Review: The Hunger of the Gods (Bloodsworn Saga #2) by John Gwynne

MY ⭐️ RATING: 4.75/5

Format: Kindle Whispersync

BOOK DESCRIPTION

THE DEAD GODS ARE RISING.

Lik-Rifa, the dragon god of legend, has been freed from her eternal prison. Now she plots a new age of blood and conquest.
As Orka continues the hunt for her missing son, the Bloodsworn sweep south in a desperate race to save one of their own–and Varg takes the first steps on the path of vengeance.
Elvar has sworn to fulfil her blood oath and rescue a prisoner from the clutches of Lik-Rifa and her dragonborn followers, but first she must persuade the Battle-Grim to follow her. Yet even the might of the Bloodsworn and Battle-Grim cannot stand alone against a dragon god.
Their only hope lies within the mad writings of a chained god. A book of forbidden magic with the power to raise the wolf god Ulfrir from the dead…and bring about a battle that will shake the foundations of the earth.

MY REVIEW

One of the things I appreciated most was that Mr. Gwynne took time to give a “what has gone before” section to help refresh my memory of the events in book 1, The Shadow of the Gods. The more I read, the more I’m coming across this type of thing, but it’s still something that’s not done as much as it should. It takes a lot to do something like that without giving too much away to readers that didn’t read the first one.

With that said, this was absolutely terrific and I would say is very close to The Shadow of the Gods, which was #10 on my tops list of 2021! Why did I wait so long to read book 2 is beyond me, but I completely understand why other readers are so enamored with this and other series by Mr. Gwynne. One of the things I absolutely love is the amazing audio by Colin Mace. As I said in my previous review, there are some words that are hard to pronounce, and Gwynne has left a pronunciation guide at the beginning to help, but having Mace narrate just makes it so much better.

“Real courage is to feel fear, but to stand and face it, not run from it.”

Hunger starts off immediately after the events of Shadow with Orka, Varg and Elvar having to deal with the fallout of their decisions. Orka is easily my favorite character, it’s that drive of revenge that compels her to rescue her son that just really hits me. You see it all the time in movies with fathers, but rarely with mothers, and we all know, there’s nothing stronger than a mothers love. Elvar grew the most as a character in this story, Orka is already older, so there’s not much to the development of her, but Elvar grew by leaps and bounds and I found myself liking her almost as much as Orka. In addition to the 3 main characters, two more are introduced, from the villainous side, that add a lot more depth to the story.

Details in the story made it that much more compelling and realistic journey, like actually having to deal with the weather, food, as well as grooming. Those little nuances made a big difference for me in completely engrossing myself within the pages. While this had fewer battle scenes, they were absolutely breathtaking and memorable, all I could picture was scenes from shows like Vikings and The Last Kingdom and I was just in awe. There is so much to this story and it feels like we are only beginning to see what kind of calamity these characters are about to endure.