Blood Debts by Terry J. Benton-Walker - PUBLIC ONLY

Blood Debts by Terry J. Benton-Walker, 416 pgs. Tor Teen, 2023. $19

Language: R (100+ swears, 138 'fs'); Mature Content: R (racism, underage drug and alcohol use, homophobia, underage on-page sex); Violence: R (off-page murder, on-page murder: gory, traumatic car accidents, sexual assault, and domestic violence)

PUBLIC ONLY

In New Orleans, a woman was murdered, a family was lynched, and a throne was stolen. This tragedy of the magical community is still reverberating thirty years later when on the anniversary of these events, 16-year-old twins, Clement and Cristina Trudeau, find themselves fighting to regain their magical destiny. 

The premise of the book sounds intriguing, however, the book does not deliver. The world building is non-existent; the characters are many and underdeveloped; the twins, whose ages are given as 16, read more like they are in their mid-twenties; and the scenes of violence are many and gory. There are also subplots that go nowhere and characters that are introduced only to be dropped without explanation. There will be more books to follow, so perhaps these flaws will be rectified with further reading.

Reviewer: AEB