[ARC Review] Of Blood, Bones, and Truth by T.M. Ledvina

Publisher's synopsis: Kellan Manchester, an indentured political assassin, wants to lead a life of his own choosing. But as one of the Fallen - celestial descendants who are still paying for their ancestor’s mistakes - he has no choice but to do as he’s commanded.

All Cassian Evermore wants is to pay off his father’s debts and ensure his mother’s safety. Being forced to work for someone he hates is soul-crushing, but when he meets Legion assassin Kellan in the garden of a target’s home, he can’t help but wonder if he’s finally found something interesting.

Thanks to a fortuitous meeting in a nightclub, the two men form a tentative agreement to work together to solve a brutal string of murders in Spiral City. Kellan finds himself struggling to connect the dots, while Cassian juggles the emotional toll of targeting someone he’s come to see as a friend.

And neither of them can ignore their budding feelings for one another, even while the bodies continue to pile up.

Kellan and Cassian are two men with no control over their own fates - but this case could spell the same for the entire world.  

My thoughts: Of Blood, Bones, and Truth is an absolutely fantastic debut from T.M. Ledvina, masterfully weaving the soft touches of a tentative new love against a backdrop of classism, magic, and mystery. 

It's hard to not immediately fall in love with the characters and setting Ledvina created for this story. Roles and rules are out the window, leaving a futuristic city scape where even those trained to destroy can be soft and celestial beings share the page with elves, shapeshifters, and demons. 

I adored the main characters in this story. Both Kellan and Cassian find themselves destined for a path that their ancestors set out for them, neither in control of how they dirty their hands next. Despite these similarities, Ledvina crafted vastly different characters in terms of both personality and drive. They are an alpha and omega, cut from opposite ends of the same, beautiful cloth. 

Of course, as easy as it is to immediately love Cassian and Kellan, it is just as easy to despise the villains that Ledvina created. Shrouded in mystery, the man readers get to know as Shadow has sinister motives which only intensify as the book goes on. Sometimes calculating, sometimes annoyingly disruptive, Shadow sure knows how to ruin things for Kellan and Cassian. Though, as proof of just how well Ledvina wrote these characters, I do truly wish to know more about the villain: his motivations and reasons for doing what he did, his past, his possibilities for redemption. 

Of Blood, Bones, and Truth is far more than a one-dimensional MM romance. By crafting a world where love is love no matter the gender, Ledvina was able to add so many layers to the story beyond the validity of Cassian and Kellan's romance. Just some of the constraints Ledvina touches on include the inescapable constructs of race and class, the rigidity of societal expectations, and the hopelessness of living when someone else dictates your life. While readers can purely enjoy the surface-level plot, watching Cassian and Kellan find each other and slowly fall in love, there is certainly a whole lot more to dissect in Ledvina's debut. 

This story will definitely stay with readers long after the final page has been read, leaving us all clamoring for the next book in Cassian and Kellan's story. 

*A huge thank you to T.M. Ledvina for sharing an early copy of her book. All opinions are my own.*

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Release date: 4/4/23

Format: eARC

eARC provided via: the author