Blood Beneath the Snow (Blood & Souls Duology #1) by Alexandra Kennington 
Series: Blood & Souls Duology #1
Published by Ace on March 11, 2025
Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 416
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher
I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
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A heart-pounding romantasy following a rebellious princess who must compete to the death against her siblings for the crown to ensure justice, while fighting her feelings for her country's most powerful enemy by debut author Alexandra Kennington.
Revna is no stranger to struggle. As the only member of the royal family without a magical ability, she is seen as an embarrassing mistake to her kingdom and a blight on her family tree. Luckily, Revna has found family in other outcasts in her kingdom. But when her two closest friends’ lives are put in danger, she is determined to save them by any means necessary, no matter the cost. The Bloodshed Trials—a competition where the last sibling in the royal family standing takes the throne—might just be the ultimate price.
Revna turns down her arranged marriage and commits to competing for the throne only to be kidnapped by the mysterious and terrifyingly powerful Hellbringer, the general of her country’s greatest enemy. He has the ability to rend souls with the flick of his wrist and is every inch as intimidating as the war stories say he is. But Revna wonders if there may be some humanity left in him—especially when he reveals there are other parties who want her on the throne for their own furtive reasons.
Basically a battle of the Haves and Have-Nots with some large plot holes.
In this world, you either have magic and are godtouched or you have no magic and you are godforsaken. Revna is the only female in the royal household with four brothers. She is the only one among them without magic abilities. She had made herself the unofficial leader of the godforsaken rebellion against the royal house and the religious cult in her kingdom.
The godforsaken are treated just above slaves in this land, and OMG, I wish the author had made up a better term then godforsaken because it did get annoying to hear them whine about being the godforsaken.
The only way to become the heir is for all the royal children to battle to the death for the honor of being the next King. First of all, most want to execute the old King right away so I can’t imagine why the current King doesn’t outlaw this whole practice so he doesn’t get shoved off his throne or die early. Secondly, in a world where a papercut could kill you, or more importantly, the royals fight along with the army in this decade-long war against their neighbors, it seems a waste of the royal family to have them slaughter each other on purpose. Then the other kingdom only has to kill one more guy to wipe out the royal line. Even before I started the story it seemed a stupid premise.
On top of that, Bhorglid is the most northern kingdom and constantly covered in snow (yuck!). Obviously, they are jealous of the other kingdoms since it doesn’t appear that they make anything. They can’t grow anything. They are at war with one kingdom but plan to go after the other if they win. All the other kingdoms have to do and block them up in their snow covered mountains and they will eventually have to give up or starve to death.
The Kryllian Queen of the warring kingdom has sent the Hellbringer, her most dangerous warrior/spy to kidnap Revna and train her so that Revna can fight and win the battle against her brothers. Why? Did she foresee something? Does she think that she can steamroll over the new godforsaken Queen? How will a godforsaken hold the throne when her own nobles and the crazy religious fanatics can easily kill her?
Hellbringer takes her into a sealed, abandoned prison, where only the main room is heated. He has someone on his team teleport her in and he sometimes gets teleported out to do battle. Hellbringer has a dangerous ability which allows him to kill hundreds at once. No one wants to fight him on the battlefield. Hellbringer wears a helmet at all times so no one knows who he really is and if he takes it off, he can walk around the Villages without scaring off the population. This allows him to be a great spy for his kingdom.
But we also know that it is not just the enemy that is afraid of him. His own men don’t feel comfortable with him around. And the more we see of him and his “home” in the prison, I am starting to think that his own Queen is afraid of him and that he is forced into this insolation by her and it is not something he chooses for himself as he has to be teleported in and out.
In the final battle against her siblings, Revna suddenly manifest magic (surprise) and wins the battle. Problem now is that the godforsaken Queen is now godtouched. Her rebel friends now think she was faking being godforsaken (oh I hate that name) and they either don’t trust her or outright fear her. So she has won the battle and the crown but she has lost her supporters–all supporters since the nobles and the church were never behind her. View Spoiler »
Although I was not overly thrilled by this story, it is book 1 of a duology and I am hoping book 2 gets me the answers to the few questions that I have such as Why is this Queen trying to put Revna on the throne? Is Hellbringer just as much a prisoner to his kingdom as Revna was to him? And a few more. I don’t think that book 2 will change my meh opinion of the series overall, but we shall see.
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