Uptown Oracle Reads… Godblind

After years of exile, the Mireces are planning an invasion of Rilpor. Dom, the Calestar, has forseen the messenger of war coming from the borders. When Rillirin, an escaped Mireces slave shows up, the watchers, wolves and ranks of Rilpor must work together to survive to oncoming attacks. The immense battle between faiths in nearly a thousand years has started.

The first thing I should point out is that I was not ready to read a big fantasy novel when I read this. I’ve been feeling really tired and I’m usually reading books that are a bit more easy going at the moment. Having to focus really isn’t what I’ve been looking for in my TBR. So Godblind was a bit of a struggle for me. Every time I put the book down I had to read back three pages or so to pick up what was happening.

Godblind throws you into a new world full of an extensive history. The names of people and places are all obscure. Some of the names are confusing as there’s similarities, but overall you do get the hang of who’s who by the end of the book. Stephen’s has built Rilpor and the surrounding areas up from nothing, which I think some details were slightly lacking. But as this is her debut book, I’m sure she will improve in the next installment.

Rillirin felt more important in the blurb than she actually was. At the start she kind of starts of the plot line, but after that I felt she didn’t do that much. She definitely didn’t do more than the other characters surrounding her, and she basically just slotted into the romance subplot.

The format is very similar to the A Song of Ice and Fire series. The point of view of each chapter switches to a different characters perspective. The characters are a mix of the good and bad characters, although they definitely lack being morally grey like ASOIAF’s characters do. Because it was marked so similar to ASOIAF but didn’t quite live up to it, I found it sabotaged Godblind for me.

I really enjoyed the plot. I can’t say much because spoilers, but there were some shocking betrayals that I didn’t see coming. There were a lot of battles throughout, with some political aspects too. (Again, similar to ASOIAF). Thankfully not too much romance, we focus mainly on the upcoming war and different friendships between characters.

The God’s aspect was really interesting as The Red Gods are trying to return to earth through the actions of their followers. Mireces faith was very dark and gruesome in some parts, and I loved seeing it contrast so much from the Rilporeans. Especially when Lanta and Gilda, the two priestesses, come together.

I received Godblind* by Anna Stephens as an e-book from the publisher via Netgalley. This is an unbiased and honest review.