Bright Raven Skies Blog Tour – Kristina Pérez

As you have probably heard (because I’ve been telling everyone I’ve met), I co-founded a blog tour company, Phoenix Fire Tours a little while ago, and we are currently running our very first tour! Bright Raven Skies by Kristina Pérez was published on the 25th of August and is the conclusion to her Sweet Black Waves trilogy based on the legend of Tristan and Eseult, and centers the character of Branwen.

For the full tour schedule and links to all posts, check out the Phoenix Fire blog here! We are also running a giveaway for a finished copy of the book for a lucky winner with a US or UK shipping address: CLICK HERE TO ENTER

I loved this third installment just as much as the first two – the same wonderfully complex characters, unashamed bodily autonomy and determination that make the series such a treat dominate Bright Raven Skies as well. It is thrilling, fast-paced and will keep the reader enthralled from start to finish. Full of twists that you don’t see coming, Branwen will have to choose between her light and dark sides once and for all in this satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.

Now, I said I would be writing about the food featured in this book today. I think that came up more often in the earlier volumes, as I paid full attention this time and there were barely any instances of meals that the characters eat! I was hoping for a nice feast that I could choose something from to recreate and treat you all to a recipe for – I love medieval cookery, which is full of the combination of sweet and savoury, with dishes like meat pies spiced with honey and raisins.

The main thing that Branwen and Essie consume in Bright Raven Skies is not food, but rather drink: Blackberry Wine. This sweet concoction is their drink of choice throughout their stay in Kernyv. I wish I was able to recreate this myself, but I don’t trust myself to brew alcohol (yet) – though I do have some friends back in Switzerland who know how to brew mead! I do imagine this Blackberry Wine as a sort of mead cut with blackberry juice, low in alcoholic percentage, sweet and utterly drinkable. I’m not sure how available these things are here in the UK, but in Switzerland where I grew up, me and my friends actually drank mead laced with cherry juice as our beverage of choice growing up, so I feel quite nostalgic about the idea of Blackberry Wine.

I don’t want to encourage anyone to drink, but if you do drink and have the chance to pick up something along those lines at a medieval fair or a castle or somewhere similar, I do recommend it!