Review: Blood Crescent by Stevie McCoy

Blood Crescent by Stevie McCoy
Series: Divine #1
Genre: Fantasy | Paranormal | Young Adult
Length: 262 pages
Published on 21st September 2018 by Broken Books
Purchase: Amazon | TBD
Stevie McCoy: Website | Twitter | Goodreads
eCopy received in exchange for an honest review

Synopsis: A missing mother. A magical birthright. Can she uncover the secrets of her family legacy before the bloodline runs dry?

Sixteen-year-old Crystal Dylan thought magic only existed in storybooks. But everything changes when she finds out her long-departed mom isn’t dead: she was stolen away by the same power-hungry league now hunting her own enchanted blood. In search of answers, she must make sense of a hidden mystical realm and two mysterious protectors.

Victor is more than just the boy-next-door. As a shifter, he’s lost track of the many lives he’s led and the memories of his true self. But as he stands close to the beautiful Crystal, he can sense his past coming back into focus. So when dark forces threaten to drain Crystal’s powers, he may just have to risk an enchanted kiss that could save her life… or seal her fate.

With enemies closing in, Crystal must find her mom and uncover her magical destiny before her powers fall into the clutches of evil.

Blood Crescent is the first novel in the exhilarating Divine Series of YA paranormal fantasies. If you like hidden magical realms, fresh new takes on vampire lore, and heartfelt journeys of self-discovery, then you’ll love Stevie McCoy’s spellbinding coming-of-age tale.

Back in October Stevie reached out to see if I’d be interested in reviewing her novel Blood Crescent and I jumped at the chance because I’m always looking for new Vampire books.

I really wanted to add Blood Crescent to the list of books I scream about with love because everyone really does need more Vampires in theirs lives but I ended up having a few issues with reading so it ended up being a read that I found okay instead.

This series really does have potential. First of all these aren’t you’re classic Vampires, instead of feeding off of blood they feed of emotions/auras. So for those who don’t want to cause harm attending parties are good as people have lots of excess just floating around for them to fill up on.

I haven’t read a take on Vampires like this before and I really like how it was explored, especially as “accidental” feeding is a thing too.

The word Vampire is never uttered in this book though. There are Shadows, Shapeshifters, and Serpents. Also dreamwalkers and hunters.

The story has a lot of promising elements and characters but mostly I wish they had been explored further. But I’ll come back to this in a little bit.

Our protagonist is Crystal, she comes from a complicated family wrapped up in all this Serpent business. She has a prophecy to fullfil and a path to follow. Unfortunately she doesn’t know any of this. She doesn’t know anything.

Now usually it’d be fine for a character to be left in the dark, but when this same character also looses hours and days and is the same one who’s narrating the story? It gets very hard to follow.

Things happen and she is none the wiser. Which makes it difficult for the story to actually progress fluently. I mean, this might’ve been a style choice, for us to be as lost and confused as Crystal but it really did make things difficult for me.

So when I say I wish elements and characters had been explore further I think if the story had been from perhaps Aislinn’s point of view, even partly, it would have been a much more enjoyable read. We’d be more involved with; protecting Crystal from day one, seeing her mistakes, seeing the time she misses, struggling to figure out who can be trusted between Damien and Victor, watch her grapple and come to terms with how the world truly is, experience the worry Aislinn has whilst Crystal goes through some major changes.

So those are all thigns I liked but just wish I could’ve followed better… and I do have some other things that I really enjoyed.

The last few chapters were super enjoyable and I couldn’t get enough. Its at this point that Crystal knows most of the secrets and has more control and sense of time. Its when she starts finding out some family truths and is introduced to a very new location.

Its this location that I was super hyped about when reading, it made me want to keep reaading to see where her family history would take her, to see what new things she gets to learn here in a safer environment!

Additionally just before arriving at this place she makes a very quick and rash decision to save someone she cares for deeply and placing them somewhere that may not be that safe for them!!

& Aislinn is back in the “real world” dealing with goodness knows what.

So yeah, now I’m super torn… do I continue this series or not? We’re now at a place in the story where all my complaints don’t exist and we’ve been introduced to a lot more of this world! Very difficult decision indeed. If I do continue I hope its a lot easier to follow now Crystal has accepted herself.

3 stars / 5 stars

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