this was a really interesting read, I liked the four characters and their story. Overall this was a great read and I hope there is more in the universe.

Dark and resonates with me because the main character had some experiences I could relate to. Well-written and engaging, the author takes us into a world that has psychological twists and anger-fueled actions. Highly recommended.

I received this book from NetGalley... and I wish I hadn't because this book is worse than anything I have ever read.

I don't mind violence in a good story, but when this book has violence it is for the sake of violence and nothing else. It actually doesn't have violence when it would be appropriate. It is very far from giving the reader the satisfaction of good revenge. Sounds more like the synopsis of a bad rape fantasy porn film. With prepubescent children. Some of the things described wouldn't even be physically possible, so rape fantasy hentai might be more accurate.

The worldbuilding is patchy. It seems original at first, but once you start to think about the descriptions it becomes clear that he has just renamed the races we usually find in fantasy books. The magic is only loosely defined so it can be used whenever it can help the plot. But the magic is probably the only OK thing in this book.

The story is quite pointless. It feels more like the author started to write several distinctive stories and then decided to mash them all together.

The characters are absurd. It's like the author is unable to put himself in their place and ask himself how would he act. They rarely actually think. They are shallow and unnatural. And he needs a great amount of luck to see them through. In any realistic setting, they would have been dead as soon as they were introduced.

* I received an advance reader copy from the author and netgalley in exchange for an honest review *
Quite simply: this is a fantastic book.
The characters involved are all well-crafted and unique. They have their own back-stories that we learn over time, appreciating who they are, what they have been through and why they are how they are.
The main character is Keira, a human who spent a large part of her late childhood imprisoned, tortured and raped by the upper echelons of the government. She escapes and seeks revenge on her abusers, but needs Courage to achieve this. We first meet her as she begins her attack on the first such abuser.
She teams up with Rowan, an assassin, though the circumstances of their meeting don't become clear until later, and travels to a magical realm to track down more of her tormentors. The details of Rowan's current assignment are somewhat mysterious and only revealed later.
They eventually meet Dess, who we have started to get to know, an elf-like magical scholar who has had his own issues in adolescence and is seeking revenge on the people involved in the murder of the love of his life.
And finally we have Sirris, a funny little slave creature who seeks escape from his life of misery, abuse and servitude.
Those back-stories are gradually woven together over the course of the book in a very ambitious, and flawlessly executed, series of split timelines. Fans of Mark Lawrence's knack for splitting a story into separate timelines will love the way Gaskill has done this and more here. We have the "present" story, told from a number of different viewpoints and places, as well as each of the main characters' backstories. Over time we learn to understand how people met, what tensions there are (or could be lurking under the surface) and what each is trying to achieve. These interactions, conflicts and tensions are masterfully written and revealed.
The action throughout the book is fairly gruesome and gritty, and some of the sexual scenes of torture and rape are a little hard to take. Rather than being gratuitous on the whole though they do serve to give the reader a better appreciation for the terrors the characters have been through.
Over the course of the book we see Keira ticking the names off her list of the eleven, albeit out of sync due to the split timelines.
This really was a wonderful book that got me out of something of a slump, keeping me engaged and guessing the next revelation all the way through.
I sincerely hope Gaskill writes the hinted at follow-up book, as there certainly is scope for it in the world he has masterfully created and the cast of (surviving) characters.

This book is an interesting four point of view story taking place both in the present and the past. The book also has 3 different magic systems that are used. Each character is well wrote and well executed with their own views of the world and magic system. Some scenes do repeat but with a different perception it is really interesting to view in a different character’s eyes.
Sirus was my favorite character, his dedication to his tasks and his friendliness make him a wonderful character.
There are trigger warnings with rape and abuse and violent deaths which is inserted into the story at regular intervals. This is the only thing that makes this book a 4 star instead of a five star.
I would recommend this book but acknowledge the trigger warnings
I would like to thank Netgalley for a copy of this book to review

This is a well written book but a bit too graphic for me so I decided not to finish reading it. This is not a reflection on the writing or story rather on me as the reader.

The eleven by Paul Gaskill.
Keira, Rowan, Sirris and Dess.
The lives of four people will change forever as they unite to bring the rulers to their knees.
But will it change for the better?
A very good read. A long book good story and some good characters. 4*.

This book is definitely a different route than I normally take. It is indeed very dark but I can get down with a good revenge story and this definitely does not disappoint. Kind of a I spit on your grave vibe.....in more aspects than one. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

This book was unfortunately too graphic for me and the mindset I'm currently in. May look into it in the future as what I could read was well written.

