With Blood Upon the Sand Returns to an Immersive Fantasy Landscape

When last we left orphaned pit fighter Çeda, she and her tenuous network of allies had shaken up the status quo in Sharakhai in a major way, delivering a blow to the Twelve Kings’ nigh-unchallenged, divinely-blessed rule over the city, uncovering world-changing secrets in the bargain. Now, Çeda’s burning quest to avenge her mother’s death has been sharpened against a stone of ancient knowledge of the tragedy that lies at the foundation of the Kings’ power, and she and her allies have begun plans to make those in power face a reckoning. Having won the trust of those she despises, Çeda lies in wait in the House of Maidens, undertaking missions for the Kings, gaining skills and knowledge that could doom her before she ever gets started. Emre has joined the Moonless Host and their shadowy, relentless rebellion. Ramahd and Meryam are tangling with a power neither is sure will bear fruit in their never-ending search for revenge—it might just eat them up whole instead.
With Blood Upon the Sand is about moving the fight forward. The heroes have discovered their purpose. They have awakened their abilities. And they know their enemies. This book is about the choices they’ll make next, the choice of how to fight back. This is a story of resistance, of all the ways we can decide to respond (or not) when those in power reveal their treachery, and we can no longer minimize it or look away.

This is where the real fight begins.The why is morally clear, but the how is where alliances fail and people crumble, where resistance threatens to become something different than it was meant to be. What on earth you do when you realize your actions on behalf of your personal pool of grief have flooded the world with oceans and oceans more—so much more that even you, wrapped up in your pain, realize it’s worse than you ever imagined it could be.
It’s about what time does to a movement, to an ideal. About what happens resistance stops being a momentary act and becomes a way of life. Live it day-to-day, and a rot sets in, a creep that can consume its very reason for being—a small betrayal here, a “necessary” death there, too many people in the conversation who never talk about the things that brought you together to begin with. What about your friend, who believes there are no ends to justify your means? The one who thinks you’ll never achieve your ends at all? How do you stand still against injustice, even when it’s getting harder and harder to see the greater good in any of it?

As with any conflict, the nature of these hard choices begin to change people.Çeda, Emre, Ramahd, Davud and the rest of our heroes must make their own choices about how to answer the treachery of the Kings. Some of them choose paths that will bring them into conflict, or make them uneasy allies. They’ve all gone underground, voluntarily or not, to prepare for the bigger fight they know is coming—whether that means fighting smaller fights, strengthening their powers, gathering allies, gathering resources, or gathering information. All the while, the now nervous, vulnerable Kings cast their wary eyes outwards, determined to savagely root out any sign of a gathering opposition.
Most interestingly, Beaulieu dives deeper into the machinations and power jockeying that occur within the palace, showing us more cracks in the facade. Nor does he let us forget the wider threats: the haunting, restless Asirim, nor the series’ scariest Big Bad yet, its wild card villain: a mind-controlling blood mage with a chip on his shoulder and a history with a number of our heroes.
As we’ve come to expect from this author, there is action to match the intrigue, and one of the first volume’s biggest draws remains in full effect: this is a world so incredibly easy to immerse yourself in. Beaulieu always finds time to pause his racing narrative to provide the kind of rich touches of place, character, myth and history that make Sharakhai into a living, breathing city, where the possibilities hide in endlessly shifting sands—if only our heroes can survive long enough to seize them.
With Blood Upon the Sand is available now.