Book Review – Red Moon (Arcana of the Crimson Era Volume 1) by Sein Ares (4 stars)

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Title: Red Moon (Arcana of the Crimson Era Volume 1)

Author: Sein Ares

Published: 14^th of February 2020 – Independently Published

Format: Ebook – 357 pages

Hello Hello! How are you?

Happy Sunday everyone! I’m so happy to be bringing you another review that was requested by the author through my blog. When I started the Read to Ramble blog in February, I would never have guessed that I was going to get author requests within the first month and I just can’t thank you all enough for all your support and sharing my blog, thank you.

When I got Sein’s email about this book, I was immediately convinced that this was my type of book. You know that I’m a fantasy fan, so when I saw that this was a dark fantasy, I was immediately won over, and as you will see, the blurb is so very unique, as is this book! Thank you so much to Sein for reaching out to me and for sending me this book, all opinions are my own. Keep reading to find out what I thought of Red Moon!

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS

Have you ever imagined, the End of Man? A world where Magic is life and Demons thrive? Have you ever imagined, if it would be a better world? I know I did, until the Red Moon.

Ice fell like rain, waves eclipsed the skies and death upon death. All the while, Gods silent. Then Saisho jumped into the pit, and a ripple began. The First Hellbrids walked, and the ripple flourished.

Ten thousand years passed, and the ripple faded away. Until the Red Moon again, and Chaos began, The ripple again, and an Era began, With the world echoing again, “Those who sin die by the way they sinned!”

Trigger warning: This series is rated R18 for adult situations, graphic violence, harem relationships and mentions of rape.

MY REVIEW

This review may not be like my usual ones in its structure because I think that this book is very different from many I have already read and I think that the trick to really enjoying it and being immersed straight away is to go in blind, so I’m going to try to not give too much away!

I have to say that this is probably not the best choice of books to read at the moment because it is set quite a long time after the world as we know it basically imploded and a new race of living beings came out of hell to rule the earth. Considering the situation of the world, you may want to stay away from it if you are easily triggered by these types of themes. I’m not easily triggered or put off by themes and so this book didn’t bother me in the least. I will say that it is very battle and violence-orientated, but it also made this book more unique.

I was so glad when I got the request to review this book, it was my first-ever fantasy request and I am so honoured to have read this book. I usually read books quite fast, especially fantasy, but there was something about this book, even though the pacing was really great, it just took a very long time to read. I think this may be due to how different it is from many other fantasy novels I’ve read, but also because there are a lot of details, the magic system is really well explained, as are the different types of people in this world, their status or hierarchy, the different powers they have, etc. I really enjoyed learning all this new stuff and from the first page I knew that I would really like it.

There was quite a lot of building up in this book. We first meet Elizabeth Raven, who I suppose we can say is one of the main characters, and also the leader of the Raven Clan. All people in this world came from the second generation of Adam and Eve and therefore each have a very complicated and distinct status that needs to be respected. Granted, this book is really complex, it has a lot of detail and a lot of themes and elements that I’ve never read about before, but it never felt “info-dumpy”. I’ve recently started Crescent City by Sarah J. Maas, and I haven’t found the motivation to pick it up again (although she is one of my favourite authors) because the start is just an enormous info-dump and I’m really struggling to get past that. I think that this book really portrays a great talent from the author because although there is A LOT of stuff happening, a lot of characters, a lot of information about the battles and peoples’ various powers, we learn the information alongside some of the characters who are unaware of the situation, so it never feels too much, if you know what I mean.

I found that there were a lot of characters, some that we never meet and many that we do, but the main ones were definitely Elizabeth, Jenny, Mia, Leo, Nicholas, and a few others. I thought that all of these characters really came together well in the end, they all sort of went on this mission from different places in this world and ended up together like one big rag-tag group and I can imagine that book 2 is going to be centred much more around these characters as we get to know them as the series continues (please can we have book 2 soon 😊?).

I also have to warn you that there is a massive amount of battle, violence, blood, gore, its all quite graphic and you might want to keep that in mind if that’s not your thing. As I’ve already said, I think that this book lays the foundations and sets the scene for the following books, so there is a lot of information and a lot of battle because it’s leading up to what will come next. If you don’t think you can handle about 90% of this book being fights, blood, gore, information on the place and the people, then maybe this book isn’t for you. But I have to say, I really enjoyed this a lot and it was so unique. I don’t mind a bit of blood and gore and battle, it is an 18+ book, but I really didn’t find it to be too much.

MY THOUGHTS AND RATING

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like this one, there was just so much about this book that I loved. First of all, I think I really fell for all the characters. They were all really relatable (and that’s saying something about demons and hellbrids), they cared for their people and tried to do the best for them and the conversations between them were never strange. I’ve read a lot of books that were really good, the plot was solid and the characters were great but the dialogue was just so awkward and badly written that I cringed the whole way through and wanted to put it down. This is the total opposite to that, I LOVED how the dialogue and the contrast with the actual scenes, and the action was pulled off.

I really loved learning about this world alongside Leo and this was such a unique book that I really couldn’t start to think or theorise towards what was going to happen, so I just let this story engulf me and I read it in one sitting (albeit a very long one with many snacks). This is definitely more of a dark epic fantasy, it really has a tonne of elements and all very new ones and I’m so grateful to the author that I got the chance to read this first book in the series.

Overall, I adored this story so much and I gave it 4 stars. Sometimes, it’s such a struggle to me to give ratings to really great books like this, and I loved every minute of it but it was just missing a tiny something to push it towards the 5 stars. However, following that ending, I can tell that if book 2 continues like this, that one is going to be a definite 5-star read. Also, I think that one thing that may have slowed down my reading was the length of the chapters, it is a nearly 400-page book and I can only remember it having about 10 or 11 chapters, and even though they are further divided by smaller sub-chapters, it was a bit big to tackle, and I can imagine that it would be a bit of a chore to try to read an entire chapter if you only have about 10 minutes to spare, so you may need to have a few hours ahead of you if you really want to read quite a chunk of this book.

I’m so glad I got to read this book and I would definitely recommend it to loads of you, as long as you keep in mind the trigger warnings, the majority of this book being about fights/battles or violence and the fact that it is really setting the scene for the next books in the series. I think a lot of hard-core fantasy buffs could really like this book, but I’m sure so many others will too and I am really looking forward to hearing more about book 2 because I really need to know how this story continues!!

Once again, thank you so much to Sein for asking me to read your book, I feel so honoured and thank you for sending the book! I can’t wait for book 2 and to hopefully work with you again!

That’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed this post, see you soon, stay safe,

Ellie xx

ABOUT THE AUTHOR – SEIN ARES

Sein Ares is the pen name of Suniel M, the creator of the “Arcana of the Crimson Era” series. Red Moon is the first book he has written. His love for books comes from his mother’s side of the family. His favorite authors include Erle Stanley Gardner, Agatha Christie, and many others from their generation.

He is twenty-nine years old and has a Bachelor’s degree in Economics. After graduating from college, he worked in an MNC for two years. The experience he gained from there allowed Sein to apply for a more reasonable career at another private firm.

Largely an introvert, Sein prefers to spend time reading fiction, watching anime, and gaming at home. His favorite game currently is overwatch. His goal is to one day be a full-time writer and immediate future plans include releasing a new volume of the Crimson Era Series every year.

Sein’s Links: Twitter – Goodreads – Instagram – Facebook

If you would like to purchase this book, you can find it here: Amazon UK (affiliate link) – Amazon FR (affiliate link) – Amazon US