The Blood Orchid

<i>I received this ARC thanks to the Publisher and NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.</i>

WARNING - this review contains heavy spoilers if you haven't read the first installment of this series called 'The Scarlet Alchemist'. If you indeed read it, I encourage you to check out <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5158644493">my review of it</a> before reading this one, simply to get familiar with the fact that I'm obsessed with Zilan & co :p

<b>"Is he dead?"
"Shut up," I said. "He's clearly not."
"Nothing is ever clear with you."</b>
TSA was my book of the year in 2023, and The Blood Orchid is definitely a nominee (as there are some teeny tiny details I would've rewritten, but not enough to not make this book a solid 6 stars) for 2024. Why? Let me tell you a story about a broken heroine (tbt my fav kind), prince in distress (also my fav kind, what can I say, Kylie Lee Baker simply knows how to hit all my jackpots!) and a duck named Durian.

<img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/26d1051143a6b27ed74e12a6d3bd78cb/6890fbed73a0d8d6-39/s540x810/7973999a6d831935be7cdae703acca9cfdc762b1.gif" width="auto" height="auto" alt="description"/>
<b>I had made too many mistakes to be the hero that I'd once wanted to be. Maybe it was time that I stopped seeing myself as anything but a curse. Alchemists had to destroy in order to rebuild, after all. I would save them all in time, but my hands hadn't been clean for ages, and I might as well stop pretending they were.</b>
As I assume you're already familiar with the cast (if not - seriously go read The Scarlet Alchemist right now or else you gotta regret your life choices) let me tell you - I was as heartbroken as you were finishing TSA. And actually pretty mad at the Fan siblings. And the author herself - WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ENDING (tho to be honest it's my favourite kind of one - let's say Allegiant ending but for book one, not the last one, which means a lot of shenanigans to bring my beloved character back in a sequel). So I knew I'll be simply suffering till TBO arc drop - and the moment it did, I felt alive once again, tho it did take some time for my heart to beat again. If you think the author would be merciful enough to make us at ease in the first 100 pages, nah, most of the book, I don't think you remember we're talking about Kylie - once you dive in, the game of uneasiness begins.

<img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/f2598325822b82b5ae2dddb1203d9cf2/2cc9f3e5bc28d8d7-8a/s540x810/edea3d790da8108d33c3ea353a6d83ff5065a406.gif" width="auto" height="auto" alt="description"/>
<b>They still believed in the Scarlet Alchemist who had seized her dream at all costs, and I couldn't bear to tell them that she was dead.</b>
Fans trio is f*cked, literally. They got a broken kingdom on their shoulders, and a personal tab of people to revive growing every few chapters. So they decide to leave so-called empress Yufei to keep their sh*t together in the palace once the other two embark on a journey to actually learn how to bring body-less people back to life. If only their task would be this easy - without an uneasy feeling that there's a shadow of the past following their every step, that might actually not be just a shadow in the end. At least they have Durian - their lucky alchemic duck coming to their rescue with a bunch of sus looking golden eggs.

<img src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/8aa4ab8b0f45be6727abb5211cfe137b/a4ff7ba1e6afdc1c-6e/s540x810/2aa6e96c85446f3139f7aa7edf67edc600aa4162.gif" width="auto" height="auto" alt="description"/>
<b>"What comes after the river plane?"
"The end."
"That sounds... perfect," I said at last.</b>
Let me tell you, at this point I have a very special cry saved for this series, once that makes me feel like I'm tearing my own heart out of my chest with claws covered in alchemy rings with pretty stones. So even though I wasn't a fan of the first half or so part of the book (because it simply didn't feature my fav cast - imagine going through a book of Triss Prior, Caleb Prior and Peter Hayes of Divergent going on an adventure together for the most of the book - as a fan of Four I'd feel like something's simply missing and I'm left mostly with characters that are annoying me - so is the feeling I had with this part) once more and more characters of book one were appearing I;ve started to remember what was so strong about TSA. And I'm not talking just about the romance with oblivious princeling (as for obvious reasons it was a bit cut out of this sequel) - it's the epicness of how Kylie Lee Baker is able to spin conclusions to her stories. The way I was gagged several times, with simply vavavoom-ness of a moment (there's for example a sudden change of POV, which had me speechless for how well it was executed), or the way the plot is still making sense by the end (which tbt is kinda lacking in books nowadays) not in a cheesy way, but like 'well deserved ending for everyone'. So yeah, even though it doesn't scream 'you won't read any better book this year' like The Scarlet Alchemist did, I'm still amazed with this ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read of mine and I know it's a strong candidate for my BOTY nonetheless.

Kylie - thank you for making my heart finally at peace (after having it in your clutches for the past year) - now I'll happily get into The Keeper of Night waiting for Bat Eater to drop, Authors who're able to end their books so well are hard to find gems that need to be treasured!