Crescent City – Past Midnight Book Reviews & More

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Title: House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3)

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Format: ebook (own)

Pages: 951

Publication Date: 1/30/24

Categories: Adult, Series, Romance, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Fae, Sci-Fi

The stunning third book in the sexy, action-packed Crescent City series, following the global bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath.

Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate. Stranded in a strange new world, she’s going to need all her wits about her to get home again. And that’s no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust.

Hunt Athalar has found himself in some deep holes in his life, but this one might be the deepest of all. After a few brief months with everything he ever wanted, he’s in the Asteri’s dungeons again, stripped of his freedom and without a clue as to Bryce’s fate. He’s desperate to help her, but until he can escape the Asteri’s leash, his hands are quite literally tied.

In this sexy, breathtaking sequel to the #1 bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath, Sarah J. Maas’s Crescent City series reaches new heights as Bryce and Hunt’s world is brought to the brink of collapse-with its future resting on their shoulders.

Content Warning: violence

I had to process this book for a day or two and still there is so much to think about.

+ I have so many thoughts and let’s see if I can get to all of them. This is book three in the Crescent City series but if you’ve read Sarah J. Maas books then in this book you will find that all her books have interconnected in THIS one book. It’s wild, it’s crazy with the world-building – like I just want to see her white board with all the notes and all the lines connecting this character arc to this character…etc…it was pretty genius and maddening at the same time because if you don’t remember who is who from a certain book, you kind of have to wing it and go with the flow which is what I was doing since I did nor do a re-read at all before this book. But yes…the world-building is fantastic. Also, I was getting some sci-fi feels in this book because the Asteri being intergalactic parasites, definitely not what I was expecting!

+ With a world-building as large as this series and the other series combined since it did crossover here…there are SO many names to remember. I kept trying to figure who was who and why they were important in the series. 😅 I think I did pretty good considering how many characters there are. My favorite characters? Lidia/the Hind. Nesta and Azriel in their parts of the book were outstanding because I love them and ACOTAR is my first love compared to Crescent City so I loved seeing them in the book.

+~ My favorite parts of the book were when Bryce was with Nesta and Azriel. I loved everything to do with Lidia also! She is so badass. The ending had some pretty good action and something was finally happening against the Asteri. But books this large lose me in the middle, which kind of sucks. Act 1 was fantastic – I was so into it. Act 2, I was struggling through (this happened in the last book also)…seriously, my interest dropped when Bryce left Velaris. I could not for the life of me care about the wolves for some reason, and then Tharion? I don’t know what happened with him. I was like…can we go back to Velaris which made me acknowledge that my love for the ACOTAR series is way stronger than this Crescent City series.

+ I’m happy the “my mate” overuse was really cut down in this one. I felt like the romance really took a backseat in this one which was kind of nice? And that’s weird for me to say since with SJM books, the romance is what I’m usually there for. I did love Lidia and Ruhn’s story though there was a lot of drama between also but totally understandable after what they both went through. I think they deserved their own book!

~ Bryce was frustrating me throughout the whole book and I was questioning a lot of her decisions. When she asked something from Nesta I was like, no Nesta, don’t even entertain Bryce’s request because I didn’t even trust her lol. She was arrogant and I just didn’t like her. But after reading book two I think I knew I was just not a Bryce girlie. And also Bryce and Hunt do nothing for me! Maybe because their love is pretty set and there was nothing to really fix? That’s why I loved Lidia and Ruhn, because there was a love growing there and it was beautiful to see them find happiness together after the stuff they went through individually.

~ The way it’s written with it jumping from POV’s in one chapter, but not having a line or something indicating it’s switching to another POV kind of ruined the reading experience for me because I had to go back and see if I missed a section or something. I did read this as an ebook so I don’t know if I would have had that problem reading the hardcopy. I do feel like with it written this way it was building up suspense, which is great because this big chunky book needed to have something motivating me to read, but something to indicate a change in POV would have been just helpful! To be honest I skimmed some of the parts with Tharion, Ithan and the other boys because I was not interested or maybe I forgot who they were?

My Final Thoughts:

Could this have been made into 2 books? Yes…or 3? Make it a 6 book series! But for the most part I was entertained by the first and last parts of the book. The middle was where I struggled. I loved Lidia and Ruhn, they were my favorite in the book and of course, Nesta because ACOTAR is my first love. I didn’t care for Bryce at all. I will say I was amazed as usual by the world-building and cross-over. SJM always does a fabulous job luring us into these amazing worlds that she creates and having it cross over just makes it really cool. If you loved the series already then you will love this one. It’s not my favorite of her series so my rating may seem a bit lower and I think my expectations for this one was super high, especially after the long wait for the book, but I did enjoy the book!

Book Links:

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Book Review | House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City, #1) – 4 stars

House of Sky and Breath by. Sarah J. Maas | Book Review – 3.5 Stars

A Court of Thorns and Roses by. Sarah J. Maas {Goodreads rating: 4 stars at first read} – after a few re-reads over the years, I need to bump this to 5 stars

A Court of Mist and Fury by. Sarah J. Maas {Goodreads rating: 4 stars at first read} – after a few re-reads over the years, I need to bump this to 5 stars

A Court of Wings and Ruin by. Sarah J. Maas {Goodreads rating: 4 stars at first read} after a few re-reads over the years, I need to bump this to 5 stars

A Court of Frost and Starlight by. Sarah J. Maas – 4 stars

A Court of Silver Flames by. Sarah J. Maas – 5 stars

Throne of Glass by. Sarah J. Maas – 3 stars (surprising but I just thought this first was okay when it came out in 2012)

Crown of Midnight by. Sarah J. Maas – 4 stars

Heir of Fire by. Sarah J. Maas – 4 stars

Queen of Shadows by. Sarah J. Maas – 4 stars

Empire of Storms by. Sarah J. Maas – 4 stars

Tower of Dawn by. Sarah J. Maas – 2 stars (wow I did not like this book huh? lol - I wish I wrote reviews on Goodreads back then so I could remember why I didn’t like it!🤦🏻‍♀️. My guess is it was super long and by the 6th book and waiting for the book my interest had waned or I grew out of this series? Not sure but I do know I loved Manon. That’s all I remember lol.

