On Wings of Blood is a dark fantasy academia with vampires, magic, and “dragons”. Yes, please! And I have a lot of conflicting thoughts about it. Our MC is thrown into an unfamiliar universe, found under unfortunate circumstances, and dragged into the world of Sangratha. Her fierce and stubborn spirit starts to fade once she’s unwillingly betrothed to her captor and forced to study at Bloodwing Academy. She gets some spark back as she begins to integrate, thankfully, but I was a little disappointed by how easily she seemed to accept her fate for a while.
There’s no mistaking where the inspiration for this story came from. The author openly acknowledges their muse, but the influence is so heavy at the start that I couldn’t get the characters of Harry, Draco, and their circle of friends out of my head. The content, inspiration, and my imagination started clashing, and I wondered if the only real distinction from the original muse was that our Slytherins are vampires.
I also couldn’t shake one relentless question: why are these vampires in school?

There’s no real information about their age or development (or maybe I just missed it) and I couldn’t get past it to the point that I began to wonder if this story was for me. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and forever more: why are preternatural, formidable, transcendent beings in school, learning basic education?
Still, I journeyed on…
At around 150 pages, things pick up, the content gets more adult and vicious. I’m starting to get into the story, and the characters are finally beginning to stand on their own. There’s a lot of world-building through student-led teaching and peer conversations, which is interesting and unique but also creates some lulls in the story. Mythical elements are introduced; some add a nice touch, while others raise more questions. But I keep going, because the tension is palpable, the banter is bantering, and I need our two MCs to kiss! Speaking of kissing, explicit content is scarce until about halfway through, where the story takes a darker turn and the “scenes” get quite graphic.

Overall, there is some uniqueness within these pages, though I’m not sure it needed quite so many of them. I’m also not sure this review needed so many words, as the book description sums it up perfectly—and kudos to Boleyn for the transparency. *“What do you get if you mix Harry Potter with Fourth Wing, Zodiac Academy, a dash of Arthurian legend, and lots and lots of vampires? Bloodwing Academy.”* #micdrop
To sum up my honest opinion — On Wings of Blood has all of the elements for an epic fantasy but it just didn’t quite hit the mark for me. It was a rollercoaster of love and hate in equal measures. I hope for more uniqueness in the next book, which I am or may not read.
A special thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC copy for review.