Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

| Log in
  1. Follow us on Facebook
  2. Follow us on Twitter
  3. Follow us on Instagram
  4. Follow us on Goodreads
  5. RSS Feeds

  • Home
  • About
    • About CBR
    • Getting Started
    • Cannon Book Club
    • Diversions
    • Fan Mail
    • Holiday Book Exchange
    • Book Bingo Reading Challenge
    • Participation Badges
    • AlabamaPink
  • Our Team
    • Leaderboard
    • The CBR Team
    • Recent Comments
    • CBR Interviews
    • Our Volunteers
    • Meet MsWas
  • Categories
    • Review Genres
    • Tags
  • Fight Cancer
    • How We Fight Cancer
    • How You Can Donate
    • Book Sale
    • CBR Merchandise
    • Supporters and Friends of CBR
  • FAQ
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Newsletter Archive
    • Follow Us
> FAQ Home
> Genre: Fantasy > Lord I never drew first But I drew first blood

Lord I never drew first But I drew first blood

Jade City by Fonda Lee

January 25, 2021 by esme Leave a Comment

The Kaul family is one of several organized crime families on the island of Kekon. These Green Bone families use jade, which, with the right training, produces superhuman traits, including great strength, speed, clairvoyance, hardened skin, and so forth. Green Bones were instrumental in the guerilla warfare that occurred one generation ago to free Kekon from colonial rule, and this history realistically colors much of the underlying structure to the novel. The Kaul family, on the one hand, spends a lot of time and effort on retaining tributary relationships from the business folks in town, while also waging war against their larger Green Bone competitor.

Lee manages to pull off intensive world building, exciting political machinations, complex family relationships, and amazing magic and martial arts action scenes. This is a dense book, but it doesn’t weigh you down. There are a lot of characters all fitting within a hierarchy with titles and roles, interconnecting through marriage and alliances – but, in general, they are so well characterized and necessary for the story that it is well worth your while to get to know them.

I really enjoyed reading Jade City, and I tore through it, but I also felt very tense through most of it. There were a number of betrayals, starting early on, so my affection for characters was tinged with so much anxiety!  Although I didn’t see myself in them, I liked the main characters too much – so much heartbreak, given the violent world they live in. I also worried about what would happen to Kekon as foreign interests and foreign conflicts began to intersect with Kekon and Green Bone dealings. The world Lee created is so compelling and the conflicts that flow from it fit the structure and the characters are flawed and interesting and frustrating – I highly recommend this book and definitely plan to read the next.

Filed Under: Fantasy, Fiction Tagged With: #fantasy, Fiction, Fonda Lee, organized crime

esme's CBR13 Review No:3 · Genres: Fantasy, Fiction · Tags: #fantasy, Fiction, Fonda Lee, organized crime ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

About esme

CBR13 participantCBR11 participantCBR  9

Loves to read. Loves to travel. Doesn't get to do either enough. View esme's reviews»

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.



Recent Comments

  • Emmalita on An Interesting Woman in a Sharp SuitI think this is a series you will both like.
  • narfna on An Interesting Woman in a Sharp SuitI'm so excited to get to this series later this year. I can't wait to see what he can do with a full novel (#3)....
  • LanierHgts on I hated this book and I could not stop reading itGood to know it’s not just me! But liking or hating a book is subjective. And I am too old to care what others think...
  • andtheIToldYouSos on An Interesting Woman in a Sharp Suitthat artwork is lovely!
  • murderofcrows on We’re the aliens, manThis series- and I'll go with series too- definitely gave me so much to think about! Doors of Eden is on my TBR list. I've...
See More Recent Comments »

Want to Help Out?

CBR has a great crew of volunteers, and we're always looking for more people to help out. If you have a specialty or are willing to learn, drop MsWas a line.

  • How You Can Donate
  • FAQ
  • Shop
  • Volunteers
  • Leaderboard
  • AlabamaPink
  • Contact

Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo
  3. Google Pay
© 2021 Cannonball Read | Log in