So this was my first ever book by Anthony Ryan, and honestly starting out with a novella was probably a bad choice on my part, as I wasn't super impressed with this.

I enjoy novellas, they are usually a good break from large series, and I can get through them in an hour or two, but this took me 3 days to read, a lot of this was due to it doing nothing to call me back to it to keep reading it. I would just stop and forget about it, it wasn't able to hold my attention for even an hour.

It felt very rushed, not the writing style, but the story. You follow a group of people who are on a journey to met the Mad God and have one of their prayers answered. The journey felt rushed, almost as if I was watching it in fast forward. There were 7 characters in total but it was hard to really get attached to any since all the interactions were very little or very quick., so in the occurrence of death or injury, I wasn't really upset or bothered by it, it was just kind of meh, and when backgrounds were given, it still just left me with a very uninterested feeling.

I was also expecting more talking swords, since that's how others sold this to me, but I don't blame the author for that, that's just bad recommendations on those other peoples parts. I like the talking sword, its a fun take and I always enjoy a good talking inanimate object, but I won't lie I did crave more.

It clearly ended with the idea of continuing the story, since what I take away as the pivotal story plot devices happened the end of the story, which again felt very rushed and anticlimactic. There just wasn't enough attachment built for me to really care. I don't seldom say a story would be better flushed out, but I think this is one of those moments were a fully flushed approach would have suited it better, at least for me.

I'll keep an eye out for more in the series, I did like the talking sword bit so if there are more of those I want to see that.