“Death stalks me like a scorned lover. I can’t escape them. They’re always there, haunting the darkened corners of my life when not bold enough to be front and center, a perpetual reminder that they’ll come for me too one day.”

Cristina and Clement Trudeau are trying to move on after their family got some revenge, which was blessed by the god’s themselves. However, they have a target painted on their backs now and enemies are coming after them now that they’re back at the top. Bodies are stacking up at their door and Clem still can’t figure out what to do with Yves. However, there is a new magical entity in town and Cris and Clem are having trouble deciding if it’ll help them or hurt them.

Blood Debts was one of my most pleasant surprises of last year. I know that sounds bad, but I didn’t know that I was going to love it as much as I did. So, I was super excited to pick this up and continue the drama. However, I swear to the gods that I read this was going to be a duology and this book is a middle book. 100% a middle book and that makes me irrationally disappointed. I’ve gone looking to see where I thought this said it was going to be a duology and I can’t find it. Either I’m crazy or it never did say it, but I thought this was going to be a really tightly written duology and I think if it was a duology, it would be. However, the first 300 pages of this dragged. Dragged so bad. However, if you went into this with the expectation that it’s a middle book, then you should be fine.

There are a lot of subplots in this series and the first 300 pages does a lot of work getting people into the positions that they need to be in for the next book. However, I still feel like this could have been tighter. I felt like we were going around in circles with all of the POVs. Valentina is so consumed with vengeance, Cris is just full of rage, and Clem is just having a very slow go with figuring out how to help Yves. Clem’s POV is fine, he’s still my favorite of the three, but both Valentina’s and Cris’ started to feel like treading water after awhile.

Don’t get me wrong, both Valentina and Cris have reasons to be enraged and angry. Valentina feels like she’s been wronged and doesn’t believe in turning the other cheek, which honestly is fine. Cris is enraged by the systems in place that haven’t helped her or her family. The systems that haven’t helped the people who need them the most in centuries. Centuries. She has a right to be angry as well, but my gripe is that their character development felt glacial in this. I suppose you could compare it to the pace that changes happen within the system, which yeah, valid. Their character development is faster than that.

“When y’all do awful things to people of color, y’all always expect us to take the high road, forgive and forget, except that’s the only time y’all ever afford us a sliver of humanity—any other time we’re ‘savages’ and ‘thugs.'”

I do still love the world-building and the lore of this world. I find the varieties of magic and what is considered acceptable magic and what is considered unacceptable for the gen practitioners to be interesting. I love the way magic is used and depicted in this world and I just really want more. There are some interesting developments and additions to the established lore from the first book and things are shaping up to make for a very interesting finale in the next one, that is assuming that this is a trilogy and not a quartet.

This sequel was also darker than the original. It didn’t have the positive balance of the moments that Clem and Yves had in the first one, which was one of my favorite parts. This has more plotting and murdering and rage. Unflinching is a good word to describe it. However, if you found the first one too dark, this one is probably going to be way too dark for you. If you’re into drama heavy literature this is going to be pretty perfect for you.

Overall, I think that fans of Blood Debts will be satisfied with this sequel. There is a lot going on and I have to trust that Terry J. Benton-Walker has the perfect way to wrap all this up. Blood Debts was fantastic and Blood Justice is a solid sequel. I do wish it was a little tighter in the first 300 pages, but generally I believe that of basically every book that comes in at almost 500 pages. However, I’m excited to see where this is going to go.

Have you read Blood Justice? What did you think? What’s your favorite duology? Let me know in the comments below!

Important Bits:
Length: 480 pages
Published: April 23, 2024 by Tor Teen
Representation: Predominantly Black Cast, Gay Black MC
Content Warnings: Death, Murder, Blood, Violence, Racism, Possession by a spirit, Necromancy, Discussions around slavery and racism, and more.
Awards: None Yet.
Blood Debts Series: Blood Debts (2023), Blood Justice (2024)
Also by: Cool. Awkward. Black. (2023), Alex Wise vs. the End of the World (2023)