The Blood Orchid

By: Kylie Lee Baker

Narrated by: Natalie Naudus

Whatever power you think you have is an illusion.
Whatever your dreams are, they belong to me.
And wherever you run, I am already there waiting for you.

Since Zilan entered the world of royal alchemists, she has learned firsthand that alchemy comes at a price. She has lost her family and her beloved prince in her search for justice against the evil Empress. All Zilan wants now is to find some way to bring them back. Resurrection is her specialty, after all.

In search of Penglai Island, where the infamous myth says life can be fully restored, Zilan starts a new adventure. But Penglai Island has been kept well hidden by a group of unpredictable, and often dangerous, alchemists. Uncovering the secret means challenging some of the most powerful alchemists to ever live. And when old threats come back to haunt Zilan, she will have to decide just how much she is willing to sacrifice to save her loved ones—and the practice of alchemy that has long defined her and the world around her.

This gripping duology closer by the acclaimed author of The Keeper of Night is not to be missed!

Hunger Games meets The Last Airbender

Review based on audiobook.*

By chapter 17, I could not wait to finish this book. From the beginning I was asking myself if I had missed a book, but then decided that, if I had, there wasn’t much in that middle book anyway. Weird gaps open up in the timeline as this story starts a few weeks after the last book and the author tries to fill in the gaps. This is definitely an attempt at a YA “coming of age” story, with its Katniss-Everdeen-inspired lead character’s anachronistic, snarky, overly-aggressive and combative behaviors. The baggage these kids carry around! Good grief. The dialogue tries way too hard to be clever and funny and comes across stilted and annoying. Some of this blame may lay on the narrator, I grant. The choice of action over substance makes the book fast-forwardable, skipping ahead until the dumb sparring conversation with her frenemy is over or she’s slammed her alchemy stones to the ground, annihilating the bad guy. At first I appreciated the depth of description and detail but by midway the constant flowery language attempting to find new descriptions gets tedious. The author’s imagination comes through and the imagery in the language is engaging… until it is not. What, exactly, does a “whisper of a star” look and feel like? I guess I can imagine, but at the point of the story I had had enough and just wanted to get on with the story. I celebrated when the final words were read.

A Wonderful Conclusion

An exciting and imaginative conclusion to the Scarlet Alchemist Duology. While I preferred the pacing, prose, and humor of The Scarlet Alchemist, the experimental elements of The Blood Orchid made it a curious delight, and I'm thankful that the publisher supported Baker in these risks. And once again, Natalie Naudus knocked it out of the park with her narration!

Consistency

The narration was beautiful and emotive. Story was consistent with the quality one can expect in all this author’s works. Looking forward to other stories by Kylie