Information

• Goodreads: 18 Ratings, Average of 4.44
• Series: The Fishgut Guard
• Age Category: Adult
• Genre: High Fantasy

Summary

   This story follows multiple perspectives: Idalia – a Lyssan healer sent with an army to assist the nomadic loyalists fight their civil war. Sig – a chieftain’s son and part of the loyalists who is coming to realize he may have a hunger for blood. And Bryn – an exiled royal aethermancer who has escaped. Throughout the story, you follow each of these people as they come to terms with new information they learn about themselves, their peoples, and the conflict going on. There is a group of people being colonized, with half of them being against it and half being loyal and exploration of what that could look like, as well as aspects of being loyal only because it seems to be the best guarantee of survival. Each of these people followed in this book become known as the Fishgut Guard.

Review

   I really enjoyed this book. It’s quite a chunker and did take me time to get through. It stayed consistently interesting and the three perspectives were different and engaging for me. I rated it a 4 star, but it definitely had good bit of 5 star potential. For the emotional impact, there were moments that I knew I was supposed to feel something, but I couldn’t really get past more than a ‘oh, man. That’s sad.’ No real or true, full reaction, which I found myself wishing I could’ve experienced. Had those emotions been tugged more, they could’ve been devastating scenes. That being said, I still think they were handled with great care and only needed a little additional work in order to have the impact that they were supposed to. The plot is quite slow, but also somehow feels quite quick. It’s a journey, you’re following one person as he conducts his escape and runs from those pursuing him and then the other two are fighting battles on the ocean. There’s a good amount of action to make the slower plot pace not as noticeable and every bit is needed for the overall plot and point. There’s a ton of gore and it’s a great time, but I’ll also say that I wish the writing for the action scenes was a bit more involved. It definitely got great towards the end, but some of them felt like we were watching the battle from afar rather than actually in the battle itself. Sig was my least favorite character and I felt like his dialogue was also the weakest. I just found him to be a bit corny, though he and his people are still interesting. And, honestly, of course he’s corny. His story is essentially a gory coming of age story and I really enjoyed where he ended. Idalia has had her entire world flipped upside down, so I also cannot wait to see what she does from here. I almost have a feeling there might be a thing between her and Sig, but that could completely wrong. Bryn was actually my favorite, though it could also be argued that his plot line was the slowest. He’s the exiled royal aethermancer, though, who has learned that his war crimes were horrendous and struggling with the morality of facing what he did and learning to be better. Does he succeed in that? Whose to say. The dialogue, as mentioned above, just felt a bit clunky or corny at times. That doesn’t mean the prose itself is bad though. It’s not purple in the slightest, from what I recall, but I could actively see what was happening and being described. The cultures within this book felt pretty real and interesting. I would love to learn more about the shapeshifters. The nomads were fascinating in how they had aether, but also were able to evolve to actually sufficiently live on the ocean. I think the nomadic culture was my absolute favorite within this and the concept was so incredibly interesting. It was a ton of fun to see how their day-to-day looked. There’s more about the world that I’m interested in learning, especially when I get to learn what the real ‘big bad’ is. For me, the ending was 5 star material in terms of scenes, world building, characters, and plot line. Unfortunately, it was just a huge book that could’ve potentially had some pages shaved off and gotten a better affect. Regardless, I can’t wait until Coby writes the second. I’m already dying to see where the Fishgut guard goes.