Ice Moon coming September 23rd, 2025 from Blackstone Publishing; 410 pages
Content Warning: Violence, death
About the Author: “Camila Victoire is a French Canadian / Australian novelist and screenwriter currently based in Montreal. She toured for four years with a circus before going to study writing for film and TV at the Vancouver Film School, from which she graduated in 2015. The daughter of two performance artists, she is a born nomad. Her stories are nourished by her adventures, from exploring the haunted forests of Transylvania to venturing deep into the jungles of Peru. Blood Circus is her first novel.” (Bio from author’s Goodreads).
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In this thrilling sequel to Blood Circus, a story set in a world where humanity has been forever changed by climate change and famine, Ava is now on the run and hiding her newly discovered identity for fear of being found out. In order to remain safe and avoid being persecuted and exiled for good, Ava must once again compete in the ruthless games. This time, she’s competing in the Klujn Blood Race, hosted by this humanoid species that prides itself on the race’s tradition of fighting to the death. As she journeys throughout the race, she uncovers many secrets that only raise the stakes and make her wonder if she will truly be able to survive and heal from the race—and the scars that come with it.
As a sequel, I have to remind myself that Blood Circus and Ice Moon are two separate entities. While I found Blood Circus satisfactory, I found it hard to dive into Ice Moon because I wasn’t really all that interested in continuing with the series, despite book one’s ending that would have most likely had me begging for an ARC of the sequel when I was younger. And, even though I continued onto Ice Moon immediately after finishing the first book to give it a fair chance, I was still disappointed. The writing, like in book one, felt simplistic to the point of detriment and a bit juvenile at times in ways that took me out of the world. The story being marketed as similar to The Hunger Games is pretty on the nose, but making comparisons like this can also go awry. Despite the surface-level similarities between the books, the comparison creates misleading expectations for readers. While I absolutely adore The Hunger Games and the political messaging behind those books, Ice Moon couldn’t really compare despite the Blood Race and somewhat interesting, discussion-rousing mentions of climate change. To me, unfortunately, Ice Moon fell flat and felt repetitive and unnecessarily long.
Ice Moon releases on September 23rd, 2025. Pine Reads Review would like to thank Camila Victoire and Blackstone Publishing for sending us an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes are taken from an advanced copy and may be subject to change before final publication.
Vanshikha Vij, Pine Reads Review Writer