“Our world is lost to time. Only our myths remain.
Centuries after the rain turned, civilization is a distant memory.
Once rain was a symbol of hope and harvest. Now it brings only death. Shadowy rainwights form in rainfall, hunting for victims with their long teeth and claws.
Humanity survives in sheltered cities and canvas-covered towns. Travel between these patches of limited safety is rare and dangerous.
It’s what Galahad lives for.
While seeking a lost cache of salt—a fortune he plans to use to build a shelter over his hometown—Galahad is betrayed by the friends he holds dearest.
They leave him for dead. Unfortunately for them, he lives.
Torn between seeking justice or revenge, Galahad knows one thing for certain: that treasure is his, and he’ll do anything to reclaim it.”
Title: Salt in the Wound
Series: Rainfallen #1
Author: Benjamin Aeveryn
Page Count: 355
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4.5/5.0
Date Read: June 28th, 2023
| Salt in the Wound was my 14th read from the SPFBO-9 list I created. I’d heard a bit of buzz around it recently even before the entries were announced. That moved me to add it to my initial 20 I wanted to get to. This was a really enjoyable read for me. Very early on I had the love of the Arthurian connect based off of character names. These characters even call their group The Round Table. But the similarities end there rather quickly beyond the fact the book begins with an adventure or quest for a lost treasure ala the holy grail. The pacing throughout Salt in the Wound was done well for my tastes. I had no issues with character names, places or creatures. The action was fairly steady with a few slower moments here and there to build suspense or emotional connections with the characters. Nicely done for a first book of a series as sometimes things tend to drag out a bit longer than I’d like as the author paints us a picture of where we are going. The world building was really interesting to me. It almost had the feeling of a future dystopian type world not very different from our current timeline. Where some old myths and legends long lost to many appear to be returning to the World as nature and creatures seem to be ever increasing their presence once again. Benjamin does a great job in describing our towns and cities as well as the dangers outside of those towns. The character development was also really good in this one. Another book that isn’t afraid to shed light on our characters’ flaws. Almost all of our main characters have at least one flaw they are struggling with. These struggles come many forms such as fear, arrogance, addiction and many more. I found it easy to feel for many of these characters. Some were a more positive connection and others were a deeper hurt from betrayal. Betrayal seems to be my most common theme of reads in the past couple of months. In closing I’ll say again this read was very enjoyable. By the end I found myself anxious to see where these survivors go from here. There seems to still be a lot of dangers out there and struggles still to face on more personal levels for these characters. I’d recommend Salt in the Wound to just about any reader who enjoys fantasy stories. Even though I mentioned this had a bit of a future dystopian vibe it was still very low fantasy. There is a bit of magic, perhaps spiritual, we’ve yet to really leant it’s origin. Beyond that it’s very much just more traditional fantasy weaponry, no guns or anything like that. World Building 4.5/5 Pacing 4.5/5 Character Development 4.5/5 |
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