It has that feeling of old magic fighting to come back into the world, which I loved, and also has some talking fantasy creatures, which is always going to elevate a story in my books. where you feel the hard blows of your opponent on your weapon and the blood is already running out of the hit spots or whether you are in a constricted shield wall where you get scared of being crushed and have to act as one unit so that you can win the fight. This was another impressive and captivating storyline which has some very unique differences from the other character arcs.

While subtle, it does perfectly set up an overarching conspiracy that has major implications for the entire plot and which sets up the next novel perfectly.

Varg’s perspective is important for spoiler-ish reasons, but he’s entirely focused throughout the majority on finding his sister’s killer and getting vengeance (in a very Viking-like style, there’s quite a lot of that in this book). The story is told through multiple POVs like the first book and the author makes them all intriguing and intertwined in a way that made me think a bit too much about his writing process.

This is yet another incredible book from John Gwynne, and for me cements him as the best active fantasy author. Some of the fun of fantasy books is exploring a world for the first time, but Gwynne finds a way to keep this world interesting even after it was properly made clear in the first book. The Hunger of the Gods, the second book in The Bloodsworn Saga, is my second most anticipated books—the first one belongs to The Lost Metal by Brandon Sanderson—of 2022.Any changes made can be done at any time and will become effective at the end of the trial period, allowing you to retain full access for 4 weeks, even if you downgrade or cancel. Maybe I'm a little biased when it comes to John Gwynne but I honestly couldn't find anything wrong with this book. She’s one of those rare female characters who gets to be a mother, a partner, and a warrior with not a single breath of stereotype or limitation. Each of the points of view are very different, and I found myself looking for signs of them coming together throughout but it’s honestly like three different stories almost for about… 90% of it maybe?

When it comes to the world, the author mixes history, myth, and magic to create a somewhere so convincing that I never doubted it for a second.In this case, The Shadow of the Gods turned out to be an exceptional and captivating novel which provides an intense and clever story with great characters exploring a harsh and broken world. Through the eyes of these characters, I was engrossed from the very first chapter and by about the fourth chapter I was chuffed to see that Gwynne had worked his magic again. In a way he kind of falls into the Bloodsworn almost by accident, but as a former thrall he has a lot of character development in the story as he becomes a warrior as the rest of his new family are.

First of all huge thanks to the publisher and author for approving my request on NetGalley and it goes without saying that this is my unbiased review/opinion. For old and new readers alike, simply, you are in for a treat as The Shadow of the Gods is absolutely stunning, one hell of an epic series opener and a spectacular dose of Viking-flavoured fantasy. I am not entirely sure he needed to describe someone’s head as a thought-cage every single time, though, as it that was a tad annoying.

I have already read Malice by the author and I liked it a lot, but unfortunately I didn’t read any further, because this series plus the following series just has so many books that I put this series at the back of my list to read his new book, because then at least I’m up to date with this series 📷 Besides, the cover totally captivated me, I think it’s one of the most beautiful covers I’ve ever seen and the dragon looks really scary – luckily I don’t have to face the dragon.