors, though. Obviously. Bloody Rose is bloody brilliant! It is a book that will make you remember why you fell in love with reading in the first place' The Tattooed Book Geek A band of fabled mercenaries tour a wild fantasy landscape, battling monsters in arenas in front of thousands of adoring fans. But, a secret and dangerous gig ushers them to the frozen north, and the band is never one to waste a shot at glory. Eames is the current reigning champion of joyful, human, madcap messy fantasy that hits all the right notes (FORBIDDEN PLANET)Rose - Frontwoman of the band Fable, Golden Gabe’s daughter, and a reputation that has already guaranteed that she will go down in history as one of the bravest mercenaries to have ever lived. Also, she duel wields scimitars – Thistle and Thorn! I was raised on my father’s stories, spoon-fed glory until I hungered for it-until I thought I’d starve without it.” When the biggest mercenary band of all rolls into town, led by the infamous Bloody Rose, Tam jumps at the chance to sign on as their bard. It’s adventure she wants-and adventure she gets as the crew embark on a quest that will end in one of two ways: glory or death. And yet here they all were: at the cold edge of the world — each of them vying to be worthy of one another, to protect one another, to prove themselves a part of something to which they already, irrevocably belonged." pg 265

I laughed and wept and worried a lot and had the most tremendous time reading Bloody Rose. Eames is a gifted and entertaining storyteller (Kevin Hearne, author of the Iron Druid Chronicles) Cliché as it sounds, I wanna say Vampire. I already prefer night to day, and the suns burns me like holy fire. Vampires dress well, live in castles, and generally get laid a lot. What’s not to love? Sure, drinking blood isn’t the best, but if you mixed it with chocolate milk it might not be so bad.To Tam, there was nothing worse than the prospect of never leaving home, of being cooped up in Ardburg until her dreams froze and her Wyld Heart withered in its cage. She glanced at her uncle, who gave her a reassuring nod, and was about to tell Freecloud that it didn't matter if they were facing the Horde, or something worse than the Horde, or if they were bound for the Frost Mother's hell itself. She would follow. Set six years after the events that saw Clay Cooper and his bandmates set out across the Heatwyld to rescue Golden Gabe’s daughter – the titular character of this novel – this book centers around Rose’s band and a new quest, though it stays true to the humor and emotional heart Eames established in the first book. The reader gets familiarized with Rose and the new characters of the novel through the POV character, Tam, who I found so wonderfully endearing from start to finish. Freecloud had been made a slave by his devotion to Rose, who in turn was enslaved by her single-minded pursuit of glory for glory’s sake. Cura was marred in myriad ways by a horrific past she’d condemned herself to remembering every time she looked in the mirror. Brune had spent most of his life trying to be something he wasn’t, and had risked his sanity to stake his place in the band. All in all I enjoyed this about the same as I enjoyed the first book in the series. It had a few tiny flaws but none that really hurt my enjoyment of the story. I'm eager to read the third book in the series. Hopefully Ganelon and Larkspur will be the focus of that one!