The Eleven is an epic adult fantasy which follows 4 main character’s stories, which eventually intertwine with one another. There are dragons, multiple intricate magic systems and 4 different realms, amongst many other well thought out magical elements.

The first thing that caught my attention was the descriptive, sophisticated prose. The interesting vocabulary was engaging and worked perfectly in building the fantasy world. Each scene felt carefully constructed to immerse the reader, and at times I felt the real world being totally blocked out of my mind.

More often than not, when books have multiple perspectives, I find myself favouring some character’s chapters, and getting bored with others, which was absolutely not the case with this novel. I found each character’s story as interesting as the next, whether that be in the present or past tense. Personally, I didn’t get confused at all with the timeline as I thought each separate event was distinguishable from the others, though I can see how following multiple characters over multiple time periods could become confusing for some readers.

I thought the multiple magic systems were incredibly well thought out and explained, whilst also being completely original. I have read fantasy books in the past where the magic systems don’t seem to follow any sort of pattern or rules, but these systems were clever and believable. The fact that there were multiple realms and cities blew me away; The universe created is vast and epic, but the world building was so strong that I never felt overwhelmed.

I loved how the character’s stories intertwined in the past and present, and I appreciated how things that were a mystery were masterfully explained further down the line. The ending was exciting and unpredictable and I felt like I couldn’t read it quick enough, I was so desperate for it to be resolved.

For the most part, this is a fast paced book, though I will admit that there were some slightly slower parts. That being said, I flew through this book in only 3 days, despite the high page count.

Finally, I will say that some parts are EXTREMELY graphic and hard to stomach, so if you are sensitive to gore, this will definitely not be for you. I did find a few scenes to be overly detailed to the point that it was uncomfortable to read, but I can see that it was intended to have that effect.
Trigger Warnings for sexual assault, torture, murder, captivity, depression, DID.

Overall I enjoyed being in the expansive world of The Eleven, and the ending hinted that there are more to come, which I will be keeping a keen eye out for.

I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review, but this in no way influences my opinion about this book.

Firstly, this book should have had multiple trigger warnings. I went into this book with no idea of the content and though I am not really fazed by all that much in books, this could be extremely triggering. Trigger warnings for sexual assault, rape, anxiety, depression, graphic violence. While I understand that this is a grimdark fantasy, I believe that there should be trigger warnings in the beginning of the book so every reader sees it.

This book primarily follows Kiera’s perspective as she traverses the four realm to enact her revenge on the eleven men that abused her for years. Additionally, there are three other main characters, Sirris, Dess, and Rowan, whose lives come to intersect with Kiera’s. One aspect of the book that was difficult for me to keep up with was the multiple POVs. While there are only four POVs, each of those has a past and a present. However, I eventually realized “the past” didn’t mean the same time in the past, but rather just sometime in the past that was different for each character. I didn’t fully figure that out when the timeline started to piece together towards the end.

Because of this back and forth, it took me a long time to invest in any of the characters. This is clearly a plot-driven story, which is great, but I’m definitely more drawn to character-driven stories. The characters, in my opinion, were not fully developed as much as they could have been and this resulted in a feeling of apathy towards them, especially in the beginning. I believe this lack of connection I had with the characters were part of the reason that it took me so long to get through it. It took me a whole month to read the first half, but then I flew through the second half in two days.

While the first half took me a while to get through, once I hit the 50%-60% mark, I was hooked! I finally started to care about the characters and the suspense really kicked up, which is why I flew though it so quickly. I also really enjoyed the relationships that the character’s had with one another. Aside from Rowan, who I never really liked, I really enjoyed the relationships between the characters that developed in the second half. It took a long time for them to come together, but once they did, I really enjoyed it!

My favourite part of this book was the world-building! It was very well done and I had a vivid image of the world throughout the book! The concept of the four realms were very interesting and I wish that we had gotten to spend a little more time in each to further see what it is like, particularly the Kyte Realm outside of Horook, it was very well done and was the best part of the book, in my opinion.

While this is a grimdark fantasy, I feel like at times, it went overboard. One might say that the book is supposed to be gory because of that, but I don’t understand what it added to the story. I believe that every scene in the novel should accomplish something, whatever it is. I understand how showing Kiera graphically killing one of her rapists once or twice can help to develop her, but I don’t know why at times, it had to be as graphic as it did. I think that the book would have been just as good, if not better, without the frequent and extreme violence and gore.

