Alex Lang

An excellent series starter

-Overall Thoughts-
Gloomwalker is the first entry in the Saga of the Severed series. With a strong and intriguing start, the story unfolds at a steady pace, but is undeniably a series-starter and leaves the reader waiting for book 2 at the end. The writing is polished and engaging, and the characters are well developed with diverse motivations. The world is interesting, and though we only see a relatively small part of it, hints of its size and depth are frequent and intriguing.

-The World-
Gloomwalker takes place primarily in the city of Vigil, the capital of the Tesrin Imperium. Magical abilities, such as Kyris’ power to enter the shadow-world of the Gloom, are hereditary and mark those with power as scions of the gods. The Path is the religious organization that holds the true governing power in the Imperium. Under the Path’s doctrine, some with power are branded nightspawn - scions of the gods who turned against their fellows in the ancient past - and are anathema. Lumped in with the nightspawn are beastkin, creatures who appear to be part-beast and part-man. Nightspawn are searched out and murdered when found: expeditions are led against beastkin on the fringes of the empire’s borders, and even a rumor of a nightspawn child is enough to bring the Imperium’s Keepers to remote villages of the empire to investigate.

-The Characters-
Kyris is our main POV character. He is a young man with the power to shift into the Gloom - a dark and mysterious shadow-world - that he uses to complete odd jobs of thievery to make ends meet. His ultimate goal is one of vengeance against the man who killed his family when he was a child. However, after a job goes wrong, he finds himself and his power of particular interest to a variety of organizations. His story is engaging, his motivations believable, and he is overall very likable.

We also get several POV chapters from a few other characters. Most of these POVs are introduced back-to-back about 20% into the book, and were at first a bit difficult for me to follow. However, as the plot progresses, these other POVs add a lot to the depth of the story, and the characters we get POVs from hint at very interesting potential storylines in sequels.

-Suggested Audience-
Readers who enjoy the thief/assassin character type would enjoy Kyris’ character. I felt the revenge plot was handled very well, realistically and with emotional impact. There are certainly the beginnings of some interesting political storylines as well, and I look forward to seeing where sequels take us.

-Rating-
5/5, Gloomwalker was a very enjoyable story with intriguing hints of political machinations, a well-built world, fleshed out characters, and engaging writing.… (more)