The Bladed Faith – Review

Hi everyone! Today I’m sharing my review for The Bladed Faith, which comes out today! I highly recommend this one, and you should go out and get your copy now! Honestly, I love almost everything that I read that’s published by Orbit, and this one was no exception!

The Bladed Faith
by David Dalglish
Series: The Vagrant Gods #1
Release date: April 5th 2021

Genre: Adult, Fantasy
Rating: ★★★★★

Cyrus was only twelve years old when his gods were slain, his country invaded, and his parents—the king and queen—beheaded in front of him. Held prisoner in the invader’s court for years, Cyrus is suddenly given a chance to escape and claim his revenge when a mysterious group of revolutionaries comes looking for a figurehead. They need a hero to strike fear into the hearts of the imperial and to inspire and unite the people. They need someone to take up the skull mask and swords and to become the legendary “Vagrant”—an unparalleled hero and assassin of otherworldly skill. 

But all is not as it seems. Creating the illusion of a hero is the work of many, and Cyrus will soon discover the true price of his vengeance.

I really enjoyed this book, and I’m anxiously waiting for the next book to come out now so I can see what happens next with these characters! I loved the pacing and the writing, there was never a dull moment and even when there wasn’t any action going on, we were getting more insight into the characters and the world. The pacing was fast, and the fight scenes were so fun to read! For lack of a better word, this felt almost self-aware, in the sense that the characters were (for the most part) straightforward with their expectations, like when Cyrus was going through his training and his mentor was clear on what would happen, and Cyrus was understanding and knew what was going on. It’s a little hard to describe that feeling that I had while I was reading those sections, but it was very refreshing and I very much enjoyed it!

I also really liked the characters and how even though Cyrus was clearly the main character, you also got the stories of Mari, Stasia, Thorda, and Rayan. Each character had a clear voice and you almost instantly fell in love with them all. Honestly, the characters were the main selling point of this book for me, the character art Dalglish posted on Twitter is what convinced me to request the ARC in the first place!

I also thought the world was really interesting, with this small island kingdom that was invaded by the mainland empire. I really hope we get to see more of the island in the next books, because the story is pretty contained within the capital city. Despite that, it doesn’t feel like it takes place in a small place, and I liked how we got just enough description to make you curious about the rest of the kingdom.

Normally, I’m not the biggest fan of books that have religious fantatics who force their views on others because a lot of the time the focus is TOO much on that aspect, but in this case, I think that it was nicely balanced with the other aspects of the story and the characters.

In fact, I’ve been wracking my brain to try to think of any negatives that I had while reading and honestly, I can’t think of any!

Overall, I very much enjoyed this book, and I look forward to reading more of this series, and finally reading more from this author, as I’ve had MANY of his books on my unread TBR for far too long.