Thank you to Macmillan Children’s and Macmillan Audio for the review copy!
By Vanessa Le
🎧 Narrated by: VyVy Nguyen
Series: The Last Bloodcarver Duology, Book 1
Book 57 of 2024
The Last Bloodcarver feels like a book written for a teen/YA audience. In an era where some adult readers sometimes put expectations on YA books catering to them, I think it’s important that young readers can find books that are for them.
Readers who are looking for a medical drama and murder mystery with fantasy elements will likely enjoy this one. We get to spend a lot of time watching Nhika explore her powers and think about the world she has grown up in. There is a lot of discussion about colonization and its impacts on folk magic and practices, which I think this generation of readers will find really interesting.
I picked this one up because of the cover and the blurb compared it to Cinder, which I absolutely loved. I don’t really understand the comparison with “mechanical wonders of Cinder,” but maybe I didn’t read the book closely enough. My expectations were set that there was going to be more of a focus on romance, and the romance felt very friends – to – more, which is not my favorite trope. The found family friendships were more strong, and I think it’s a mistake to market this as a romantasy. Likely, the next book will focus more on the romantic elements and it may make more sense then.
🎧 The Last Bloodcarver was excellent on audio. I sometimes have trouble with fantasy worldbuilding – names of people and places tend to go in one ear and out the other for me – so not having a ton of names to learn made it an easy listen for me. VyVy Nguyen created a lush and clear world with her performance, and really brought each individual character to life. Some listeners may recognize her as part of the cast of Stars in Your Eyes and Sunshine Nails.
. . . . . . . book synopsis . . . . . . . .
The tantalizing romance of These Violent Delights meets the mechanical wonders of Cinder in The Last Bloodcarver, the first in a two-book debut — with a riveting medical magic system and lush Vietnam-inspired fantasy world.
Nhika is a bloodcarver. A cold-hearted, ruthless being who can alter human biology with just a touch. In the industrial city of Theumas, she is seen not as a healer, but a monster that kills for pleasure.
When Nhika is caught using her bloodcarving abilities during a sham medical appointment, she’s captured by underground thugs and sold to an aristocratic family to heal the last witness of their father’s murder.
But as Nhika delves deeper into their investigation amidst the glitz of Theumas’ wealthiest district, she begins to notice parallels between this job and her own dark past. And when she meets an alluring yet entitled physician’s aide, Ven Kochin, she’s forced to question the true intent behind this murder. In a society that outcasts her, Kochin seems drawn to her…though he takes every chance he gets to push her out of his opulent world.
When Nhika discovers that Kochin is not who he claims to be, and that there is an evil dwelling in Theumas that runs much deeper than the murder of one man, she must decide where her heart, and her allegiance, truly lie. And — if she’s willing to become the dreaded bloodcarver Theumas fears — to save herself and the ones she’s vowed to protect.
Jana and Books 