Bloodwing Academy #1 | 562 pages | ★★★ Stars

On Wings of Blood by Briar Boleyn came off my reading challenge prompt list — honestly, the reason most of my reads land on my TBR this month. Sometimes that’s how you find a hidden gem, sometimes it’s how you end up three chapters into a vampire academy, wondering how you got here. This was somewhere in between.

If you’re a fan of magical academies, vampire hierarchies, and slow-burn romance, this book has a lot of familiar comforts — think Hogwarts energy meets Zodiac Academy, with a touch of Twilight’s world-building. Whether that feels like home or déjà vu will depend on you as a reader.

Despite a slow start, I found myself finishing it — which says something. The world of Bloodwing Academy is genuinely intriguing: a school where vampires and powered humans coexist under a rigid hierarchy, until outsider Medra Pendragon (yes, those Pendragons) arrives and starts pulling at threads. Add in the highly coveted dragon rider bloodline and a world where marriages are political weapons, and there’s a lot of rich material here.

Medra and Blake Darkhallow are not the easiest characters to warm to — they frustrated me more often than not. But their histories are teased throughout and never fully revealed, which left me genuinely curious. It’s less about liking them and more about needing to know their secrets, which is arguably a harder trick to pull off and reason enough to pick up Book 2.

The pacing is the main hurdle. The story takes its time finding its footing, and the ending, while promising, felt like it pulled back just when things were heating up. There’s a version of this book I wanted to love completely, and I think the series still has every chance of getting there.

For readers who enjoy slow-burn fantasy romance with an academy setting — stick with it. The pieces are all there; I’m just waiting for them to click into place.