A Time of Dread: 1 (Of Blood & Bone)

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However, for longtime fans of Gwynne’s works, familiar names such as Drassil and Starstone Crater are designed to make you feel at home again.

If you’ve not read the first series, don’t hesitate to start here with this one and then go back later to read the “prequel’. The first thing to know is that this is a spin-off series of John Gwynne’s “The Faithful and the Fallen” series and therefore takes place in the same world.What I will say is that we are following two really different storylines of people having to deal with the same situation in the land of the fallen. The plot twists and turns in unpredictable ways, and yet each time it pulled me along, never once making me want to put the book down.

To save future readers of Gwynne’s previous series from spoilers, all I’ll say is that the main plot of this book mainly revolves around a new upcoming threat that’s coming to the Banished Lands. The Kadoshim now have human followers, and it would appear that the Kadoshim have mated with humans as well as using dark magick to create evil creatures the like of which the world hasn’t seen since the starstones originally fell. And the action… John Gwynne keeps on reminding us that he is second to none in the this department, whether it is large scale battles or mano a mano, his writing is so immersive and vivid that you cannot help but be transported to the scene of the violent, gory action. As for the world, of course I loved it, as I loved it in the first series, but there were a lot of changes to it, as well as many things history-wise that I learned that really affected my perspective on it.

Wrath was an awe-inspiring, frenetic finale to one of the all-time great fantasy series – The Faithful and the Fallen – and I’d just finished reading it when I heard John Gwynne’s new project would also be set in the Banished Lands, but a few generations into the future. of the characters are new and likewise, I think previous readers will enjoy it 10% more with prior knowledge and past experiences yet that's not to say new readers won't be engrossed and blown away too.

The story is told from the POV’s of four characters, each of whom are thoughtfully developed and steer clear of the character tropes we often encounter in fantasy.

I was really surprised at a lot of the history that we were able to learn through the story without it feeling info-dumpy. Finally, Ben Elim and humans are starting to mix on more fronts than just the battlefield, with years of living together resulting in some forbidden romances. Simply amazing and almost impossible to put down, A Time of Dread is truly a masterful start to a trilogy which I envision will be crowned as one of the best series I’ve ever read by its end.

My latest book, The Shadow of the Gods, book 1 of the Bloodsworn Saga, will be published in May 2021. I'll be honest I quite enjoyed reading them all which is a great thing and there is usually one POV that I dislike or am not as interested in.The way Gwynne introduces the characters, world, rivalries, and history is sublime, reminding me of the previous stories, however; I honestly believe this would be a great place to start too as the writing is deep, descriptive, and enchanting. The Ben Elim have banned warfare between human factions, their reasoning being the numbers are needed for something more important, enforcing this with an iron hand and some decapitation. By building the tension with each page turned, the last 20% of the book became one damn fine breathtaking and compelling book to read. I feel like Riv’s story was told so well, and I was able to get a really clear idea of her life from the beginning until where we are now and that just wasn’t the case for Drem – ultimately because Drem didn’t really know that much about his own history so we were learning with him.