OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Nicole Evans (she/hers) is a queer, disabled SFF writer. With an MFA in Fiction, more trunked novels than she can count and too many ideas to keep track of, she made her authorial debut with Blood Price. She currently lives in the Midwest with her partner and their pets, though she yearns to escape to the forest one day. You can find her online via her LinkTree.

 

FORMAT/INFO: Blood Price was self-published on October 1st, 2024. It is 448 pages and told in third person from Ashilde's POV. It is available in paperback and ebook formats.

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Ashilde is no stranger to sacrifice. Every month, she pays a blood price to the gods so that she can kill without tainting her soul. But when tragedy strikes her village, the gods demand even more of her: she must undertake a harsh and dangerous journey to the land of the gods themselves. If she fails to arrive within a month, an even worse fate awaits her people. But the harsh elements of nature aren't the only thing threatening Ashilde on her journey: dangerous raiders have begun roaming the land, and they claim they're working for one of the gods. One way or another, Ashilde is determined to complete her quest, if only to demand answers from the deities her people worship.

Blood Price is a brutal atmospheric journey as one woman tries to save her people by going on a quest to confront the gods themselves. While the book's pacing is definitely on the slower side, if you love watching characters battle the elements and grapple with their personal emotional demons, then you'll likely enjoy sinking into Ashilde's story. Those who don't love drawn out journey stories would probably be better off looking elsewhere.

While it takes some patience to get to the meat of the story, I found the central mystery hook compelling: who are these warriors who ignore society's taboos, yet claim to act for the gods? I looked forward to every appearance of the raiders, waiting to see what new clue I could glean about their intentions, even as they hound Ashilde and try to kill her before she can complete her quest. And when Ashilde finally reaches the land of the gods, things really do start coming together in a fantastic way. This was definitely a book where it took me several days to read the first two-thirds, and then I consumed the last third in a single evening.

That's in part due to the great ticking clock introduced part way through the story. Not only does Ashilde have only one month to complete her journey, her monthly bleeding has been taken away from the gods. As a result, every time she kills, she faces a consequence, yet killing the pursuing raiders is sometimes the only way to stay alive. There's great tension in Ashilde trying to thread the needle of avoiding killing and needing to survive, and it was a fantastic addition to the stakes.

From the beginning, I was utterly fascinated by the world and culture that the author created. In writing this book, the author was deeply interested in upending traditional stigmas, making a person's monthly bleeding something to be celebrated instead of talked about with distaste. To that end, Blood Price features a society where a person's menstrual cycle dictates whether or not a person can be a warrior. Monthly bleeding is seen as both a blessing from the gods and a sacrifice demanded by them that allows a person to kill without tainting their soul. If a person does not make this monthly sacrifice, they cannot be a hunter or a warrior. There are entire celebrations and ceremonies dedicated to a person's first bleeding, and it is a topic of factual conversation, not hushed whispers.

Ashilde herself is a heroine I can empathize with, someone who is grappling with both physical and emotional trauma, yet somehow has to find the willpower to keep going on. It's a cathartic process, watching her put one step in front of the other, refusing to let pain stop her from her quest to save her village. She's a very "weight on her world" kind of character, who shoulders the burden because no one else will. If I had a complaint about the arc, it's that I wish she had found a way to share the burden or to even perhaps let go of some of the guilt that compels her, but that wasn't the character journey for this particular book.

CONCLUSION: Blood Price is the kind of story that takes a bit to get going, but is rewarding in the end. Even though slower stories aren't usually my cup of tea, I did find Ashilde's journey compelling, and I really liked how the story came together in an explosive finale. If a slow-burn quest through a harsh world in winter sounds like a good time to you, give Blood Price a try.