In YOUR Mailbox

They've started happening. The things that every author anticipates with excitement as well as dread: reviews! Will they like my book? Will they get the humour, the intention? If they don't like it, will I crawl into bed and eat ice-cream with my hands, renouncing Blogger, Twitter and Goodreads forever?

Well, not yet, as so far people have only said wonderful things about Blood Song!

*MEGA HAPPY BANANA DANCE*

First Holly Harper put her review up on Goodreads after Random House Australia sent Reading's Bookstores a super-early copy during the sell-in period (when publishers send books to store owners/managers to gauge interest in order to estimate the best print run). Holly is children's specialist there, and we met briefly when I bought my copy of Burn Bright from her one rainy Sunday. (We only realised who each other was after I tweeted about it and she said "That was me!!" I really love Twitter for things like that.) You can imagine how ecstatic I was when she posted a rave review:

A while ago I was whinging about the lack of Aussie YA fantasy coming out, and how I really just wanted to sink my teeth into something amazing. Well! The book gods obviously heard my cries and answered with Blood Song, though I think this wonderful gem had less to do with book gods and more to do with superb début author Rhiannon Hart. 

I sent my three ARCs out to Aussie bloggers when I got back from travels. This week Nomes from Inkcrush and Brodie from Eleusinian Mysteries posted their reviews, and I was similarly blown away by their enthusiasm and praise. And also how quickly they started on their copies, because I know how many books a reviewer has in their TBR at any given time.


From Nomes's review:

Blood Song grabbed me from the start. The thing about this fantasy is Hart writes in such a way that the reading experience was so effortless. Her writing is tight, within pages you have a sense of the world and our heroine. Her world-building is all show (not tell) and Hart masterfully places the reader in the story alongside Zeraphina, letting the world-building evolve as we go along. 

From Brodie's review:

Mystery, danger and Rodden, a man who rivals Zeraphina in all kinds of delicious ways. But can she trust him? What is he hiding? Why does he keep putting a stop to her finding any answers? And why is he such a jerk 90% of the time? (Hush, Zeraphina, don't speak such nonesense of my Rodden!) What awaits the reader is amazing tale that will suck you into it's heart, clutching tighter and tighter as you venture further into Pergamia and the terrors that lurk nearby. I could not read this fast enough, but so very disapointed when I had no more pages to turn! I think Zeraphina may be one of my new favourite heroines.

WOW. I mean, can anything make an author happier than that?

If you're an Aussie blogger and you're interested in a review copy of Blood Song, my publicist still has a few to send out. DM me on Twitter or email me at rhi.hart [at] gmail.com.

You can also read an extract of Blood Song here.

Look out for reviews shortly from Skye at In the Good Books and Braiden from Book Probe.