Lies woven in blood are lines waiting to be crossed.
Lin is a competent, dedicated soldier but his mission takes a drastic turn when one of his charges is found murdered. Soon after, he is ambushed by magic-twisted monsters, gravely wounded, and abandoned by his one remaining ally.
Waking to find his injuries healed by forbidden magic, Lin is marked as an oathbreaker by the very laws and beliefs he upholds.
Lin soon finds his faith in the faction he’s lived his life upholding tested by the woman who saved him from the brink of death. With his fate hanging by a thread, he faces an impossible choice: stand by his new ally and seek vengeance for his murdered charge or betray her for amnesty from those who’d execute him.
Bloodwoven by G.J. Terral is way more about the characters and world than it is about the plot.
For a quick read, the world building is quite deep and intriguing, and I was easily drawn in, exploring ever more.
The characters felt well rounded, and all have flaws as well as strengths. The book pivots around a man who was tasked to guard a couple, but when one of them is murdered, he is torn between two possible murderers. And because this isn’t hard enough, the woman who he is meant to despise for being a kind of heretic, using magic in the wrong way, is kinda making sense… So it’s a battle between his upbringing and indoctrination, against a truth that might be utterly different.
This inner conflict was portrayed very well, but I personally would have liked a bit more actual plot to pad it all up around the edges.
Tye fight scenes and world building were interesting and well written, and the voice catchy enough to easily hook me, it just missed a little something to make it a favourite read.
