Blood's Pride opens with a young man's memory of the kingdom of Shadar's vanquishing at the hands of the Norlanders, strange beings with pale skin "the color of death, marred by oozing purple sores," swarming upon a coastal fishing town "like walking dead, like living corpses." It would be fair to assume the novel focuses on the Shadari people's attempt to mount a revolution, and it does to some extent--but Evie Manieri has much bigger ambitions for her debut novel.
Manieri devotes as much attention to the conquering Norlanders as to their Shadari slaves, if not more; in fact, the Norlanders get what many might consider the more dramatic storyline. The three adult children of the ruling governor are all desperate to leave the remote outpost, but they're also still reeling from their mother's accidental death years earlier. When the rebellion finally comes, after the Shadari hire a ruthless female mercenary known as "The Mongrel" to lead them, it pushes the family trauma into the open. Meanwhile, Daryan, the young man from the prologue, is reluctantly forced into accepting his role as the Shadari's leader... even as he conducts a clandestine romance with one of the Norlander governor's daughters.
Manieri packs a lot of events into Blood's Pride (which takes its name from one of the Norlanders' magical swords); after a slow build, she maintains an unrelenting pace nearly all the way through. And though there are a number of unanswered questions at the novel's end, there's enough resolution to satisfy readers looking for one solid story. --Ron Hogan, founder of Beatrice.com