This book has a Pedro Pascal - esque storyline with a gruff mercenary protecting a uniquely powered child as they journey across the country, but this time she's a butch bisexual, so we're already up to 4 stars.

I really wanted this book to be 5 stars, and to be fair I really enjoyed it. The worldbuilding and lore is absolutely fantastic. The world felt so touched by the gods, and while nothing was truly that unique in terms of a fantasy story, it was done extremely well. I really loved the exploration of the smaller gods, like the god of white lies and the god of broken sandals. They felt appropriately inhuman and motivated by their own godly nature, but there's such a touch of humanity in their origin. I haven't experienced anything in the Witcher series, but a lot of this seems like it was reaallyyy inspired by it, from the monster killer with a little girl and a funnily named horse, but I can't speak to any other similarities.

Kissen in particular was a standout character for me. I loved every sentence with her. Inara, Elogast, and Skedi were all well done, too, and their internal conflicts were well done. Kaner did especially well with Inara, who could have easily fell into an annoying child character, but she was appropriately naive yet still competent and likeable. Her relationship with Kissen was especially heartfelt. My one gripe with the characters is that I would have loved more Kissen! Yes, she is a main character, but she's so sure of who she is that she doesn't really have the same amount of introspection that the other characters need, which made crave for more Kissen POV chapters. Also, the different POV chapters didn't feel too different from each other, which sometimes confused me as to who was the POV character.

The pacing felt a bit off, but I believe that this is Kaner's first novel so I expect that to get better over the series, and it didn't hurt my enjoyment too much. The prologue was utterly fantastic and visceral, and then it slowed down for a long time before picking back up, but as previously hinted at I'm in love with Kissen so I was totally fine slowing down and getting to know her more. Also I did expect the plot twist way before it happened.

I was wondering why Kissen wasn't drawing parallels to the knights that worshiped the Prince to the fanatical worshipers of gods she's faced before, since I made that connection instantly.

My other major gripe was the romance subplot.

Don't get me wrong, I like Kissen and Elo in theory and I really want to see their relationship develop, but the romance didn't feel earned yet. And the sex scene really came out of nowhere for me.  I know now one knows what slowburn means anymore, but I would have loved for the romance to kick off in the next book rather than here. As it stands I just didn't feel enough of a connection between the two other than general horniness or physical attraction. I just want them to be friends first.