The Bloody and the Damned – Past Midnight Book Reviews & More

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: The Bloody and the Damned

Author: Becca Coffindaffer

Format: eBook (NetGalley)

Pages: 400

Publication Date: 4/7/26

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Categories: Young Adult, Dystopian, Sci-Fi, LGBT

Disclaimer: **I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

Thank you to Roaring Brook Press for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

An assassin with outlawed, magical abilities will do anything to get their kidnapped sisters back in this dystopic-fantasy standalone, perfect for fans of Arcane and Iron Widow.

Mercy has no place here.

On Trinity, a metal world where the privileged live in the skies and the rest fight for water below, you do what you can to survive.

18-year-old Val knows this better than anyone. They’ve sacrificed everything to provide for their younger sisters. Using their outlawed teleportation powers, they’ve become the most infamous assassin-for-hire on Trinity, known as the Butcher.

No one should be able to trace the Butcher to Val. But when things go horribly wrong on a routine mission and Val’s sisters are kidnapped by a gang in retaliation, it means that someone has to know the truth.

Desperate and friendless, Val has no one to turn to but their ex-childhood best friend turned vigilante thief. He broke their heart, but he owes them.

But as Val fights for the return of their sisters, they start to realize there might be something much bigger at play… something that could upend everything they’ve ever known about Trinity.

Val’s journey will take them from a maximum security prison transport to the headquarters of the most powerful gang on Trinity, and all the way to the Gate of Heaven. Each more heavily guarded than the last.

Good thing the Butcher has never blinked at an extra casualty.

Content Warning: violence, death, kidnapping

World Building: The world in this story is very interesting, it’s called Trinity and it’s a metal world, very dry as people fight for water. A lot of the characters rep LGBT+ which was nice. Would have loved more world building to get a better sense of the world.

Characters: Val is the Butcher. They have the power to phase, which is move very fast – it makes their job as a killer, really easy. But when their sister’s are kidnapped, they need help to get them back. Val reunites with their ex-best friend, Orion, who deals in information. Other people round out their crew like Dani, who was their friend that betrayed them. There is also Atlas and Liren and I think this was my favorite part of the story, the found family between these people – who help Val get their sisters back.

Story: I don’t think I was the right audience for a book. For some reason, though I was invested in Val as a character because they are pretty bad-ass, I think maybe I needed more world-building. It goes straight into Val’s job as the Butcher and then their sister’s being kidnapped, so the story is taken up by the mission. There is a lot of action. Val needs to learn how not to do everything by themself and accept the help from the friends around them. But they are a tough character, so it takes them a while to let others in.

Final Thoughts:

Even though I wasn’t the target audience for this book, I think YA dystopian/sci-fi fans will find this one intriguing. I loved Val as a character, even though they were a tough person to crack. The world is very fascinating, but my favorite part was the found family.

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