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BOOKWORM REVIEW: The Moonlight Blade by Tessa Barbosa

 

RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
SPICE: 🔥

This book had me at Filipino fantasy.

The odds to survive the trials are against Narra Jal. With nothing in her arsenal but the motivation of saving her mother to see her through, she goes into the competition anyway. A serious underdog, she is the last bet to win the throne of Tigang.

Visions plague her mind, but these mysterious messages soon become important to her success at the trials. These visions also link her to an enigmatic Guardian named Teloh. Can Narra use her visions to survive the competition?

The world-building in this read stole the show for me. Tessa Barbosa fed us wonderfully intricate details that made the struggle of the trials too real. She also nicely contrasts that with the imagery of Narra's visions. 

I also love the little Easter egg references to Filipino culture. Representation certainly matters, and it was refreshing to see my culture represented in a fantasy romance. 

I knocked off a star for three reasons: 

- The romance was incredibly subtle in this read; I had wished so hard that they developed it better. 
- Pacing in the beginning was rather slow. I promise it does pick up at around the 30-40% mark.
- The ending was too abrupt. The world-building and storytelling were incredibly rich, so it was disappointing to have the ending and final battle not be as equally decadent.

That said, those three took little away from an enjoyable read. If you like mysterious fantasies with fantastic world-building, this standalone read is a great pick-up.

** I am voluntarily reviewing an advance copy of this book. Thank you to Tessa Barbosa, Entanged Publishing, and Netgalley for providing an ARC. **

ABOUT THE BOOK

I promised my mother I would never come to Bato-Ko…and yet here I am.

Narra Jal is one of the cursed, cast aside her whole life, considered unlucky. But with her mother’s life on the line, she will return to the city where she was born to face the trials: a grueling, bloodthirsty series of challenges designed to weed out the weak, the greedy, and the foolish. Trials to select the next ruler of Tigang.

Narra has nothing. No weapons. No training. No magic. No real chance of leaving with her life. Just her fierce grit and a refusal to accept the destiny she’s been handed. Even the intense, dark-eyed Guardian she feels a strangely electric connection with cannot help her. Narra is on her own. But she’ll show everyone what the unlucky can do.

Let the bloodbath begin.

MEET TESSA BARBOSA

Tessa Barbosa always wanted to live in stories. As a child she cried, because she couldn’t go into the pages of her picture books to play with her animal friends. She loved books so much that after many late nights up reading, and eating distractedly at the table, her parents banned her from reading. It didn’t work. Tessa stuffed books under her mattress, hid them in her sweaters, and many poor paperbacks met their ruin in a hot bath.

But writing novels didn’t happen for a long time. She spent too much time in school: majored in computer science, minored in the fine and performing arts, and lived in Greece for a year to study archeology. Eventually she graduated and switched from a career in software development to technical writing, because words were always her first love. Now she writes software help by day, and fantasy novels by night. Her debut YA Fantasy novel THE MOONLIGHT BLADE will be out in March 2023 from Entangled Teen. What better way to live in stories than to write them?

Tessa is a regular contributor at Writer Unboxed. Her short fiction is published as T. S. Bazelli and has appeared in Lightspeed Magazine, as well as multiple anthologies. She attended Viable Paradise 16 and is a member of the Codex Writers’ Group. She also occasionally writes for the Entangled in Romance blog.

She resides on the unceded traditional territories of the xÊ·məθkÊ·É™y̓É™m (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and sÉ™lilwÉ™taɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

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