#to bleed a crystal bloom

[emiliamildner]

Say hi to my new artistic obsession of the month - To Bleed a Crystal Bloom by Sarah A. Parker

The setting of this book was so vivid that while I planned to make one artwork of each book I read, I just had to draw more. These are super quick drawings inspired by various movie stills because... You see it too, right?

Anyway, go read that book. But please check TW before you read it, it's a dark Rapunzel reimagining and the word "dark" is there for a reason

Inspired by To Bleed a Crystal Bloom by Sarah A. Parker

‼️ DO NOT REPOST WITHOUT PERMISSION!

#to bleed a crystal bloom #sarah a parker #artists on tumblr #digital art #fanart #book fanart #orlaith #rhordyn

[fiercehildr]

This absolutely breathtaking commission of Rhordyn and Orlaith was done for me by the amazing @alilyushka who was such a pleasure to work with 💜 Hope you enjoy 💜

#to bleed a crystal bloom #sarah a parker #orlaith #rhordyn #rhorlaith #to snap a silver stem #to flame a wild flower #commission

[darkcozyforest]

Slowly marking off my TBR pile on my nightstand

Thanks people for the book recs. I have finished the first three in this list. Let’s see how the rest go 🖤 📚 📖

#tbr list #tbr pile #for the wolf #a ruin of roses #a touch of darkness #acotar #a court of thorns and roses #uprooted #kingdom of ash and shadow #slayer of the pirate lord #savage lands #throne of glass #zodiac academy #to bleed a crystal bloom #ruthless villains #gild #hannah whitten #scarlett st clair #k. f. breene #sarah j maas #naomi novik #Lindsey Elizabeth #Rebecca f kenney #Stacey Marie brown #Sarah a Parker #Marion Blackwood #raven kennedy #caroline peckham #susanne valenti #dark fantasy

[yazthebookish]

February 28th, 2023 🥹

#to bleed a crystal bloom #to snap a silver stem #to flame a wild flower #sarah a. parker #book 3 is coming sooner than we thought!

[longsightmyth]

#sex talk #grooming #books #book reviews #myth reads #myth reviews #to bleed a crystal bloom

[daybrights]

“𝑾𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒂 𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒚 𝒇𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒐 𝒌𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒍𝒐𝒄𝒌𝒆𝒅 𝒊𝒏 𝒂 𝒃𝒊𝒈, 𝒓𝒐𝒄𝒌𝒚 𝒕𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓.”

//

“𝑫𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒕 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒄𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒊𝒅 𝒈𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆𝒏’𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒊𝒕? 𝑨 𝒄𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒄𝒂𝒈𝒆, 𝒏𝒐 𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒈𝒊𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒅.”

#to bleed a crystal bloom #the plated prisoner #auren #orlaith #bookedit #na fantasy

[hellacioushag]

me trying to deal with the fact that maybe not all men in to bleed a crystal bloom universe are a piece of shit????

#to snap a silver stem #to snap a silver stem spoilers #tsass spoilers #to bleed a crystal bloom #i'm only on like chapter 37 #but i've only wanted to murder like 1 dude so far #what is happening???? #i thought it was all men must die lol #except shay #shay is forever and always the best shadowboi ever

[rhysands-rightknee]

I’m pregnant 🤰

Second book of To Bleed a Crystal Bloom

#to bleed a crystal bloom #to snap a silver stem #Rhordyn #orlaith #It’s giving klarolineeeeeeee

[valeriec80]

To Snap a Silver Stem

Hi hi! I haven’t written a post in a long while. This is going to be a review of the 2nd book in a romantic fantasy series by Sarah A. Parker. I reviewed the first book about a year ago in a gushing fangirly breathless kind of way, because it was all the things! It was my favorite book of the year! I was so looking forward to the sequel! OMG! 

Well, it’s probably inevitable, with that much pressure, that the second book did not live up to my expectations, lol. This review will contain SPOILERS. It will function primarily as an exercise for me as an author to determine elements of story that don’t work for me personally so that I can use these observations to strengthen my own storytelling. It is not intended to be, like, *the* reason why the book doesn’t work. Everyone will have their own subjective experience with the book. Lots of people seem to have liked it. I also liked various aspects of it a fracking LOT, and I’ll detail that at the end.

