Review: Crimson Reign (Blood Heir #3)
Crimson Reign (Blood Heir #3)
By Amelie Wen Zhao
Published By: Harper Voyager
Publication Date: March 3, 2022
Date Read: April 14, 2022
Genre: YA – Fantasy
Source: Bought
Format: Hardback
Pages: 496
From Goodreads:
For fans of Children of Blood and Bone and Six of Crows comes the thrilling conclusion to the Blood Heir trilogy. A princess with a dark secret must ally with a con man to liberate her empire from a reign of terror in this epic fantasy retelling of the Anastasia story.The Red Tigress, Ana Mikhailov, has returned to Cyrilia, but the country she once called home has fallen under a dark rule. Across the land, the Empress Morganya is tightening her grip on Affinites and non-Affinites alike. Ana dealt a blow to the Empress when she and her allies turned back Morganya’s troops in Bregon, but she couldn’t stop Morganya from gaining possession of the last remaining Bregonian siphon: a dangerous new weapon with the power to steal Affinities.
Ana’s forces are scattered, and her tenuous alliance with the Cyrilian rebel group, the Red Cloaks, is becoming more frayed by the day. What’s worse, she’s lost her Affinity to blood and without it, Ana barely knows who she is anymore–or if she has the strength to defeat Morganya.
Morganya’s reign of terror is close to crushing the nation Ana was born to rule. And now Ana will finally face the sinister empress, but will she survive? Will anyone? And will her Empire welcome her back to the throne, or turn her out to survive on her own.
The Affinites and Non-Affinites of Cyrilia will determine Ana’s future, if Morganya doesn’t kill her first.
“Fight with me. Together, let us rebuild this empire. Together, let us rebuild this world. For the better.”
There are no words to describe just how unbelievably excited I am to have finally read this book. This series is one I will always thank Illumicrate for, as if the first instalment of this series hadn’t been in one of their boxes, I probably never would have picked it up. And now, this is one of my all time favourite series. A phenomenal fantasy series loosely based on tale of Anastasia… this is a series I adored and I had such high hopes and expectations for this third and final installment… and it smashed them all. For me, this book was utter perfection.
Crimson Reign picks up where Red Tigress left off, with Ana building an army to take down Morganya, and Ramson and the rest of her friends searching for a way to save Ana’s life. I really liked that all the characters weren’t seperated for too long in this one. I felt like it was just long enough for them to be doing their own individual missions and then they were back together for the big fight. This book was very fast paced and action packed and I absolutely loved that!
The character growth in this series has been absolutely insane. Some of the things that were happening towards the end of the book, if you had told me that would be the choices the characters would make at the start of the series I’d have laughed at you! But the way Amelie developed and grew these characters is fantastic, and everything felt so natural, and it was such a fantastic progression. I absolutely adored every moment of this fantastic book!
The romance in this book was utterly perfect to me. If you’ve been following me for a while, you will know that I am a plot first, romance second kind of reader and that is definitely what we got in this series. It felt so perfect within this series and in my opinion this is one of the best romances in a YA Fantasy series I have ever read. It’s utterly stunning and moving and so emotional and I seriously loved every single moment.
Amelie put me though every since emotion throughout this book. I laughed, I swooned… and I cried. I am so emotional that this series is over. Blood Heir Trilogy will always remain one of my all time favourite series. It is one I could read again and again and again and never get bored. Crimson Reign was the perfect finale to such a fantastic series. I can’t wait to see what Amelie writes next. I am officially a fan and will pick it up no matter what it is about. I highly recommend this series to every fantasy fan out there. You won’t be disappointed.
“I’m done lying. I don’t want to face any more regrets of things left unsaid. I love you, Ana. I’ve only ever loved you.”
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I’m Kayleigh, a teacher and blogger who is obsessed with all things bookish. I love reading YA books of all genres and I am happiest when sharing my love and passion for books.