Genre: steampunk fantasy Age Range: Adult Star Rating: 4 stars Series: second book
*SPOILER ALERT: contains SPOILERS for THE THIRTEENTH HOUR*
Blurb:
When the saints call, the sinners answer.
Chaos stalks the steam-powered city of Chime and threatens the existence of the gods and their domains. Kayl swore to protect Chime’s mortals from their gods’ cruel whims, but when she agrees to represent the mortals of a god long thought dead, Kayl is thrust into a political role that goes against everything she’s ever stood for.
As the newly appointed ambassador to the god of time, Quen’s goal is clear – protect Chime and the domains by any means necessary. But as the gods make their demands, Quen is caught between his loyalties and his conscience.
To ensure a future for all mortals, Kayl and Quen must unite the gods against the threat of chaos and decide what they’re willing to sacrifice for Chime – before the gods choose for them.
For the gods are capricious and have their own divine plans.
Blurb taken from Goodreads. Add to your shelves here.
Review:
THE CHILDREN OF CHAOS is an action-packed sequel.
There are a lot of factions in this book – Kayl, Quen, Jinx, the various gods and their puppets. Everyone is playing their own game, back-stabbing left and right. It makes for a tense ride as you know something is going to go wrong (how can it not with that many players?) but not exactly what. And then it goes spectacularly wrong time and time again.
There are some very impressive set pieces when things hit the fan or an ally turns on them. There’s so much action and betrayal in this book, scenes flipping on their heads in moments. (Also, Dor is as nightmarish as ever, shredding Quen’s mind and self-esteem. He needs to get his just desserts next book!)
To help follow these various schemes, Jinx gets her own POV. It is rare – maybe four or five times in the entire book – but it really helps to give an insight into her and the plans of Chaos. Having simply seen her from inside Kayl’s head, it was nice to get a sense of who she is (loud, bold, and not giving a damn what anyone thinks.)
This is a chonker of a book. There is a lot happening in the almost 800 pages of this book, so be sure to clear a lot of time to read this (I read it way too spread out for my liking because I hadn’t factored in enough consecutive time, which meant having to irritatingly put it down time and time again.)
The final book in the trilogy is set for release this year, and I want to see how the many hints in this book with Quen’s visions (and fact that in the future he appears to be able to time travel in order to give cryptic hints) play out.
Read my reviews of other books by Trudie Skies:
The Cruel Gods (this series):
- THE THIRTEENTH HOUR (#1)
Sifa Elizabeth Reads 