Review: Godblind

Godblind
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy 
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

The Mireces worship the bloodthirsty Red Gods. Exiled from Rilpor a thousand years ago, and left to suffer a harsh life in the cold mountains, a new Mireces king now plots an invasion of Rilpor’s thriving cities and fertile earth.

Dom Templeson is a Watcher, a civilian warrior guarding Rilpor’s border. He is also the most powerful seer in generations, plagued with visions and prophecies. His people are devoted followers of the god of light and life, but Dom harbors deep secrets, which threaten to be exposed when Rillirin, an escaped Mireces slave, stumbles broken and bleeding into his village.

Meanwhile, more and more of Rilpor’s most powerful figures are turning to the dark rituals and bloody sacrifices of the Red Gods, including the prince, who plots to wrest the throne from his dying father in the heart of the kingdom. Can Rillirin, with her inside knowledge of the Red Gods and her shocking ties to the Mireces King, help Rilpor win the coming war?

Fair warning everyone, this is bloodthirsty and gory from the start. There's attempted rape within the first couple of pages and it's not the first time. There's also a particular scene with a sacrifice that will haunt me, and make me twitchy whenever anyone near me wields a hammer. DIY is lost to me now. It's safe to say red was the correct jacket colour choice! There's some casual murder within the first couple of pages, swiftly followed by a smidge of regicide. The cheating at cards and general backstabbing and...stabbing seemed like childs play after that. After the sacrifice/torture scene....anything else pales in comparison and is like a walk in the park. 

There's violence towards women, it's true, and I know that put some reviewers off but there's violence towards pretty much everyone in this book. Alongside that...there are so many strong female characters in this book. Rillirin in particular goes from being a victim of said violence, to getting more and more courageous, learning how to defend herself...and then you have her as she is at the end of the book. It's a brilliant character development arc and one I enjoyed reading. I was rooting for her every step of the way. There was also Tara, one of my favourite characters of the book. She's a complete badass and doesn't take crap from anyone, the same can be said for Dalli. 

Crys was another of my favourite characters. He cracked me up, and I swear he has nine lives. He always manages to just slip out of trouble and scrape on by. I 100% ship him and Ash. His initial struggle with his sexuality was interesting, and I think well handled but I can't really speak to the accuracy of it. Either way, by the end of the book he and Ash had me squealing. A spot of bright amid the blood! I also really loved the banter between he, Tara and Dalli, I'm gonna be needing more of it in the next book! Not to mention I'm going to need to learn what Crys is....because everyone kept mentioning a certain thing about him and it got me so excited but wasn't answered! 

There's plenty of other brilliant characters, Durdil and his son Mace, both of who had to finagle their way out of sticky situations. Dom, who has an intriguing gift. I'm intrigued to see what will become of him. There's also plenty of nasty characters that you love to hate. I had no qualms going full Game of Thrones mindset on these characters and hoping they get killed off. Rivil...I was actually hoping to like him but nope. Galtas...the slimiest of slimy snakes. He totally needs to die first, just saying. And then we have Corvus and the Blessed One. I'm not sure which one of them is worse. Corvus is an opportunist and deserves a taste of his own medicine. Maybe the Blessed One will get rid of him. I can dream. 

I breezed through this book fairly quickly, possibly thanks to the POV changes. There weren't any super long chapters, so we kept switching characters quite quickly. This was a bit confusing for me in the beginning as I was getting used to the setting and trying to work out who was who and who did what. It took me about 100 pages or more to get in to the book, to reach a point where I was no longer iffy about the book and invested. Once things got going the shorter chapters and constant POV changes pushed the plot forward, and kept you up to date with what was happening where, and brought in new plot threads and characters. I think the POV's where in the double digits when I finished reading. 

The POV's would sometimes overlap because they're quite short, so we'd get different character POV's but they'd be in the same location before bouncing off to a different setting. I had a fairly good idea of the world and what it looked like, and how it was laid out. The settings where vivid....the scenes vivid too even when you wished they weren't! I have to say, while it's bloodthirsty, violent and brutal there's also lighter sides to it. There's some romance as I've already mentioned which was a nice surprise, there's some humour, and I personally enjoyed the loyalty and camaraderie amongst one faction/group. It does take a little while before the lines are firmly drawn in battle between good and evil, therefore you can imagine the epic plot twists leading up to that moment. Everything was unsure. You knew which characters where on which side, but there where still some left to be decided and all these plot twists came out of nowhere, brilliantly shocking until you knew who was on which side for sure. 

Godblind sets the scene, it's the first in a trilogy, and this is merely act one. There are plenty of plot threads that have just had the seeds planted. This book has introduced us to the characters and the world and as you read the action and pace picks up more and more and then...it ends. To be continued in book two. I'm kind of thinking of this trilogy as one giant book that's been cut in to three and released in separate chunks, if you know what I mean! There's treachery, betrayal and sinister plots to untangle as you read. But there's also unexpected romance, humour and strong bonds between some characters. Godblind is gritty, brutal, and so vivid you wished it wasn't. It's seriously gory and violent, I shuddered more than once when I was reading. The epilogue is quite frankly chilling. I'm so intrigued to see what's going to happen next, and I can confirm that Joe Abercrombie fans will love this!