Is there an audiobook of House of Earth and Blood?

Yes. House of Earth and Blood has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Elizabeth Evans.

How long is the House of Earth and Blood audiobook?

The House of Earth and Blood audiobook runs 27 hr 50 min.

Is House of Earth and Blood on Kindle Unlimited?

No. House of Earth and Blood was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on August 12, 2026.

House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas book cover for the Book of the Day urban fantasy book review

Our score

4.7/ 5

Outstanding

Listen to House of Earth and Blood free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Buy on Amazon

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EDITION PUBLISHEDMarch 2021

Genres

Fiction Urban Fantasy Romantasy

Themes

Grief and survivalPower, hierarchy, and who gets crushed by itFriendship as the heart of the lossEarning love after damage

House of Earth and Blood

Name: House of Earth and Blood
Price: 9.49 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Sarah J. Maas

Sarah J. Maas

Sarah J. Maas trades fae courts for a sprawling modern magical metropolis, then runs a murder investigation through it as a half-fae party girl and a chained fallen angel hunt whatever killed her best friend. It's huge, profane, and grief-soaked, and the back half hits like a freight train.

The Review

Our take

Crescent City is Maas writing adult, and the shift is the whole point. Lunathion is a city with nightclubs and cell phones and corporate ladders layered over a strict magical hierarchy, where angels rule, fae scheme, shifters and sprites and demons fill the lower rungs, and humans sit near the bottom. Into this Maas drops Bryce Quinlan, a half-human half-fae who'd rather dance and work her gallery job than engage with the bloody politics around her, until a brutal murder takes the person she loves most. Two years later the killings start again, and Bryce is pulled into the investigation alongside Hunt Athalar, an enslaved angel assassin with a body count and a leash. The premise is essentially a paranormal noir, and it gives the book a propulsive spine that Maas's court fantasies sometimes lack.

The worldbuilding is the most ambitious thing she's attempted, and it's a genuine investment. The opening chapters bury you in factions, ranks, slang, and lore, and the book trusts you to hold a lot before it pays off. Readers expecting a quick on-ramp should brace for a dense, occasionally overwhelming first third where names and systems arrive faster than context. But the architecture is real, and it rewards the patience: by the climax, threads you'd half-forgotten snap into place with a precision that makes the early density feel deliberate rather than indulgent.

What anchors all of it is grief. Beneath the snark and the slow-burn tension between Bryce and Hunt, this is a book about loss and the long, ugly work of surviving it, and the friendship at its core, between Bryce and her murdered best friend, is drawn with enough warmth that the absence aches. Maas has always written feeling at full volume, and here the emotional stakes are load-bearing; the partnership between the two leads builds slowly, through banter and mutual recognition of damage, into something that earns its eventual heat. The romance is adult in content and patient in pace, more smolder than spark for a long stretch.

The book is not lean. It's over eight hundred pages, the middle stretches in places, and the contemporary register, with its brand names and modern profanity, can sit awkwardly against the high-fantasy machinery for readers who came for pure escapism. Maas's tendency to tell you a character is devastating or dangerous occasionally outpaces the showing. These are the costs of her maximalist mode, and whether they bother you depends on your appetite for scale.

Why you should read

Readers who want a modern magical city, not another fae court
Fans of paranormal noir and murder-mystery plotting
Anyone who reads Maas for high-volume emotion and grief
Readers willing to invest in dense worldbuilding for a huge payoff

What to expect

A dense, name-heavy first third before the systems click
An 816-page maximalist scope with a saggy middle
A slow-burn adult romance built on mutual damage
A final act of cascading reveals and real emotional weight

What's not in question is the payoff. The final act is one of the most propulsive things Maas has written, a cascade of revelations and reversals that recontextualizes the whole sprawling setup and delivers an emotional gut-punch alongside the action. For readers who want urban fantasy with the scope of epic, a murder mystery wrapped in genuine grief, and a slow-burn romance between two damaged people who've earned each other by the end, this is a big, immersive, deeply felt opener, provided you'll trust it through a demanding start.

Reviewed by Rowan · How our reviews are written

Our verdict

4.7/ 5

Outstanding

Listen to House of Earth and Blood free with an Audible trial Narrator, runtime & our audio review

Buy on Amazon

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Prices may vary.

Where to read or listen

Is there an audiobook of House of Earth and Blood?: Yes. House of Earth and Blood has an Audible audiobook edition, narrated by Elizabeth Evans.
Listen to House of Earth and Blood free with an Audible trial
We earn from qualifying Amazon purchases.
How long is the House of Earth and Blood audiobook?: The House of Earth and Blood audiobook runs 27 hr 50 min.
Is House of Earth and Blood on Kindle Unlimited?: No. House of Earth and Blood was not included with Kindle Unlimited when we last checked on August 12, 2026.
How much does House of Earth and Blood cost?: On Amazon: Kindle $9.49, Paperback $9.99, Hardcover $15.85. Prices as of August 25, 2026 at 3:45 AM EDT and may change.

Filed underUrban Fantasy Romantasy Browse the archive →

More by Sarah J. MaasSee every Sarah J. Maas book we've reviewed, with our scores.All Sarah J. Maas books →

Common questions

What is House of Earth and Blood about?: Crescent City is Maas writing adult, and the shift is the whole point. Lunathion is a city with nightclubs and cell phones and corporate ladders layered over a strict magical hierarchy, where angels rule, fae scheme, shifters and sprites and demons fill the lower rungs, and humans sit near the…
Is House of Earth and Blood worth reading?: We scored House of Earth and Blood 4.7 out of 5. Sarah J. Maas trades fae courts for a sprawling modern magical metropolis, then runs a murder investigation through it as a half-fae party girl and a chained fallen angel hunt whatever killed her best friend. It's huge, profane, and grief-soaked, and the back half hits like a…