I read Hannah Kaner’s novel, Godkiller, about a month ago, and liked it enough to pick up second book in the Fallen Gods trilogy, Sunbringer.
Godkiller told the story of Kissen, a “godkiller” in the kingdom of Middren. A few years after a war involving the gods, worship is outlawed in the kingdom. Kissen is sort of a bounty hunter, tracking down and removing problematic gods from villages. When she meets a young girl, Inara, who is inextricably linked to a small god of white lies, she agrees to help the girl sever the connection by traveling with her to the now-abandoned city where the gods’ war took place years earlier. They are joined by Elogast, a former knight who is pulled out of his new life as a baker to perform a mission for his king.
In Sunbringer, the characters are separated and scattered. Kissen tries to prevent the followers of a dangerous dead god from resurrecting the object of their worship. Inara wants to learn more about herself and seeks to understand the powers she seems to hold over the gods. Elo is suffering from a betrayal from someone he loved, and plots rebellion.
For me, this book definitely suffered from middle-book syndrome. While I still enjoyed it, I didn’t like it as much as the first book, and it felt like mostly set-up for the final book in the series. One of the strengths of Godkiller was the interactions between the main characters, but, as they were separated for most of the book, we didn’t really get to enjoy that here.
The worldbuilding was still excellent, I enjoyed the additional gods that were introduced, and I’ll probably read the final book in the series once it’s released.