Serena’s Review: “Godkiller”

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Book: “Godkiller” by Hannah Kaner

Publishing Info: Harper Voyager, September 2023

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!

Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound

Book Description: Kissen kills gods for a living, and she enjoys it. That is until she finds a god she cannot kill: Skediceth, god of white lies, who is connected to a little noble girl on the run.

Elogast fought in the god war, and helped purge the city of a thousand shrines before laying down his sword. A mysterious request from the King sends him racing back to the city he destroyed.

On the way he meets a godkiller, a little girl and a littler god, who cannot find out about his quest.

Review: I was drawn in by the fantastic cover art for this novel, but I stayed for the book description of a young woman whose mission in life is hunting down gods. I’m always a sucker for fantasy novels that deal with wars with gods as I think the themes of religion and fantasy play so well together, each dealing with belief and how that shapes an individual, for good and bad. And this one definitely lived up to my expectations!

While the above book description mentions both Kissen and Elogast, I still went into it with the expectation that this was a single POV story, probably because the title implies that the godkiller, Kissen, would be the main character. And, while I would argue that she still is, the story is in fact not only a dual POV between Kissen and Elogast, but also includes the young girl, Inara, and, surprisingly, the god Skedi as well!

And while Skedi by far has the fewest chapters, I do think his inclusion was integral to the success behind the general premise of this story. The prologue and Kissen’s story set up one clear narrative with regards to gods: they are dangerous and bring only harm to those around them. But Elogast’s history and perspective, and Skedi’s very existence, complicate this narrative. What’s more, Skedi is not a perfect rebuttal, being a very flawed individual in his own right. Instead, his POV serves to highlight the chaotic nature of the gods in this world and to blow wide the discussion regarding inherent nature and how that plays into the ways we regard those around us.

I also really enjoyed the relationships that are built up in this story between all of the different characters. Yes, there is the slow-burn romance between Kissen and Elogast, always a winning feature for me who enjoys a love story included in my fantasy. But all of the characters had nuanced and interesting relationships between them as well! Kissen and Inara, with Kissen’s long-standing dislike of children being slowly worn down in the face of Inara’s strength and persistence. Between Inara and Skedi, we see a long-standing friendship tested with betrayal and misunderstanding. Between Skedi and Kissen, we see how immediate distrust and bias can push people (and gods!) into harming those around them and betraying their own most basic moral baselines. For his part, Elogast’s relationships to all of these characters was the most straight-forward. But I think his more steady character type served as a necessary foundation upon which to anchor much of the chaos created by those around him.

I will say, however, that my one big quibble came down to the geography of this world. This is such a weird, obsessive point that I know many people won’t even care about, but for me, I kept hyper fixating on it throughout the book. The story includes a map in the beginning (yay maps!) and it lays out one of the major cities as across a large body of water from the rest of the world. And then much of the story itself it taken up with the characters travelling to this city. And yet, it seemed like they travelled completely by land, were able to spot the city from quite a distance across land, and generally never acknowledged the layout of the map. I could very well have been missing something, but throughout the book, I kept getting confused about their actual route and looking at the map and just being even more confused. I did read an ARC, so maybe the artwork or these references weren’t finalized (though the word “references” underplays how much the geography plays into the main storyline). Weird quibble, but I couldn’t complete my review without mentioning it as it did take up a serious amount of my reading time, flipping back and forth between the text and the map.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book! It felt refreshing in an often-crowded genre, while also relying on some tried and true character types. There were some legitimately surprising twists and turns towards the end of the novel that lay out an interesting path forward for the next book.

Rating 8: A deceptively simple premise belies the depths to be found in this fantastic fantasy debut tackling themes of religion, family, and what makes up one’s very nature.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Godkiller” isn’t on any Goodreads lists, but it should be on Gods and Goddesses Books