Mike Brooks' The Black Coast is a solid entrant into the epic-fantasy subgenre. His characters feel lifelike; their choices matter and affect the world around them and you can track their growth throughout the novel. His worldbuilding is done well; there's minimal exposition (and what there is is handled smoothly through conversations between characters), and you never feel like you're being spoon fed details for the sake of details. Brooks does a nice job of giving the reader enough information to follow the story, but not so much that there's no mysteries left to discover. He also writes combat very well; the action feels thick and visceral, and he doesn't shy away from threatening or killing main characters (something that can be missing from first-time epic fantasy writers who fall in love with their creations). All in all, The Black Coast is a great jumping-off point for what I hope will be a long series, and I look forward to the next installment.

This one reminds me of a much deeper Eragon series start clashed with Titans from the 70s. It has some world building at the beginning you have to get through, but overall it's fun.