One thing that I noticed and actively disliked about this book was Courage. Essentially, due to Kiera’s trauma, an “alter-ego” emerges from her, talks to her, and at times, takes over her body. This was weird to me from the beginning because it sounds like Dissociative Identity Disorder or Otherwise Specified Dissociative Disorder. In a dissociative disorder, a child experiences overwhelming trauma and because they can neither fight nor “flight”, their mind dissociates and creates an altered state of personality, or an alter, which is exactly what Courage felt like to me. Even the description of Courage takes over Keira’s body describes what DID is like.

“[Courage] emerged at the forefront of Keira’s mind and took total control of her host’s body.”

This whole portrayal of someone who seems to have a lesser form of DID, perhaps, but how it’s never explicitly addressed just seems off-putting to me.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, especially the second half when it started to pick up! I would definitely not recommend it to anybody sensitive to violence or sexual assault in books, as it gets very graphic at points. But if you’re not sensitive to that, I’d recommend this, especially if you like plot-driven stories. Thank you so much to the author for sending me a free copy!

In all honesty it took me a little while to get into the book. I felt like I got confused in the beginning with the different POV’s past and present. It was a very interesting story of revenge and I did like how it all finally came around. Once I got into it I couldn’t wait to find out how everyone one was connected and how they each played their own special part in it all. I love the dragons and magic. The ending did leave it open for a second book and I can’t wait to see how that turns out.

This book is a grimdark adult fantasy. There are frequent mentions of sexual assault as well as violence.

The plot in this is revenge driven. One of our main characters is looking for revenge and will do anything to get it. This caused some of the plot to be predictable, but there were other variables at play which freshened up the story.

I really liked the unique species and world-building in this novel. There were a couple species I was familiar with, humans and dragons, and some new species as well. My favourite among them were the Kytes, who had magic and reminded me of elves. The different species helped to make the world unique and gave the novel a really nice fantasy vibe. They also contributed to well planned world-building. The different species had their own realms and mostly stuck to themselves, but it was effective in terms of world-building. There was never any point where I was confused about how the different species lived and interacted with each other.

Another thing I liked was the multiple points of view. There was also scenes set in the past and others set in the present. Both of these things helped to smooth out the storytelling and explained both the world and characters relationships with each other.

Something I didn’t enjoy about the novel was the frequent in depth description. I didn’t feel like the amount of description was needed and it was a bit of a turn off for me. While it was important to understand what certain characters had gone through/done, I felt like less could have been more in this case.

I would recommend this novel to adult readers who like grimdark fantasy with good world-building and have no problems reading about scenes that include in depth descriptions of sexual assault and violence.

Well written but too graphic for me. I enjoyed the concept however the depictions of sexual assault were too much for me. Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an ARC egalley.

For fans of Game of Thrones, then I definitely recommend that you get your hands on a copy of this book!

What a rollercoaster of a book this was!

I will start off by noting the trigger warnings of rape, sexual abuse, paedophilia with strong language and violence.

What I liked…

Sometimes I find multiple POV very difficult to follow, so when I saw that there were four different characters, alarm bells did start ringing. Fortunately, they were all very easy to follow and flowed really well. Obviously, I had to have a favourite and this was Keria. I felt that she was the primary character in the story and so she was a very complex character. So this made her more interesting to read.

I enjoyed the movement between past and present for each character. It made me feel more a part of the characters that I was reading.

DRAGONS! Who doesn’t love dragons!?

What I didn’t like…

The rape scenes were just way too much for me. We were frequently reminded of what had happened to Keria as a child. It felt like it was more for shock value rather than moving the narrative forward. I think I would have prefered if it had been written in more of a subtlely way as opposed to being so direct. My skin was CRAWLING.

There was a tad too much repetition in some parts of the story which was slightly annoying. This I felt could have been cut out the story altogether and may have slightly decreased the length of the book.



Gaskill has created a truly exceptional magical world, and you can see the love and devotion that has been poured into the story. Unfortunately, I have to rate this book as 3.5 out of 5 for my dislikes above BUT I feel that Gaskill has a brilliant future ahead of him as a fantasy author.

This story is for readers 18+. It contains a lot of gore, attempted sexual assaults, and talk of rape, though no "on screen" rape.
This book is quite the ride. The amount of crap that the characters are put through is immense. The narrative jumps back and forth between characters and timelines. That can be somewhat confusing. Warning: there is no HEA in this story. While I alleviate how it ended, I feel like I need a light, fluffy romance or something to cleanse my palate.