I’m back with another blog tour review! This time it’s for With Fire In Their Blood by Kat Delacorte through Write Reads Tours. I was hoping to get a copy of this at YALC but didn’t, so I was so happy to be able to get on this tour. It was a book I didn’t know what to expect, but if you’re looking for a book with 2000’s YA paranormal vibes but queer? You’ve got that here.
With Fire In Their Blood is set in the Italian city of Castello, where rival mafia clans divide the city and only come together to fight the Saints. People with magic. When Lilly arrives, she’s drawn to Liza, Nico and Christian in equal measure. But Lilly isn’t sure she can trust anyone. Especially not sure when she shows signs of being more than human.
I said pretty early on that this book has all the vibes from those 2000s paranormal romances for teens. And it very much does, but I don’t mean that in a bad way. I was a teenager when I was reading those sorts of books, and I enjoyed them. This gives me a good reason to believe that teenagers today will enjoy this one too. It is maybe a little predictable in places, but once you’re pulled in for the ride you don’t really care about that. However, it did feel like a more updated version of the books from my teens and I’ll go into that now.
If you couldn’t guess from the summary, our heroine Lilly is either bi or pan. I can’t remember seeing a specific term used, but she’s clearly into guys and girls. Out of her three possible love interests, I liked her best with Liza. Their dynamic is interesting and not always good, but it did fascinate me. It wasn’t a relationship that I could necessarily see a happy ending for, even if the ending hadn’t happened, ahem. But I would’ve liked to see them try.
Speaking of characters, my favourite was probably Alex. Again, he wasn’t the nicest of characters. Honestly…I’m not sure anyone in this book truly is. But his protective nature and snappishness appealed to me. Plus. I kinda liked his helping out. It was fun. I also would’ve preferred if he’d been the one to end the book with Lilly’s final love interest. I hope that book 2 will kind of lead them back together as there clearly was something, and there’s still another person that Lilly could get with…I just doubt it. I don’t think that Lilly should get with the guy she does. Still, I’ll acknowledge that’s just personal preference. I know a lot of people will love them together. It’s just not for me.
I think part of the reason I struggled with the romance was that there were so many options, and everything was so well-written. You wanted to see more from these characters and work out what was going on, even when you didn’t like them. This book was dark, and that’s what made it work so well. I really loved this setting, the worldbuilding and everything related to all that. It feels rare that teen paranormal romance is actually dark, and this one is. I really appreciated that.
This book isn’t going to be for everyone. It’s difficult to trust any of the characters, and pretty much all the relationships are messed up in some way. But I know there are also a lot of people who are going to eat this up.
Title: With Fire In Their Blood
Author: Kat Delacorte
Genre: Paranormal Fantasy
Age Range: Young Adult
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: 1/9/2022
BUY LINKS
Lace and Dagger Books 
Great review!
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