Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Audience: New Adult Fantasy Romance
Length: 452 pages
Author: Barbara Kloss
Publisher: Self-published
Release Date: June 26th, 2018
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads
BOOK SUMMARY:
Sable hated the gods. She hated what men did in their name.
Magic is forbidden throughout the Five Provinces; those born with it are hunted and killed. Sable doesn’t know her music holds power over souls—not until, at age nine, she plays her flute before the desert court and accidentally stops her baby sister’s heart, killing her. Horrified by what she’s done and fearing for her life, she flees north, out of Provincial jurisdiction and into the frigid land of exiles and thieves, known as The Wilds. There, Sable lives in hiding, burdened by guilt, and survives as a healer. But now, ten years later, someone—or something—is hunting her.
On the run again, Sable’s best chance for survival is Jos, a lethal man from the Five Provinces, who claims to need her skills as a healer to save his dying father, and she needs the large sum of money he’s offered. There’s something about him Sable doesn’t trust, but she doesn’t have many options. A spirit of the dead is hunting her, summoned by a mysterious necromancer, and it’s getting closer.
Sable soon discovers she’s just the start of the necromancer’s plan to take over the Five Provinces, and she’s the only one with the power to stop it. But harnessing her forbidden power means revealing it to the world, and the dangerous Provincial, Jos, she’s beginning to fall for.
BETTER AND BETTER.
Off to a slow and confusing start, I wasn’t sure where the hype from my friends had come. If felt dropped into a story without a basis for the location, world or magic system which left me really lost for awhile. Once I started to figure things out, we were good to go!
The romance brought on the heat (in a low steam way) as things progressed. I love the spicy kissing scenes and the clear pull between Sable and Jeric. Oh my goodness did I adore Jeric. He’s that dark and brooding type with a heart that gets softened by Sable and I AM HERE FOR IT. All of their interactions and banter made me love this book all the more.
The magic here is wild and I’m still a little confused by it. There doesn’t seem to be a full explanation for it so far, but I did at least establish how it works [mostly]. The world is also a touch confusing too. Yet again though, it did get better over time.
I like that this had a villain I didn’t see coming. My initial choices were there own brand of awfulness. I like the unreliableness of those kind of characters. It also doesn’t leave you on a major cliffhanger. The Gods of Men reads like a full story, there’s enough strings untied though where I’m saying I MUST HAVE BOOK TWO.
Overall audience notes:
- Young adult/New adult fantasy romance
- Language: a little throughout
- Romance: kisses, heated make-outs (with clothing removed)
- Violence: physical, magical, murder, creature attacks
- Trigger/Content Warnings: loss of loved one(s), multiple instances of implied sexual assault/rape, sexual assault, attempted rape
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