By Charlotte Gadd-Henderson
A Time of Dread by John Gwynne is first book in the Blood and Bone series. This follows on from the series Faithful and the Fallen, which is made up of five novels. The series introduces us to the lives of Drem, Sig, Riv and Bleda. Sig is a giantess warrior, Riv is training to be a White Wing (a soldier), Bleda is a prince of the Sirak clan and Drem is a trapper in the North.
The novel centres around three main powers, the immortal Ben-Elim, and their White Wing warriors in Drassil, The Order of the Bright Star in Dun Seren and the immortal Kadoshim who pose a threat to the entire world.
Often when I read, I look for a novel that I cannot put down until I reach the end. This time, I chose to regularly put it down. Whenever I learned new information, I produced theories about the characters and what was going to happen.
This book got me to think about almost every element. Almost all of the details and characters were mentioned for a reason. It was amazing to see everything unfold, to get answers and to ask more questions.
The different perspectives helped me to make theories about what was happening in the wider world and if any of the main four would meet or become friends at some point. The perspective shifts also helped me to take breaks. That way, I had more time to produce more reasoned arguments behind my theories.
It was interesting to see characters from the two major powers fighting against the Kadoshim alongside people who were arguably outsiders. It allowed me to form more balanced opinions of what was going on because I saw the good and bad of the world.
John Gwynne masterfully writes battles and detailed gore. It is common for books to make me cry or feel joy or anger, but it is rare that I feel genuinely sick reading it. I mean that as the greatest compliment possible because I could not imagine a clearer image of what was going on. Because of this, I felt a sense of urgency and could better sympathise with the characters.
The plot of the story was beautifully written. There was a strong sense of direction and plenty of twists and turns I never saw coming. Of all of my theories, I only managed to fully guess two correctly. One was more based on balancing perspectives and the other was based on a recurring point in one of the storylines. There were some emotional moments that created sympathy for several characters, almost all of which were used to drive the story on. These often do not lead in the directions we may think they will.
The ending was incredibly impactful and leads perfectly into the following novel. It was not the ending I expected but it was better than anything I could have imagined.
