The Black Coast by Mike Brooks – Review

Published: February 16, 2021

Publisher: Solaris

Series: The God-King Chronicles #1

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 670 (Paperback)

My Rating: 4.5/5.0

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis:

Epic world-building at its finest, in an upcoming author’s fantasy debut. The Black Coast is the start of an unmissable series filled with war-dragons, armoured knights, sea-faring raiders, dangerous magic and crowd-pleasing battle scenes.

When the citizens of Black Keep see ships on the horizon, terror takes them, for they know who is coming: for generations, Black Keep has been raided by the fearsome clanspeople of Iwernia. Saddling their war dragons, the Naridans rush to defend their home only to discover that the clanspeople have not come to pillage at all. Driven from their own homeland by the rise of a daemonic despot who prophesies the end of the world, they have come in search of a new home. Meanwhile the wider continent of Narida is lurching toward war. Black Keep is about to be caught in the cross-fire of the coming war for the world – if only its new mismatched society can survive.

---

VIKINGS BABY! Well, sort of. The Black Coast is largely focused on the Black Coast area, which is often attacked by raiders that cross the sea (a viking-esque people). Recently however, they’ve undergone some nasty political upheaval (a creepy draugr overlord) and one of the clans has decided to find themselves a new home. The clan leader Saana decided to risk parlaying with the Naridans in hopes they will allow her people to settle and begin a new life. The Naridans of the Black Keep are horrified to see a massive host of Iwernian ships sailing toward their shores. And then a white flag is raised.

On the flip side, there’s lots of interesting stuff going on elsewhere in the world. Tila, the sister to the God King is set on assassinating a splinter group of their family line that lives across the sea. This splinter group lives in secrecy and no one knows what they look like or what alias they are living under. The main POV in this area is a pickpocket named Jeya who ends up befriending the son of the splinter king. There are sooo many POVs within this story that I won’t attempt to touch on all of them because we’d be here all day. The Naridans at the Black Keep, Saana’s clan, the agent of the Golden (the draugr overlord), Tila, and Jeya all have their chapters. It really does help to flesh out the world quickly and pretty thoroughly as you read along. It also lends an epic scope to the story that would have been difficult if focusing solely on any one of the characters.

This is an action packed, fascinating world that I think has something for everyone. Political intrigue, assassination attempts, dragons, a criminal underworld, and even some sexual tension. I won’t call it romance, as it’s uh… a bit of a weird love triangle that might be kind of one sided(won’t spoil that one further). There is SO MUCH going on in this book but it’s deftly executed and trust me, not all of the characters are likable and especially not good. On many occasions, they choose what they think is the lesser of two evils and those choices don’t make everyone happy. 

Simply said, I loved this book. It was the perfect mix of action and political intrigue with cool countries and cultures that I can’t wait to see in further detail.