It’s the kind of place that seems familiar enough that you feel right at home, until you turn a corner and all of a sudden you’re somewhere totally unexpected. It is the first book that rekindled my love of reading this year which makes it deserve a 5 stars rating. It's fewer than Gwynne's usual standard, but the Gwynnado in the middle part of the novel that revolved around his chapters were unputdownable.

After the gods warred and drove themselves to extinction, the cataclysm of their fall shattered the land of Vigrið. John Gwynne has done a fantastic job in giving a distinct personality and much depth to each character, even the secondary characters that you cannot help but relate with them. This has always seemed like a major oversight on my behalf, especially as most fantasy reviewers massively talk up Gwynne’s existing series. This is an amazing bit of character work here, and I really appreciated Varg’s impressive personal story. Gwynne weaves an incredible narrative around the character and takes her to some dark and dangerous places, as she is forced to contend with conspiring jarls, rogue warbands, vengeful fighters and dangerous Tainted with unknown agendas.So, now you’re armed with a rudimentary knowledge of some of the Norse terms in The Shadow of the Gods, it’s time to go and pick up a copy to read! Any authors who include this section in their books have a bigger chance of me reading their sequel ASAP rather than putting them on a backlog until their series is completed first. it’s an addictive read, and, knowing Gwynne’s previous work, I think every book in the series will build on these fine foundations to a conclusion of epic, possibly world-shattering proportions. However, Gwynne has added two new POV characters into The Hunger of the Gods, and I think they added the extra depth that the series needed.

This delay in unearthing her more interesting facets frustrated me a little, and I found her earlier chapters to feel quite generic in comparison to those that came after. When John Gwynne describes the land with many adjectives and brings it to life, you sometimes have the impression that you yourself are standing on the ridge and looking out over the misty, gloomy forests and fjords.Considering her relatively older age, prowess, and expertise in war, she was already ahead in wisdom (when she's not too pissed, at least) compared to many other characters in the series. In The Hunger of the Gods, the story, conflicts, and missions of Orka, Varg, and Elvar converged in several sections. The Shadow of the Gods is a fantastic and captivating read that takes the reader on thrilling adventures with some exceptional characters.

Varg attempts to reconcile his responsibilities to the Bloodsworn and his own personal oaths, as the war band march into the wilderness to face a mysterious foe. Some of the fun of fantasy books is exploring a world for the first time, but Gwynne finds a way to keep this world interesting even after it was properly made clear in the first book. The writing was great and it is not really a surprise because Gwynne has that atmospheric prose that makes you dive into the story and enjoy it. There is a sense of authenticity to Gwynne’s world that makes it so easy to immerse yourself in it, and sets it apart from other Norse-inspired stories. That being said, the endings are fantastic, the set-up for the next novel is intriguing, there may be animal or monster companions(!For me, this did have the unfortunate side effect of making some twists predictable, but thankfully, Gwynne executes them so well that it doesn’t really matter. Although she is still not much better then Biorr) She stepped up and seems to be coming around to seeing how inhumane it is to enslave people. For new readers enjoy your first time experiencing Gwynne as he is a magnificent storyteller of gritty and grim fantasy that is full of heart. So I will do my best, although I feel like no matter what I come up with it won't come anywhere near doing this book or series justice.