Early Review: Godkiller (Godkiller #1)

Godkiller (Godkiller #1)
By Hannah Kaner

Published By: Harper Voyager
Publication Date: January 19, 2023
Date Read: January 1, 2023
Genre: Adult – Fantasy
Source: eARC from Netgalley and HarperVoyager
Format: E-Book
Pages: 304

From Goodreads:
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.

“The people with the sharpest edges sometimes hid the deepest wounds.”

Godkiller was one of those books that from the moment I first heard about it, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. I was so excited when I got an ARC of this one and couldn’t wait to dive in. I had such high expectations for this book and unfortunately it didn’t meet all of them. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy Godkiller, I really did, but there were pacing issues that really reduced my love of it a little bit.

Godkiller has such a phenomenal premise. Right from the very first chapter I was hooked. This book starts with a bang, and you’re so intrigued about what is going to happen you really cannot put it down. Our main character is a godkiller, but when we meet her we see her family is favoured by one of the gods. I was really intrigued to find out what happened to her to make her go from favoured to hunting them down. The premise and the whole world building of the different gods and what they do is amazing. I absolutely loved this aspect of the book.

At around the 40-50% mark, the plot started to slow down a little and honestly for a good chunk of the second half of the book I was a little bit bored. This is where there is a lot of talk between the characters and talking about the journey they are going on with not much else happening. As a plot driven reader, this really bored me. There were many times I was thinking about putting it down, but then something plot driven would happen and hook me right back in. Despite the pacing issues in the middle of the book… holy hell can Hannah write an ending. The last 100 pages of this book were on fire! Absolutely phenomenal. There were twists I never saw coming (and I always see them coming), there was just action and plot constantly and I sat there thinking YES! This is what I have been waiting for.

I truly believe that my issues in this book around the pacing was all of this character development that looking back was vital. I am definitely going to re-read this one at some point and see if my feelings around the middle part of the book change. I will absolutely be reading the second book. I cannot wait. The ending absolutely shocked my to my core and I am dying to find out what happened next. Even though I had my issues with this one I did really enjoy it, and if you like a good fantasy book with morally gray characters then this one is definitely not to be missed.

“What happened to us does not define us, what we do next is what matters.”

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