So, I can’t be sure, but I feel like this is maybe Parker’s, like, fifth book or something. She may have a bunch of trunk novels or some other pen name I don’t know about, but I well know what it’s like to have a first novel of a series that just writes itself and then get to the second book, wherein you have no idea how to even do the thing anymore. As a younger author, I had real trouble learning how to structure trilogies, how to figure out what to do with a stretched-out romance arc, all kinds of things. And Parker is just a better writer than me. Like, I may have written over a hundred novels, but she snows me hardcore. She’s naturally talented in a way I’ll never be. Am I jealous? Oh, yeah. So, bear that in mind too when evaluating this review. There is no wrath like the wrath of a jealous author. Oh, and all authors are jealous and insecure and always think everyone else’s career is better than theirs. (It’s me. I do this.)

Anyway, the second book founders. The first book was a chugging engine, driven entirely around the mystery of who Orlaith really was, why Rhordyn was drinking her blood, why he was such a dick to her, why she was so into him even though he was a dick, just questions that begat questions and the more you read, the more tantalizing they became. It’s about damned near perfect, and the tease of the sexiness, the hint of a possible love interest who would be the opposite of Rhordyn, all of that is just great.

So, in book two, some promises had been made by Parker, I thought. I thought we’d been promised a look at Orlaith in a relationship with Cainon, and that it should be a foil for her romance to Rhordyn, kind of everything that Rhordyn isn’t. Ultimately, I expected Rhordyn to be endgame, but I wanted something sunnier and sweeter for Orlaith, and I looked forward to the pleasure of that.

Unfortunately, Cainon is just Rhordyn-lite. Parker can write one male love interest, apparently, and he’s a flavor I’m just not entirely fond of. It’s a fine line. I do like it when love interests are prickly and even downright asshole-ish, as long as there are some other elements in play. The meaner he is, the more power I want the female mc to have in balance (Orlaith is kinda pathetic, but I don’t mind pathetic female characters). The meaner he is, the more significant she needs to be to him. I guess I want it to make sense. She should make him suffer SO MUCH that I get *why* he’s such a dick? And this... meh... maybe? I don’t know, because Parker is playing so much close to the chest. Maybe Rhordyn *is* suffering because of Orlaith, but I just don’t know enough yet. 

This brings me to my next point, which is that book two is really padded and stretched out, and there are long bits of boring things in there where nothing significant is happening, and when you get to the end of the book, you realize why, because Parker had another big reveal planned, just like the reveal at the beginning of book one. And I feel I would have made a different choice with this reveal. A-the reveal is kinda dumb. Like, in the first book, we don’t know why Rhordyn is drinking her blood, but you can kinda guess, like, probably he’s a vampire. I mean, he’s not. But whatever. It doesn’t matter what you *call* him. He drinks blood because he’s a creature who drinks blood. This is a dumb reveal. Also, like, these kinds of creatures are eeeeeevil. Duh? Okay. I read all the way to here for this? B-by forcing everything focus on this one big reveal at the end of the book, you force all your characters to stagnate, because you’re just marking time until you pull out this big finish, and you’re expecting your readers to stay on board for it, but they don’t know it’s coming, and a book is more than its end. The book is the book. The beginning and middle need to also be good and compelling. You can’t *just* have a reveal, and if you are sacrificing important story elements to preserve your big reveal, deep-six the reveal. The book is the book. No element is so important it should drag down the other elements.

I feel like maybe intuitively, Parker knew this. It got pushed back, the publication date did, and she had a YEAR to write it, so I’m figuring she was stuck. And here’s what you should have done, in my opinion, Sarah Parker, is moved that reveal to the middle of the book, and then said to yourself, okay, what’s that do to my characters? And definitely don’t have Orlaith push Rhordyn off a cliff. Seriously?

Okay, this brings me to my next point. There’s a lot of tension in the book that doesn’t land because it’s not tense. Case in point, there’s a big, big scene with a sea monster in the beginning of the book, and I skimmed the whole thing, because I know Orlaith is not going to get killed by a sea monster. I’m not dumb. That would end the story. And there were other characters in danger, but they were all new people who I cgaf about, so... blah. Similarly, she ends the book with Orlaith “killing” Rhordyn.

Um.

Yeah. I believe he’s dead.

Why would you *do* this?

So, now, Parker is in the position of either having to do this thing at the beginning of book three where she Jon-Snows us all summer and is like, “No, no, he’s really dead” and tries to convince us she was serious. Which will fail. Because we all know he’s not dead. So, I would recommend, like, not doing that. Just--first scene, Rhordyn is alive and, uh, killing him has triggered his evil side, like his humanity switch has been turned off like Damon Salvatore, and then he’s a really real asshole? No, I don’t know how you fix this clusterfuck, to be honest, but... you *could* fix it. It’s doable. I’ll tune in for book three to see what happens. 

