You know when you read a synopsis & feel like a story sounds good but wonder if it will actually live up to the description? Well this exceeded my expectations in EVERY. WAY. Filled with diverse characters, rich world building, awesome atmosphere, and a fast paced plot, I was engaged throughout this entire story. I really enjoyed each of the character’s personal development & getting to explore that through their own point of view chapters. I really don’t have any complaints about this story other than the fact that the next book isn’t out yet! I need it now! Haha.
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Synopsis: Throughout the world, innumerable gods are manifest from human desire & fed by their worship, but after a great war in the kingdom of Middren, gods were outlawed by the new king who now hires “godkillers” to destroy any who attempt to ascend from the shadows. Kissen, the sole survivor of a fire god’s attack on her family, is a godkiller who grew up and made a name for herself. Suddenly, she finds herself with a new type of problem in a young noble girl who has sought Kissen out to help with her own god problem—she is soul bound to a small god of white lies, and if Kissen kills it, the young girl will die too. Joined by a retired knight on a secret quest of his own, the group set out toward the ruined city of Blenraden, where the last of the wild gods reside in the hopes that each of them may acquire a god’s favor. Pursued by assassins & demons along the way, while in the midst of a rising civil war, they will all come to face a reckoning. Something is rotting at the heart of their world, and they are the only ones who can stop it.
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I definitely recommend this book! Especially if you love fantasy.
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Publish date is September 12, 2023
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A special thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for this audiobook arc! All opinions are my own.

I absolutely love with fantasy is used to explore religion and this book did that wonderfully! Gods and the worship of gods are forbidden in this world. Kissen, whose family was murdered by a god when she was young, is determined to destroy them all as a godkiller. However, she meets a young girl who is inextricably linked to a minor god and they set off on a quest to free her. I think fans of the Witcher will enjoy this because it has the grumpy killer forced to take care of a kid plot.

Kit Griffiths does a great job with the narration and really kept me engaged. However, I will say that I prefer a full cast when there are multiple POVs to help me keep them straight.

It has good ideas and for the most part the execution is well done. The long pauses between each sentence really killed it for me though. It took me out of the story too many times.

I loved the worldbuilding and character development. I'd recommend for readers who already love fantasy as there's unique locations and lore that may bog down non-fantasy readers. Recommend readalike for books like Priory of the Orange Tree. There's good lgbtq and disability rep in this one.

I did not finish listening to this one. The premise was interesting, but I wasn't a fan of the narration. I don't know if it was the ambiguous accent or the pacing, but I think this one just wasn't for me.

I was fortunate to receive an advanced audiobook of "Godkiller" by Hannah Kaner.

The story follows Kissen, who was almost sacrificed to the god of fire, along with her family, when she was a child. She was the only one who escaped, and now she makes a living killing gods. After a war between the gods and the humans, gods have been outlawed in the land and so people hire Kissen to kill gods and destroy their altars. Kissen herself is tough and strong, loyal but not always friendly. She encounters a noble girl with a problem and vows to help her, while meeting all manner of people along the journey.

I thoroughly enjoyed the grit and dark of this novel, even though it took a moment for me to settle into the story due to the narrator's sometimes staccato rhythm of reading. I did ease into it, and as the details of the story were teased out, I was drawn in to the complicated relationships between Kissen and those she traveled with. Also complicated was the relationship between the people and the gods portrayed in the story. It made me think of worship in a different way, and I can't wait for the next book in this series, as it ended on a fabulous cliffhanger! I highly recommend.

Kissen kills gods because vengeance feels good. Young Inara has a god problem that Kissen can't fix: if the fledgling god attached to Inara dies, she does too. Their world is on the brink of a fiery uprising, and in spite of her curmudgeonly nature, Kissen feels compelled to help the newly orphaned Inara. On their quest to find answers, they meet a retired warrior with a worn heart and questionable intentions. Together they travel a fractured country where worshipping gods is illegal but irresistible. Godkiller balances the sweetness of found family with violence, mythology with politics, and fantasy with PTSD. Comparisons to The Witcher are apt, as well as a PG-13 version of Game of Thrones.

The narration was fantastic, I found it very easy to keep track of the character's voices and actions, even during the fast-paced fight scenes. The book itself is a solid 4-4.5 stars. Complex characters with good development and great worldbuilding that doesn't bog down the action.

I so wanted to love this. The cover is mesmerizing and the plot intrigued me, yet somehow the story didn't quite line up with my expectations. Perhaps the pacing was too slow, the character development not as deep as I'd like? There's enough goodness that I would read the next book to see if the author found her groove a bit more. Still something I'd recommend to readers because there's enough freshness to be enjoyed.

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner is about a group of travelers going to the last city with Gods, in a world where worshipping gods is illegal and one of the travelers is a god killer.

The setting of this book is what intrigued me from the beginning. Gods can manifest simply from believing in that god and take a physical form. They can be benevolent or malevolent, and many are tricksters or power-craving. After a war set off because of the gods, worshipping gods becomes illegal and people take on the role of killing the gods for payment. Kissen is one such person and she has a vendetta against the gods after an uprising caused her village to be leveled, her family killed, and her leg lost. I wish there had been more description of the world, a map and description of the cultures within the world would have really made this setting shine. I didn't feel like the premise of the world was enough to keep me interested.

I feel as though the characters were well-developed, but sometimes when we were in their POV (there are multiple POVs in this book), the voices began to blur in tone. There was great disability rep in Kissen who had lost a leg when she was younger, and in Elogast, who I would say had some PTSD from fighting in the war. Skedi was a complicated character (a God attached to Inara, a young girl) as he was torn between acting in his own interests, and in that of Inara's. The world was very LGBTQIA-friendly and I loved that. Many couples mentioned who were Gay or Lesbian and Kissen is Bi.

