Valeyn – daughter of the last two gods in the world – has abandoned all she loves in hope of starting a new life. Yet enemies relentlessly hunt her, determined to force the new god to choose a side in the escalating war between her mad parents.
The Iron Union has crushed the weakened defences of the Outland Alliance and Valeyn’s friends now face death at the hands of an old ally.
Pursued to the very edge of creation, Valeyn must confront the burden of her destiny and discover the unforgiving truth of the gods themselves.
-Goodreads
Book Information
- Title: The Union of Lies
- Series: The Godless #2
- Author: Christopher Monteagle
- Page Count: 332
- Genre: Fantasy
- Rating: 4.5/5.0
- Date Read: June 14th, 2024
Opening Thoughts
I’ve been meaning to get to The Union of Lies by Christopher Monteagle for what seems like ages at this point. I read book one In the Wake of Gods back in October of 2021 and loved it. At that time the author was new to me. However, as much as I enjoyed book one I knew I wanted to read book two as soon as I found out it was available. It just didn’t work that way as it stayed on my radar but didn’t hit my monthly TBR for almost 3 years. That was totally my fault and now that I’ve gotten through it, I’m kicking myself for waiting so long!
Pacing
The pacing of The Union of Lies seemed very smooth to me. This is on the shorter side coming in at just over 300 pages and Christopher’s writing style seems right up my alley as I once again devoured his story. This one only took me about 4 days to visually read through. Yes it’s not a thick epic tale when looking at page or word count but I feel the author still gives a solid epic tale being told. I haven’t had any issues with names of characters or places in this series to date. I also feel these books seem fairly polished with very few editing issues that stand out to me which again helps the story just flow off the pages for me.
World Building
The worldbuilding continues to be on a grand level again. This continues to amaze me when I step back after reading it and think about it. There is so much going on with geographical locations, the magic in this world and the factions. Christopher does a great job in letting me as a reader feel like I’m right there whether we are feeling a characters exhaustion in trying to making it to a town or fort to warn of danger coming or the emotions of different types of burdens among the characters. Personally I feel it’s a fine line between providing a reader enough information to connect to each moment before seeming to be information overload where I can get lost regarding what is actually going on.
Character Development
The character development was nicely done in book two as well. Even if I did get frustrated with some characters constantly going through the woe is me phase, I do understand the importance of this to the story. It is just a personal thing that it becomes grating to me after awhile. Other than that, we had some great character arc continuations as well as some very interesting new characters as well. Valeyn continues to be such a deep character. Jason also has developed quite the history and multiple layers. The Yvorre/Maelene character is still one of the most fascinating to me.
Roundup & Recommendation
This story had a lot of emotion throughout several parts. Some might be a bit more hard hitting than others depending on the reader’s personal experiences but I do think they were all a benefit to the author telling this story.
All in all I continue to really enjoy this series. Book one initially hit my radar I think through an eARC but I don’t recall through where. This is just another example on how readers can find authors they might not find on their own whether it’s through sites that offer Advanced Reader Copies or competitions such as SPFBO or the like. I believe anyone who reads quite frequently needs to find some different avenues to find and take a chance on authors that might not be as mainstream as others.
Scoring
World Building 4.5/5
Pacing 4.5/5
Character Development 4.0/5
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