Review: Children of Fallen Gods by Carissa Broadbent

Title: Children of Fallen Gods
Author: Carissa Broadbent 
Series: The War of Lost Hearts #2
Genre: Fantasy/War/Romance
Publisher: Self-publish
Publication Date: March 30, 2021
Edition: 636 pages, Kindle Edition
Source: Purchased 
Purchase: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | BAM | Bookshop | Kobo | Powell's | 

 

 

Synopsis:

  No war can be fought with clean hands. Not even the ones waged for the right reasons. Not even the ones you win. 

  Tisaanah bargained away her own freedom to save those she left behind in slavery. Now, bound by her blood pact, she must fight the Orders’ war -- and Max is determined to protect her at all costs. But when a betrayal tears apart Ara, Max and Tisaanah are pushed into an even bloodier conflict. Tisaanah must gamble with Reshaye’s power to claim an impossible victory.

  And Max, forced into leadership, must confront everything he hoped to forget: his past, and his own mysterious magic. All the while, darker forces loom -- far darker, even, than the Orders’ secrets. As Tisaanah and Max are ensnared in a web of ancient magic and twisted secrets, one question remains: what are they willing to sacrifice for victory? For power? For love? 

 

 

 

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This book took me what felt like forever to get through. I've had a really strange reading experience in the second half of the year. State of the world and all. And a lot of this book was pretty bleak, so reading about all these characters having a really tough time wasn't fun. I actually finished this in September and I started it in late August, my blogging has also been pretty lax much of this year for many of those state of the worldisms. 

 

I will say, that it had a slow start. With a new POV character, Aefe, who I was not sure how they connected to the current plot did leave me confused for a while. I did like her chapters, eventually, it just took a good while to get there. And once it revealed how she connected to the rest of the story I was more invested in her character. 

 

Tisaanah and Max really go through it in this book, and things only went downhill from the start of the book. She still makes a lot of odd decisions, that I suppose could be argued away as survival. But she also doesn't always vet people and trusts them on face value. They both made some pretty dumb decisions. While it was an attempt to reduce casualties in a war they are forced to fight and lead in, it did end up causing more deaths. It's difficult for me to talk in depth about Aefe's story, that I don't see as a spoilers.

 

This book ends on a very grim note, that leaves me anxious for the ending of the series.