With Fire In Their Blood

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The magic system was slightly confusing for me but hopefully these issues will be cleared up in book 2. Where do I even begin with With Fire In Their Blood?! It’s a rich story steeped in history, magic and European culture with a queer twist which I just loved. Basically it’s perfect 😏😍 The magic system, world-building, and dystopian elements are on point in this book. Everything is layered and developed, and the imagery and personification used really bring the setting and characters to life. The magic system is layered, complex, and intriguing, but I did find it a bit dense and confusing at times. That being said, I feel like the next book will offer some clarity for those few instances.

This book… this book!? I haven’t read a YA Fantasy in a while and I read the whole of this in one sitting. It was so different and completely refreshing from anything I’ve read in a while, I loved it! Poor Lilly just wants to be normal, but with bullets flying and fires burning, she can only be a heroine, whether she likes it or not.The tone is great – dark and eerie with an air of mystery. The story includes an isolated city shrouded in secrets, eerie mists and decaying structures, enigmatic characters, disturbing nightmares, and more, which really highlight the Gothic vibes. The author’s writing style and the way they use personification and sensory language also add to the Gothic tone. The dystopian elements are also strong, especially the excessive control and corruptive power of those in charge, the rigid rules which keep the citizens uninformed, isolated, and without a voice, and a protagonist who defies all obstacles and fights for freedom.

The city has a bloody history of warring clans — and now enjoys an uneasy peace under the iron hand of the General. Lilly too has a blood-stained history. Her mother killed herself, and Lilly still remembers slipping in her mother’s blood. While the spice level is definitely YA geared, the moments of romance were beautiful and exciting. Kat Delacorte writes a Bi - love square full of gorgeous humans. There's a bathtub scene that I think I reread 10 times over. The dynamic between Lilly, Liza and Christian was electric! There were some really amazing moments of chemistry. Most of the time, I wasn’t sure what would happen next which is always an exciting experience. I did figure out the big reveal quite early on which possibly made the story slower for me than it ought to have been.And then she accidentally breaks Castello's most important rule: when the General's men come to test your blood, you'd better not be anything more than human . . . Lilly’s Dad has uprooted her from rural Maine, where she’d lived all her sixteen years. He transplants her to Castello, a walled mountain town in Italy which, he says, has hired him as an engineer to “replace the electrical grid and wire up the internet” and drag the place into the present decade. Her once-loving father has become a stranger to Lilly since the day, six years earlier, when she had found her Mom lying dead by the fireplace at home in Maine. Suicide, Lilly tells us, but her mother remains a frequent visitor in her restless dreams, whispering that Lilly is ‘dangerous, that I ruined the things I touched’. I do with the characters and relationships had been a little more developed, however, that may simply be because my adoration for Nico overpowered all. I'm so excited to see how the romance develops (there are so many directions it could turn?!) and where its almost dystopian-esque ending goes in book two.

aside from lilly, none of the other characters were particularly likeable either. everyone overreacted for no reason about stupid shit. they were all petty and excessively angry. unfortunately, this also covers the adults. no one was safe from the built up anger in this town. Firstly I’d like to thank Kat, Puffin and NetGalley for the arcs!! You all amazing and wonderful!! 😍😘 Lilly the FMC is dragged to Castello by her dad, as he starts a new job. The town is divided down the middle between two families who once killed each other daily. But now their "god," the General, has convinced them that the people with power (The Saints) are the ones that need to be destroyed. And that's just what they've been doing for the past 20 years. Going into it I was really excited to read a book set in Italy in a remote village with a weird cultish setting upon first look. In fact I did like the town of Castello and it’s mysterious secrets. I really enjoyed finding out more about the town, the saints and this centuries long war. The more you read the more secrets you uncovered and yet the more mysteries appeared though some of these did feel a little too predictable. The lore of the city is marred with a long history of two warring gangs united by a secret threat, who still to this day aren’t allowed to cross into each others territory. This whole town is kept together by someone called ‘the general’ a dictator who keeps a firm fist on what goes in and out and around the ancient town.This is a book about ambition and the need for power, and then more power. It's about how much someone is willing to sacrifice for power, the lengths they'll go to for it, lies and betrayals and all. But it's also about love and friendship and what they'll sacrifice for each other. It's brutal, dark and unforgiving, definitely not a book that pulls its punches! There’s something decidedly peculiar about Castello. The city had an odd aura of suppressed energy, and its power seems to invade the blood of certain of its inhabitants. Lilly finds herself soaking up that power with electrifying results. The ending leaves a lot of unanswered questions, but that just leaves SO much to be discovered in the next book.

I really enjoyed reading about Lilly – the bisexual rep was spot on. However I did feel that I struggled to picture her most times and get close to her as a character. But her fierce character and determination won me over in the end! And then she accidentally breaks Castello's most important rule: when the General's men come to test your blood, you'd better not be anything more than human... When sixteen-year-old Lilly Deluca arrives in Castello, she isn’t impressed. A secluded town in the Italian mountains is not where she saw her last years of high school playing out. This book was filled with twist and turns, some predictable, some that took me completely by surprise (which is always the perfect balance). The world building was well done although in some instances it got slightly confusing (but I think this will be neatened up and polished as we go along in the series as this is only the first book). Castello is ruled by the so called saviour known as The General. Years ago there was a war between the Marconis and Paridisos, but there was something else roaming the town that’s worse, they are known as the Saints. People with unmeasurable, evil magic. It wasn’t until the General caught and burned them that the town lives in peace with one another. Lilly find it hard to believe but slowly, the town’s and her own history merge together to reveal something far more powerful.

Advance Praise

It was a mixture of a gothic setting, intricate magic systems and politics, waring mafia clans, witches, romance, even the setting in Italy was beautiful yet sometimes haunting, it was just amazingly set up. It has a contemporary setting, but it doesn't feel like it at times. The Italian city of Castello is so totally cut off from anything we'd recognise as the real world that it feels like this could be a portal fantasy, like Lilly and her father have stepped through the gates of a fantasy kingdom, not just through the city gates of a modern Italian city.