Audiobook review 🤓📚
📖 Title: Malice (The Faithful and the Fallen, 1)
🖊️ Author: John Gwynne
🌟 Rating: 3.5/5
📝 Thoughts:
It was tricky to rate this one… having read the Bloodsworn saga before this I feel like I had high expectations. In all fairness though, for a debut this was awesome! The way that Gwynne can weave a rich, mysterious story without making it too complicated is so masterful and my favourite thing about his books (closely followed by his characters). However, I just kept comparing it to bloodsworn which I know isn’t fair. I will say this, I felt that Bloodsworn was slightly easier to get into. I think this is because Gwynne’s writing got more refined and he got better at delivering information without it being too confusing. I also felt like sometimes I forgot who a character was or mistook them for someone else - without the narrator’s amazing ability to do accents I wouldn’t have known who’s who! I just think bloodsworn maybe had more recognisable characters. That being said though, I actually like the multiple POVs and array of characters (unpopular opinion?). By the last third of the book I was able to settle into the story and familiarise myself with everyone. Also a quick mention about the world building and battle scenes - amazing! As expected. I could vividly picture everything without having to sit through never-ending passages of description. All things considered, this was not a bad book by any means, it had everything I love about John Gwynne’s books. I just personally did see a difference in the refinement of his writing. Even so, I’ve already started Valour as I can’t wait to know what happens!
The books do get better as the series progresses 😃