Review: The Bladed Faith by David Dalglish

Blurb:

A usurped prince prepares to take up the mantle of a deadly assassin and reclaim his kingdom, his people, and his slain gods in this epic fantasy from a USA Today bestselling author.

Cyrus was only twelve years old when his gods were slain, his country invaded, and his parents—the king and queen—beheaded in front of him. Held prisoner in the invader's court for years, Cyrus is suddenly given a chance to escape and claim his revenge when a mysterious group of revolutionaries comes looking for a figurehead. They need a hero to strike fear into the hearts of the imperial and to inspire and unite the people. They need someone to take up the skull mask and swords and to become the legendary "Vagrant"—an unparalleled hero and assassin of otherworldly skill. 

But all is not as it seems. Creating the illusion of a hero is the work of many, and Cyrus will soon discover the true price of his vengeance. 

Review:

The Bladed Faith is a bloody, fast-paced novel that centers around Cyrus, the child crown prince of an island nation invaded by a large empire. In a single day the Everlorn Empire breaks their defenses, slays their gods, and kills the King and Queen. Cyrus is kept as a figurehead by the brutal theocratic empire that worships their Emperor as the only true god, and works to eradicate all worship of native gods. A few years after the invasion Cyrus is rescued by a group of resistance fighters and trains to become an assassin in order to provide a figurehead for his broken people.

The Bladed Faith provides a compelling mixture of violent action and deeper themes, centered around faith and religion. The combat scenes are frequent and very well written, keeping the book moving at a steady pace so I never wanted to put it down. But the themes underlying the whole book intrigued me and kept me reading just as much, if not more. The people of Cyrus' nation worship two gods that were killed by the Everlorn Empire. And though the empire strives to quell all worship of these gods, often through violent methods, many of the people persist in their faith in small and secret ways. One very interesting aspect of this is that the resistance actively works to keep this worship going not only because of religious or cultural reasons, but because the people's faith and worship of the gods keep the gods "alive", even though their bodies have been destroyed, and the gods can still aid the resistance in certain ways.

In addition, the Everlorn Empire is very repressive about any cultural differences between their homeland and the native populations of the people they conquer. The empire has a strict plan, developed over centuries of conquest, that details how to subjugate and convert a conquered people. They don't immediately force the people to convert but progressively restrict rights more and more over years and increase the spread of propaganda. They also work to other certain types of people the empire considers undesirable, and Dalglish shows how this affects the culture of people that were once welcoming and open minded. And I've only scratched the surface, this book has a lot of interesting things to say about culture and religion, and handles it in a very nuanced manner.

The Bladed Faith also has quite a diverse cast of characters, most of them warriors, but each with their own unique style and personality. In addition to Cyrus the prince turned assassin, there is a paladin of one of the island's dead gods, a berserker woman, her little sister with very unique magic abilities, a former Everlorn Empire super-soldier turned heretic, and more. We also get POV chapters from a few of the leaders of the empire, who are conniving and quite vile. I usually enjoy POV chapters from antagonists, and I was not disappointed by this book. Each of the protagonist characters have intriguing backstories and compelling personalities that made me enjoy the time I spent with each of them, and I never felt bored or annoyed to read any of their POV chapters.

Though I truly enjoyed all of the characters, my only true criticism of this novel also revolves around them. Because they are thrown together in a resistance movement, there is a motley crew/found family feel to the cast. However, due to the nature of having to build up a movement, and Cyrus also needing years of training, there are frequent time jumps between chapters. Quite often weeks, months, and sometimes a year or more pass between them. This leads to us often being told that the characters had grown closer over this time, and we don't get to see it happen often enough that it doesn't quite feel believable at times. I would have liked to see more bonding moments happen so I could witness this motley crew come together, and believe that they were like family. I thought the time jumps were otherwise quite well handled and a good way to keep the book's pace moving.

All that said, I truly enjoyed every moment I spent reading The Bladed Faith and I can't wait to dive into the next entry in the series. This was the first book I read by David Dalglish but it certainly won't be the last. If you like well-written combat scenes and complex characters or if you enjoy exploring fantasy religions with deep themes, I highly recommend this novel.