ALN Monthly Book Club: Blood Over Bright Haven (Old Town)

For our March Monthly Book Club, we will be reading M.L. Wang's "Blood over Bright Haven!"

We will be hosting this event IN PERSON, outdoors, at Presidio Park in Old Town! We recommend (but do not require) that attendees wear masks and maintain social distance.

We typically meet at the picnic tables in the shade at the end of the loop made by Cosoy Way. Please see the embedded map below for more details.

Content warning: Gore, Homophobia, Violence, Child Abuse, Stalking. Details not given here to avoid spoilers. Contact an organizer if you have concerns about the book's content.

In a steampunk fantasy world, the prosperous live in a domed city, with powerful scholars able to siphon energy from other realms to power their utopia. Meanwhile, the native tribes who live outside the dome are threatened by a deadly magic plague on the daily, and those who can make it to the dome are treated as second class-citizens. Our leads are an ambitious young scholar trying to make her name in a world of men, and a burdened refugee trying to find a new life after almost losing everything.

We hope to see you there!

Upcoming Events:
April: The Hexologists, by Josiah Bancroft
May: The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, by Axie Oh
June: The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan
July: The Chaotic Orbits Trilogy, by Beth Revis
August: The Spear Cuts Through Water, by Simon Jimenez
EPIC: The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon
September: 2026-2027 ALN Book Selection!

Questions:

1. What is your name, and what is the most memorable thing you’ve ever changed about yourself to fit in?
2. The characters in Blood Over Bright Haven often find themselves challenged by new perspectives and ideas. Have you used your own experiences to help someone else understand an issue important to you, or vice versa? When was the last time you found something that genuinely challenged your view of the world?
3. Blood Over Bright Haven joins a long tradition of books about schools of magic. What expectations did you have going into the book based on the subject? How did the book challenge or subvert them?
4. In Tiran, academia and religion are inseparable. What did you think of the way that religion and academic magic were treated as one discipline?
5. We gradually learn that Sciona’s family has dedicated their lives to giving Sciona a chance at a better one. How did you feel about Sciona’s attitude toward her family and her relationship with them?
6. What do you think of the romance between Sciona and Thomil, given their professional relationship and societal standing? Did their relationship need to be romantic to work?
7. Sciona’s mentor Archmage Bringham believes himself to be a good man doing the right thing. He is a progressive and a reformer and has spent his life championing the case of women’s rights in the city of Tiran. Yet he is as complicit as any other high mage in the ministry’s many crimes. Do you believe that Archmage Bringham could genuinely be a good person, in spite of his failings? Does he deserve to be judged by the standards of his time? In what ways are we all complicit in the crimes of our nation and the maintenance of the status quo?
8. What did you think about the ending and how did it make you feel? In your opinion, did Sciona, Thomil, and Carra do the right thing? Did Sciona redeem herself in the end, and could she have done that without killing herself?
9. What stayed with you more in the end: the magic, the worldbuilding, and the story? Or the social commentary?