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City, #1)

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Format: Hardcover/ebook (both owned)

Pages: 803

Categories: Urban Fantasy, Romance, Adult Fiction

Bound by blood.
Tempted by desire.
Unleashed by destiny.

Bryce Quinlan had the perfect life—working hard all day and partying all night—until a demon murdered her closest friends, leaving her bereft, wounded, and alone. When the accused is behind bars but the crimes start up again, Bryce finds herself at the heart of the investigation. She’ll do whatever it takes to avenge their deaths.

Hunt Athalar is a notorious Fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. His brutal skills and incredible strength have been set to one purpose—to assassinate his boss’s enemies, no questions asked. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he’s offered an irresistible deal: help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach.

As Bryce and Hunt dig deep into Crescent City’s underbelly, they discover a dark power that threatens everything and everyone they hold dear, and they find, in each other, a blazing passion—one that could set them both free, if they’d only let it.

I started this book over the weekend and I was reading the hard cover version but it’s an 800 page book! More like 799 pages and the acknowledgements are what takes it to 803 but my hand was getting tired holding the book at 20% into the story so to be able to read it at nightie the dark, I went ahead and bought the eBook as well! 😅 That allowed me to finish the book last night, finally.

But I think reading it slow helped me immerse myself into this very layered world building. We have a world filled with angels, wolves, fae, witches and everything in the fantasy realm. There are different classes of them, there is a war between the oppressors and the oppressed. It’s a story about rebellion, family, friendship, and so much more. It was a lot and I absolutely enjoyed it!

I’ve been a fan of SJM since Throne of Glass, but admittedly I didn’t fall in love with ToG in the first book, but by the second one I was hooked. For her ACOTAR series, I was addicted right away and I think what I truly love about SJM’s books are her characters. And not only her main characters, it’s the side characters sometimes that grab my attention even more than the main ones! Here’s the ones I loved in this book:
- I enjoyed our MC – Bryce, she’s seen as a party girl but she’s hiding a few secrets. But the best thing about her? Her love and loyalty to people she cares about. She’s imperfect but her heart is big.
- Hunt Athalar – hot fallen angel, Bryce assumes he is an alphahole (you know the usually urban fantasy type male LOL), and he does come off that way but we learn more about him and his tragic past.
- Danika. 😭 Oh Danika. And then there is Ruhn, Lehabah, Fury (so intrigued about her), Juniper, and such a wide cast of players in this first book.
Bryce and Hunt – I liked that it wasn’t love at first sight, they become friends, thank goodness. Their relationship is tested too…yes there are some hot moments, actually less than I expected though.
Bryce and Danika. Yay for Bryce and Hunt but honestly…my favorite love story in this book is Bryce and her best-friend Danika. It made me cry in the end. 🥺😢❤️
The first half of this book is world building AND it reads like a mystery. So the beginning goes slowly as we dig into murders happening in the city, it’s a mystery to be solved. The action comes in full force at the end and that ending, is pretty epic. It left my heart full and overflowing. Reading this book I felt like I was expecting more fantasy because it’s like a reflex reading SJM books haha…but I do read a lot of urban fantasy as well from well known and indie authors. I think SJM did a pretty good job with her first urban fantasy book and definitely put her style on it.
Loved the twists and turns for sure, it kept my reading until the end with no skipping. The personal dramas tired in really nice with the murder investigations and then ending as I said, was crazy.

Did we need 799 pages? Maybe not, especially when Bryce and Hunt kept hitting dead ends in their investigation. But I understand the world building with all these governors in charge of a sect of the city, all the different supernaturals and the class differences, etc… There are MANY characters to know in this book, characters outside the city, and there are many worlds to discover. There is a lot going.
Is it me? Or are the titles of each powerful person overused in this story? Probably in other SJM books too but yes everyone in this city is powerful and have some ominous title attached to their name! 🤦🏻‍♀️ It was getting a bit overdone.
One aspect of the story or world building I found interesting is where it starts to mix technology along with ancient lore and mythology. I think it mentioned the year this takes place is like…15035 or something of that nature.
I don’t know if it’s me but I was expecting this book to be “hotter” because of all the urban fantasy books I’ve read. I mean it had it’s moments but I felt like this was pretty tamed compared to the ones I’ve read. And am I the only wary of Bryce and Hunt being together forever? I mean…look at TOG and ACOTAR lol…so…I’m not going to say this relationship is set in stone because you know how SJM is with her romance storylines.
Triggers: drug use, graphic violence, sexual harassment, death, grief

I was sucked into this intricate new world created by SJM and I loved it! It pulled at my heartstrings especially when it came to Bryce and Danika. 💕 I loved the twists and turns, the epic fight and battle at the end. I was hooked on Bryce and her story, watching her climb through grief and finally embracing who and what she is with Hunt at her side. This book transported me into another world (because our own world news has been pretty horrible) and it’s exactly what I needed to take my mind of things! It’s not perfect by any means but in the end it accomplished it’s goal – it made my heart feel, my eyes tear and make me want the next book…today. It’s another series I’ll be addicted too I’m sure, I loved it and and I look forward to seeing what happens in the next book.