I'm always a fan of journeying in fantasy and the story offers great parts of that. It's a sip a hot cocoa and get cozy sort of read, but something sharper or more cooled a beverage now in the summer will suffice. The point is, it’s a nice book to fall into if you enjoy the natural world and fantasies of the traditional kind. You have made me dislike this place even more,’ she looked around. He shrugged but it has not escaped his notice that, since they had encountered the shuyun, the monk had become less bright. As if until then she had ot truly understood that they were alien to the forest, and the forest was alien to them. ‘It is like the forest is some vast creature, and we are travelers through its guts,’ she said.”* Gods of the Wyldwood is the first installment in a trilogy from RJ Barker. This is my first experience with his work and, while there were aspects of it that I struggled with, I’m sure it won’t be my last. The world of Crua is incredibly unique, utterly unlike anything else I’ve ever read. However, I think the story suffered a bit at the hands of the world building. There seemed to barely be a plot at all for the first half of the book. And while there was an immense amount of the narrative dedicated to the world itself, very little of that was spent explaining anything to the reader. It felt info-dumpy from the sheer amount of time spent learning about the world, but it also felt as if readers are simply tossed into shark-infested waters and expected to swim. This is one of the oddest things I’ve ever read.

Cahan du Nahare is known as the forester – a humble man who can nonetheless navigate the dangerous Deepforest like no-one else. But once he was more. Once he was a warrior.Pinpointing what the main plot is in this book is a little hard. There is so much that transpires but through following Cahan and a few other key characters over the course of this chunky tome it felt more as though Barker was laying out the tone and the foundations for the series than actually leading us down one predominant storyline. So for anyone who enjoys plot focused stories or a noticeably linking plot sequence to follow you may find this one a little hard to get into. I would say the book falls more on the character driven side of things as there is a lot more development when it comes to relationships between individuals who cross paths and personal arcs but overall it felt like a very thorough prequel. Cahan is a fascinating protagonist and his moral dilemma around the use of his magical powers is understandable and interesting, but his ‘woe is me’ attitude got a bit much for me after a while. CW: violence, blood, injury, fire/fire injury, torture, death, animal death, animal cruelty, emotional abuse, child abuse, religious bigotry Gods of the Wyrdwood is book one in a new fantasy trilogy set within the bounds of a forest straight out of darkest folklore – with outlaws fighting an evil empire and warring deities. RJ Barker is the British Fantasy Society Award-winning author of The Bone Ships and Age of Assassins.

Barker’s writing style was very difficult to get into at first. His prose is very choppy like a thriller novel but that only works when you’re writing something thrilling. Instead its more like “The tree. Green leaves. Rough bark. Tall. Good for climbing.” Of course, things don’t go the way Cahan plans. He ends up saving a forest creature from abuse and gets arrested as a result. Instead of being released the next day he gets dragged off into the forest to be killed as part of the binding ceremony for a new Rai. But his cowl isn’t about to go that easily. It takes over and saves his life but it also exposes him to the main Cowl-Rai again. Now Cahan must make a choice, deny his cowl again and most likely die, or accept what he is and lose himself in the cowl. Making the decision harder, it’s not just his life in the balance but all of Harn. Maybe even all of Crua if Cahan decides to embrace his cowl and takes on the role he was destined for. Gods of the Wyrdwood is a world at once familiar and strangeWe also don’t get to know much about the trion, people who are neither male nor female, they exist to be a bridge between them. I liked the concept of families consisting of more people rather than only husband and wife. There are second and third wives and husbands as well as at least one trion, taking care of the children together. At least, that’s how it worked before the new regime arose in the name of a new god, who also decided to get rid of all of the other gods and their worshippers. Crua, as you might imagine is not a peaceful place in the present. Now the trion are used and abused and massacred for “the greater good”. We can only assume it’s not going to end well for those who took part in that. The details, I think they are true. But they do not tell everything.’ Galderin scratched his cheek. ‘I can find out, if you wish.’ She ignored that, instead stared at her child. As a big fan of R.J. Barker’s Bone Ship trilogy, I was excited to sink my teeth into his follow-up series. Here he trades guillame for gasmaw, shipwife for skyraft, and hag for hetton. I was impressed by Barker’s ability to once again conjure up an entirely new world filled with distinct and fascinating flora and fauna. Gods of the Wyrdwood is the perfect slow-burn book for anyone who is craving a refreshing and imaginative fantasy story that challenges your expectations by defying genre conventions at every possible opportunity. Honestly, what a wild, unpredictable and exciting ride! Barker is one of my favorite authors and the Tide Child Series one of my favorite series of all time, so when I started this I knew I would enjoy it, even love it, I did not think it would measure up to Tide Child though, it did. It is just as good, if not even, dare I say it marginally better than Tide Child. And I loved Cahan absolutely as much as I loved Joron Twiner, not more mind you, no character will ever be better than Joron for me.