If money can make desperate people do desperate things, then the quest for immortality can make people do the unthinkable. 

 

I read The Scarlet Alchemist for the first time the day before reading The Blood Orchid so I could keep the story as fresh as possible between one book and the next. I will not be recapping any of the plot of TSA or The Blood Orchid in this review to avoid spoilers. 

 

While The Blood Orchid isn’t in any way a bad read, I didn’t like it as much as I did TSA and it didn’t quite hit the same way as that first book did. I did think we were going to get a little less political intrigue in exchange for a little more romantasy, and I was right on that score, but I didn’t expect the strong themes of family and grief that were so entwined within TSA to become even stronger and moving in TBO. As a duology, the family theme is actually the strongest plot and story component and I actually love that because it gives this whole story a spine that doesn’t rest on romance. 

 

There is quite a bit more alchemy in this book than there is in the first book in the sense that you get more of a picture of alchemy as a whole and the different things you can do with it, from the beautiful to the absolutely unthinkable. You see what people are willing to do for this power and in the name of this power, and you see what this power has cost China as a whole to exist. 

 

Our girl, Zilan? She’s an even bigger hot mess than she was in the first book and you have to love her for it. Phenomenal alchemical powers…and she has no clue what to do with them. Zilan has all the plans but no clue how to achieve them; all of the ideas but no idea how to execute them. There’s an almost manic-like energy to Zilan, this desperation borne from the idea that she’s to blame for everything and therefore only she can and should fix it. This hyper-responsibility, probably stemming from making her living as a resurrection alchemist in order to keep food on the table for her family before she became a Royal Alchemist, causes a certain myopia; in other words, Zilan can’t see the forest for the trees. 

 

There are some subplots I would’ve loved to have dropped from this duology all together. There are some others I wished had been shored up more. There is one that surprised me completely and I was here for it. In the end, the duology as a whole is strong, but this book is weaker than TSA. I still enjoyed it. 

 

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. 

 

File Under: AAPI Fiction/Book Series/Dark Fantasy/Fantasy/Romantasy/Fantasy Series/Historical Fantasy/Political Fantasy/YA Book Series/Ya Fantasy/YA Romantasy/YA Fiction