YA – We Are Blood and Thunder

Lupo, Kesia. We Are Blood and Thunder. Bloomsbury, 2020. 978-1-547-60305-3. 428 p. $17.99. Grades 7-12. 

In a world of magic, the Marked take care of the dead. Ancestors are important in Duke’s Forest, laid to rest, preserved in the crypts that stretch below every house for all eternity. All the while a storm rages topside, a storm that has ravaged and plagued the city for the last six years with no end in sight. The Marked, those with a disability or a physical mark like a birthmark are only fit to work in the crypts, out of sight, preparing the dead for their slumber and keeping out the critters. Lena is a cryptiling, and death is all she has known, the stillness of death, until the dead begin to move. Magecraft is not tolerated in Duke’s Forest, and practicing mages are put to death because one of them has to be the cause of the storm. When the hand of the wrong dead person moves, Lena escapes the quarantined city to find a world where people are taught to use their magic, to control it, and so must she. After all, “She who spins the cloud weaves the storm.”

THOUGHTS: Reminiscent of Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone, We Are Blood and Thunder and its clockwork elements is must-add to any fantasy shelf.

Fantasy (Magic)          Samantha Helwig, Dover Area SD

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