The Gods Below by Andrea Stewart – Review

Published: September 3, 2024

Publisher: Orbit

Series: The Hollow Covenant #1

Genre: Fantasy

Pages: 526 (Kindle)

My Rating: 3 Stars

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

Synopsis:
In this sweeping epic fantasy comes a story of magic, betrayal, love, and loyalty, where two sisters will clash on opposite sides of a war against the gods.

A divine war shattered the world leaving humanity in ruins. Desperate for hope, they struck a deal with the devious god Kluehnn: He would restore the world to its former glory, but at a price so steep it would keep the mortals indebted to him for eternity. And, as each land was transformed, so too were its people changed into strange new forms – if they survived at all.

Hakara is not willing to pay such a price. Desperate to protect herself, and her sister Rasha, she flees her homeland for the safety of a neighboring kingdom. But when tragedy separates them, Hakara is forced to abandon her beloved sister to an unknown fate.

Alone and desperate for answers on the wrong side of the world, Hakara discovers she can channel the magic from the mysterious gems they are forced to mine for Kluehnn. With that discovery comes another: her sister is alive, and only the rebels plotting to destroy the God Pact can help rescue her.

But only if Hakara goes to war against a god.

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Since the conclusion of Andrea Stewart’s previous series, The Drowning Empire, I’ve been so curious about where her next series would take place. The Gods Below is the first book in The Hollow Covenant series, set in a brand new world filled with gods, godkillers, and a hollow world. This series has a lot going on, but I think the world building is super cool!

The Gods Below is a multi-POV story with four primary, present-day characters and one character during the years before an event called the Shattering. The four present day characters are all loosely tied together. Hakara and her younger sister Rasha were separated a decade prior when the magical restoration came to the land of Kashan. Rasha was Altered and is now an elegant horned being training to be a godkiller for Kluehnn. Hakara was taken across the border to Langzu where she’s been working as a miner, but somehow ends up with a group of rebels. Sheuan is from a fallen noble house, desperate to find out who framed her father for treason and restore the Sim family name. In order to do this, she ends up crossing the border to Kashan. Then there’s Mullayne, a cousin of Sheuan, who has invented a mask that allows unaltered people to breathe Aether, a substance that leaks up from the gods’ hollow realm at the center of the world. He and an expeditionary party are trying to travel to the gods’ realm at the center of the world. The final POV is that of Nimoan, one of the seven gods that fought back against Kluehnn as he and his lover, Irael, make their final stand.

This book started off strongly, introducing us to Hakara and Rasha as they try to escape the restoring wave of Kluehnn and are inevitably separated. The other POV characters were just as engaging and I quickly found myself hooked and unwilling to put this book down. I found that this interest waned somewhat beginning at the halfway point of the story. Things began to feel repetitive and two characters hook up in a scene that felt shoe-horned in for the sake of plot interactions later in the book. Proper build up could have definitely made that work, but as it was it felt very sudden and unexpected. 

Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable, though imperfect read thanks to the repetitive nature of the individual characters’ plot arcs. Hakara and her team were constantly going on dangerous raids that were successful despite poor planning and overwhelming odds. Mullayne was repeatedly told to turn back because of the expedition dangers and did not, Rasha was a series of uninspiring training and dealing with bully acolytes. My favorite character was Thassir and that was because he had wings and decided his purpose in life was to make sure the stray cats he found were safe and fed. I think this series has potential to be quite cool, but even after the strong start to this book I am undecided about continuing.