Lifeblood by Gena Showalter

Book 2 in the Everlife series. YA fantasy. Best read in order.
The war between Troika and Myriad continues. Ten is living her second life fighting for one and against the other. But she can’t forget Killian even though she can no longer be with him.

Less violent than the first book, but still many life and death situations and choices. The heroine is obsessed with numbers and poems. The author did a good of keeping up with the consistency there.
Cliffhanger. Of course that’s how this series is set up. I’ll read the last because I have the hardback and want to know if they can stop the wars. ( )

Needs fanfiction. Stat! ( )

Some parts of this novel are pure teen angst and romance - and then there are things like an advocate paying for a defendant's loss at a trial with his own life in a kind of atonement. There are some interesting things going on with regard to ideas of agency and the battle for souls and the difference between Light and Darkness. The other thing that I liked about this novel was that people are nuanced - there seems to be a right and a wrong side and yet there are people on both sides that are good and people that are bad - human nature is complicated and figuring out what is right isn't always clear to begin with. ( )

Ten's Firstlife is over and Everlife starts with a bang.

LIFEBLOOD starts exactly where FIRSTLIFE left off. There is a lot of confusion on the battlefield and in Ten's mind. The consequences of her choice hits pretty quickly when she finds herself torn between protecting Killian—the boy she loves— and helping Troika—the side of the Everlife she chose— win the fight. I didn't find Ten to be as independent and strong as she was in FIRSTLIFE which kinda bummed me out. She got stronger throughout the story, but I wanted her to kick ass and take names from the get-go.

The romance in LIFEBLOOD was all over the place just like it was supposed to be. Ten lives in a totally different Everlife than Killian and the push and pull they feel towards each other is hard to ignore and even harder to act on. Showalter did a great job in keeping us on our toes in regards to figuring out if Killian's feelings were real or just part of the job his superiors set him on. In the end you know, but it was hard to figure out and the suspense just about killed me.

LIFEBLOOD had a nice quick pace to it, but I felt that it could have been slowed down at some points. It was hard to really connect to some of the scenes. I enjoyed learning about Troika and thought the world building was nicely done. I'm excited to see what the last book, EVERLIFE, will give us.

* This book was provided free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ( )