Okay, so I think overall what Parker seems to have forgotten is that a book should be about pleasure, and even if your pleasures tend toward watching characters suffer (mine do, no shade), it’s still about pleasure. And the book feels like work to me. There’s few and far between with a feeling that permeates through that she was actually enjoying herself or that I’m conversely enjoying *myself*. And I get that too. Trembling, for instance, the agony that was drafting that book? And it’s soooo terrible, you know. Like Sarah Parker runs circles around my early writing efforts and runs circles around me now.

So, we should get to the stuff I loved, especially if poor Sarah Parker is reading this. (I can’t stop reading bad reviews either! Agh. Go get yourself some chocolate, though, lady, you deserve it.) 

There’s this Kai subplot that is chef’s kiss. Sooo sexy. Love.

Rhordyn... Rhordyn is hawtt in this book. There’s this scene at the end where she like jumps him in the shower and gives him a handjob, and this scene is the best, most sexiest, angstiest, everything-is-so-good scene I’ve read this year. *fans self furiously*

Orlaith loses her virginity to some random dude! Fuck yes. That was great. Wonderful choice. I commend you, Sarah Parker! You are my hero.

I like the worldbuilding, and I like how not revealed it is at all. People talk about it in passing, and you just have to figure it out, and that’s... god, we need more of that. If I have to skim another super boring half-page of exposition about some random thing in some fantasy world ever again it’ll be too soon. But I will. Because not everyone is as brilliant as Parker, more’s the pity.

Oh, there’s this scene with Cainon and Rhordyn at dinner like just gritting their teeth at each other, and I get so wet for men fighting over women. That was great.

I also have had real trouble getting into fantasy books this year. Real, real trouble. And I read this pretty quick. So, whatever with my ripping it shreds. I clearly did not stop reading it, which is saying something.

Anyway, that’s it for me.

#to bleed a crystal bloom #to snap a silver stem #reviews #fantasy romance #author babbles #allauthorsarejealous #iwantobesarahaparkerwhenigrowup

[diamondthorns]

Her voice may have been fragile, but everything else was the opposite. Her upper lip was curled with hate, she had fire in her eyes, and she looked at me like she saw through my skin to the monster I am beneath. Part of me was relieved—screamed for her to look deeper. To delve until she ripped herself on all my sharp bits. Perhaps then she’d see why I’m stuck in her orbit... unwillingly. Why drifting too close would destroy everything.

Sarah A. Parker, 'To Bleed A Crystal Bloom'

#To Bleed A Crystal Bloom #The Crystal Bloom Series

[lost-in-fictionn]

God, I love you zykanth

#To bleed a crystal bloom #To snap a silver snap #To flame a wild flower #To flame a wild flower spoilers #Tfawf #Tfawf spoilers #Sarah a parker

[fiercehildr]

New pfp, courtesy of @_loris_art (IG) amazing work ♥️ Featuring me, one of my cat and 5 of my favorite reads: Gleam, The Serpent and the Wings of Night, To Bleed a Crystal Bloom, Skyward and The Song of Achilles ♥️

#the plated prisoner #carissa broadbent #the song of achilles #skyward #brandon sanderon #to bleed a crystal bloom #pfp #commission

[booksandfantasies]

I started rereading To Bleed a Crystal Bloom and I have to admit after all the contemporary romances/ rom-coms I've been reading lately I definitely a genre change. I almost forgot how much I absolutely love fantasy books because this year I've been leaning more towards the contemporary romances but I'm enjoying this book so much. I think I might be enjoying more the second time around but I still have half the book to read.

#books #reading #to bleed a crystal bloom #sarah a parker #romance #romance books

[yazthebookish]

𝗦𝗵𝗲’𝘀 𝗮 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗰𝗲; 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗽𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗳𝗹𝘂𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘁. 𝗦𝗵𝗲’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗼𝗶𝗹 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝗮 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗱𝗮𝘆.

𝗦𝗵𝗲’𝘀 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻, 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗲𝗹𝘆, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗶𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘁.

Commissioned piece of Orlaith from To Bleed a Crystal Bloom by the talented Lulybot 🥀

Link to post here

#to bleed a crystal bloom #tbacb #to snap a silver stem #tsass #orlaith #sarah a. parker #book art

[turquoisebooks]

#smuttyreaders #turquoisebooks #turquoisetemplates #smutty books #bookclub #to bleed a crystal bloom #sarah a parker

[daybrights]

𝑻𝒐 𝑺𝒏𝒂𝒑 𝒂 𝑺𝒊𝒍𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒎 𝒃𝒚 𝑺𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒉 𝑨. 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒆𝒓

#I hate this but oh well #to snap a silver stem #to bleed a crystal bloom #Orlaith #book edit