The Gods Below

Stewart (The Bone Shard Daughter) explores how blood ties can strain against the ties of friendship in this stirring first volume of a new epic fantasy trilogy about sisters separated by divine intervention. Hakara and Rasha, orphans fleeing the god Kluehnn’s “restoration,” a process that alters or vanishes half the human population, wind up on different sides of a magic barrier. Hakara spends the next 10 years exploiting her sensitivity to magic to earn passage back to her sister. Meanwhile Rasha, who has been transmuted by restoration, adopts Kluehnn as her patron and trains to become one of his special agents, known as godkillers. Politics complicate their separate plans as human rulers plot to forestall restoration and the other gods work to stay hidden from Kluehnn’s agents. While the duplicity of Kluehnn is never in doubt, Stewart maintains a good balance between the sisters and their competing goals, creating a fascinating level of moral ambiguity so that readers will feel that each character is justified in making her choices. This promises good things for the series to come. Agent: Juliet Mushens, Mushens Entertainment. (Sept.)