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Godkiller: The no. 1 SUNDAY TIMES bestseller and epic fantasy debut (The Fallen Gods Trilogy, Book 1)

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Inara and Kissen’s relationship is so beautiful to behold and watch as it grows and contorts, fitting around old wounds and scars, shifting amongst their newfound care and shared resilience. It’s a relationship that parallels and reminds me of Geralt and Ciri in the Witcher, a bond of family that refuses to break. Godkiller by Hannah Kaner is a dark, gritty and highly immersive debut. This is a tale where gods and mortals collide, where myth and legends are brought to life, where having faith could get you killed. The power of belief is strong, worship can bring peace to many but believing in Gods can be deadly. To seek a God's favour, to have their light shine upon you, is to pay a high price. It’s a very vigorous, violent, and fraught climax, let’s just say. And recalls, satisfyingly and unexpectedly, elements from the prologue.

Giving this a middle rating as while I enjoyed read it the different Gods and the action at the end, most of the book fell flat and it was a forceful read for me. Kissen and Inara are also similar characters to Geralt and Ciri respectively, and this story holds the same comfort that the world of the Witcher does—a warmth of familiarity that makes it feel like coming home to a place you never wanted to leave.

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Mortals were a riot of thoughts, and gods could see the colours they made, twisting the air about them with their more powerful emotions. The world building was a huge part of what I loved most, it’s exhilaratingly atmospheric and threaded with uncertainty. I loved how vividly detailed the lore surrounding the dwindling gods were and how intrinsically linked their (and the world’s) magic was to the worship and offerings of desperate people, torn between their faith and the king’s new laws. Joined by the former knight commander; Kissen, the young noble and the god of white lies all journey towards the ruined city of Blenraden (where the last of the wild gods reside) to each beg a favour. I can’t talk about endearing characters and not mention the adorable-ness of Inara (the young noble) and Skedi, the little god bound to her. The bond they share was a genuinely sweet highlight for the most part and I liked that (alongside Kissen and Elo) we also got to experience both of their POVs—though Skedi’s did surprise me a little! If you loved Lyra and Pan from Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, then you’re most likely going to adore these two.

Elo was likewise a really intriguing character, his endearing Jaskier/Dandelion level of goodness and self sacrificing personality make it impossible not to love him (not to mention his skills in baking and occasional renditions of bawdy military songs), plus his relationship dynamics and banter with Kissen was perfect. ARC provided by Susan at Harper Voyager, thank you for the copy! All quotes used are taken from an ARC and are subject to change upon publication.The book had a really strong prologue, and then I lost interest. It follows Kissen, a GodKiller (basically similar to Geralt of Rivia but instead of chasing and hunting down monsters for coin, she kills Gods), whose life becomes entangled with a strange girl called Inara and her little god, Skedi. Inara and Skedi’s bond reminded me of the bond that Lyra has with her Daemon in His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. Enter a land of gods and monsters, soldiers and mercenaries, secrets and wishes—the explosive #1 internationally bestselling fantasy debut in a new trilogy for fans of The Witcher and Gideon the Ninth Each person’s colours were different, bright, manipulable. Skedi could tell a liar from a lover, a joker from a fraud.” The representation in this one was mind blowing. There is lgbtq+ rep, but also mental health and disability rep. Which when you think about it? In a medieval like magic world with swords, surely a missing leg or a deaf character wouldn’t be totally unheard of, but I rarely see anybody attempting to give that rep to any MC. It’s filled with strong and angry women, who need nobody but who can still be vulnerable and loving when the time comes.

As a child, Kissen saw her family murdered by a fire god. Now, she makes a living killing them and enjoys it. But all this changes when Kissen is tasked with helping a young noble girl with a god problem. The child’s soul is bonded to a tiny god of white lies, and Kissen can’t kill it without ending the girl’s life too. Kissen is a god killer; her entire family was sacrificed to a god when she was a child, and she was spared only because her father made a deal with a god. She has sworn to kill every god. One day, she encounters a young noble girl with a god linked to her. Kissen cannot kill the god without harming the girl. When the girl's family is assassinated, they embark on a journey to find a god who can help them break the link. Skediceth, the God of White Lies. Truth to be told, I found him irritating even though we barely had to read through his eyes. Still, he was an interesting character and was useful to the storyline so I’ll let him slide but I still would crush him like a bug if I had the chance. Our story follows Kissen, a godkiller. Kissen’s childhood was filled with tragedy, one which has left her with scars that will never fully heal. Haunted by memories and filled with a constant simmering anger, Kissen devotes her life to killing gods, and she’s pretty damn good at it. Yet when she chances upon a young noble child in a tavern, she sets forth on a quest to free her from a god Kissen cannot kill. Inara Craier is bound to Skediceth, the god of white lies, and should they try to part from one another they would both die. Kissen cannot allow another child to die at the hands of a god. Then there is Elogast, once the King’s knight who fought to destroy shrines and kill gods in the great God War, yet in the horrific aftermath Elo put down his sword and to escape his nightmares turned his hand to baking. Elo longs for a quiet, simple life, but when King Arren, once his closest friend, sends him on a mission to save his life and the kingdom, he is forced to return to the city of gods, Blenraden, the city he helped bring to ruin.Godkiller is set in the aftermath of a God War, where our characters are trying to survive in a dark and gritty world where gods and monsters roam. It reminded me very much of The Witcher, was this a source of inspiration to you? What other aspects influenced your worldbuilding? If the great cover, the premise, and the world were not enough to convince you to read this already, let me tell you about the characters. While the fantasy genre is no stranger to divine characters, Kaner does something interesting with the concept by closely intertwining the Gods’ fates with humanity. Gods can only come into existence if people believe in and pray to them. The more shrines people build and the more offerings they bring, the stronger the God. This makes Kissen’s work more interesting in so far that she is more than just a killer of Gods, she is also a hunter of their symbols, and thus equally feared and despised by those who still pray to the beings of old. Tempted to say dragon, but everyone wants a dragon these days. I’m going to go with a huffing great griffin. A big, vicious, epic catbird.

And then, understanding I would be writing a disabled character, it was my responsibility to write a decent one. I did a lot of reading, and raised my awareness of frustrating tropes, challenges, and biases there were in writing disability, and worked with authenticity editors. In Godkiller, gods are common, arising at every crossroads, demanding sacrifice and worship. Some are new, some have hardly any power at all, and some are both ancient and powerful. This ecology of divinity has given rise to a profession specialising in getting rid of gods that people want not to have to deal with: the veiga, or godkillers.I hadn’t had the pleasure of reading The Witcher when I first drafted Godkiller. Now, of course, I’ve started chewing through the books because they’re brilliant. Kissen is a perfect main character, a perfect driving force throughout this story. She’s a veiga, a godkiller, in a world brimming with gods of old and new. She has ghosts that haunt her, the flames of her past contending with the brightness of the future beneath the ever-watching eye of the sun. She has a purpose in her life that directs her across this wide world, but all that changes when she meets Inara. Unlike Kissen, who turns her anger and energy outward, Elo turns it inward. In many ways he’s more complex; he’s smart, educated, could have been wealthy, but has enforced penance on himself. While Kissen needs to learn to see other people (and gods) as worthy, capable, able to make mistakes, Elo needs to find his own worth, his potential, and his power.

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