An enjoyable book with a strong theme

This book feels like a walk through a by gone civilisation. It has a very strong theme of civilisation with both customs and politics feeling very natural whilst being alien enough that you know it is a different world.
This story told from multiple angles has a feel of a judicial hearing in the way in which your picture of the story grows with every new testimony. It has many twists and is intricate in its delivery, despite dealing with violent and horrific circumstances it dances a fine line of description without slipping into gore. This is entirely in keeping with the books tone and pace as it focuses on description and fact rather than sensationalism.

The characters were well formed and you learn more as you move along the story but due to the tone I never quite formed an emotional bond to any of them. This does not lessen the enjoyment of the story as the story differentiates the opposing sides and is told predominately from one side.

The narration is very well executed across multiple characters with distinct feels and sounds to them. The narration is in keeping with the tone of the book and helps build the world around you immersing you as you go.

In summation I enjoyed this book and would recommend this to anyone that is looking for a well crafted world and intricate story delivery.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily provided this review.

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Eye think this was an enjoyable book

I was not familiar with the work of this author prior to listening to this book, but the summary and premise for it seems to be an interesting one so I gave it a shot and I am glad that I did as I enjoyed it very much and would like to know more about this world that the author has established rather well in this book.

The main part of the story is framed as being a varied group of witnesses recounting their parts of the main story to the high priest that had gathered them all together so that the titular eye could be returned to the god Strife, there are also some flashbacks to an earlier time in history when the eye of strife first given out to a warrior that eventually became an emperor due to its help that serve to add more depth to that world quite nicely.

This was quite a short book and in some ways it almost had the feeling of being a spinoff set in the same universe as a larger series of novels, you have the overall world that felt like in many ways it was actually better defined and more distinctive than the main cast themselves were, but if this is intended to be merely the first book in a series then there is room for that to change.

Much like with the author, I was not familiar with any of this narrator's previous work, but did enjoy his overall presentation of this book, he made most of the characters sufficiently distinctive that it added to the book without being too over the top with any of them, his tone was a pleasant one that did not distract from the book either.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick and enjoyable fantasy tale and I would personally be interesting in hearing more from this world in the future too.

[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]

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