The pace was a mixed bag and this is what made this novel difficult for me to finish. The prolouge was explosive and hooked me right from the start but following that it is at a snail's pace until about 80%. There are battles throughout the book, but they aren't long enough to make it feel like it had picked up in excitement. The writing quality itself was good, but the inconsistent pacing made it harder to appreciate.

There is a romantic subplot in this and normally I love a slow burn but since by the point it was picking up I was mentally checked out, I couldn't even react to it in any sort of meaningful way. Other reviewers have appreciated the romance. It was fade to black and not explicit, which is fine. Not everyone wants an explicit romantic scene.

Overall, this was difficult for me to get through but I have recommended this to others who would appreciate the elements of this novel I liked and who also won't mind the slower pace. I am an unpopular opinion and that is okay! I hope Kaner continues to improve as a writer and I will be looking forward to future releases.

A fresh and confident debut, Godkiller will have you in its grasp from the first pages. Led by a cast of spirited characters, it leaps and bounds to the beat of its own golden heart, building to an epic clash of wills.

I enjoyed the premise of GODKILLER, but I felt like the plot dragged - there was too much traveling from point A to point B and not enough going into the backstory of things. The audiobook made it a little challenging to keep track of characters (this novel is told from multiple POVs so the reading experience is jumping around a bit) and I felt like so much of the book is dedicated to the journey, that the events that happen at Blenraden were too rushed.

I can definitely see how this will be popular with many readers and I'll definitely mention it to library patrons looking for this type of fantasy novel.

I enjoyed Kit Griffiths overall as the audiobook narrator, but I wish there had been more of differentiation between characters when speaking... they all blended together.

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by NetGalley and Harper Audio in exchange for an honest review.

Godkiller had a great found family theme which each character dealing with their own traumas.
I enjoyed the gods lore and I found it unique.
I liked the amputee representation and that the MC felt pain and was able to do the same things as an abled bodied person. She wasn't magically cured.
It was fast paced and kept me engaged.

This is another book that falls short of the premise for me. The pacing wasn't great. In the middle "journey" section took too long. They could have used that time to get to know the characters better. Maybe this would be a case where the whole series is worth it, but I'm not sure book 2 will be for me. This may be suited for new to the genre readers.

This was a mixed one for me. I really liked the beginning of this book. It was interesting and there were a few quick twists that I enjoyed. And then it got a bit boring throughout the middle. Once they got to their destination things picked up a little, and then I enjoyed the ending. So, it was just okay in the end to me. But I would read the next book.

So much fun. I really enjoy when the grumpy murder machine character gets to be surrounded by people that love them. That's what you have here. Kissen is angry at everything, and she's perfectly comfortable with that. Her friends are so well written that it the connection feels like genuine love as compared to opposites stuck together for the sake of levity. If you read/watch The Witcher and wish the protagonist was a female amputee, this is exactly what you've been wanting.

Conceptually fabulous, well written, and cool world building.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Audio for the ARC.

I heard about this book a long time ago, before it had a planned North American release date. I am so excited that I got to read and review this early, and boy it sure did live up to my expectations. I loved our main characters and how they were written--they felt very well-realized and believable, and I loved watching them interact with the others/other POVs and the world around them. I love the trope in fantasy where they're like travelling on an adventure, and so this was such a fun read for me. If you're looking for a hot new fantasy with strong female characters, multiple points of view and a heavy dose of adventure then I highly recommend picking this one up! I can't believe I have to wait until September to get to shove the physical releases at all of the patrons in my library!
For the audiobook specifically: I loved the narrator and I am really excited for my library to get copies of this. I think that, especially for fantasy, audiobooks are such a great way of consuming stories. Loved it!

I have been waiting for this book to come to the US and I was so excited to see it here on NetGalley. I chose the audiobook version of it.

What really intrigued me about this story was the fact that it’s about a woman who kills Gods for a living. That’s all I really knew about it and of course it was getting all sorts of praise from some big authors. I really expected to love this book. I did and yet I didn’t. I thought this was full of gorgeous character development, but I kept getting dropped by plot pacing issues. I felt like it was a big slow. I was intrigued enough to finish the book, but it didn’t really pick up for me until the last few chapters.

I am so bummed but I don’t believe I will be finishing this series. How do I know? Well, other than the prologue and the last few chapters, I remember very little of this book. It was a just so hard to get through.

I would rate this around 2.5 to 3 stars.

What do a god killer, a retired knight, a noble’s daughter, and a tiny god have in common in a world where god worship has been forbidden? If you guessed a clandestine quest you would be correct!
Kaner’s fantasy world is one where Gods become powerful because humans make shrines to them and offer up prayers and sacrifices for favors. They have just survived a civil war that has all but wiped out the older more powerful Gods, making worship illegal. The history and lush mythology naturally unfolds along with the plot and I thought the timing was wonderful. I loved the characters: Kissen, Elogast, Inara, and Skedi. They each brought the story to life with their mismatched personalities. I enjoyed listening/reading the alternating POVs and the sarcastic and witty banter. This is story about strong wills, believing in yourself, acceptance, and resilience. Kaner gives us a good representation of differing abilities, both mental and physical which made the story even better in my opinion.
This was originally released in the UK in January of this year and the cover was so beautiful with such an interesting premise that I knew I needed it on my shelves. It will debut here in the US in September and you will not be disappointed. Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVoyager for this advanced listeners copy.