The Devil’s is a fun jaunt through a fantasied historical Europe. Fans of Abercrombie will appreciate is trademark dark humor, though some may find he leaned too far into the humor and forgot to take his characters as seriously as he does in his other works. Expect to see some familiar Abercrombie tropes, including a powerful fighter who can’t control themselves, spoiled nobility, and magic wielders who are annoying but useful. The simplicity of the plot is made up for with the depth of the characters. The first half wanders a bit, but it finds its footing in the second half for a satisfying conclusion. 7/10

Unfortunately, this was not my favorite. I appreciate Abercrombie's ability to infuse comedic elements into his iconic grimdark storytelling, but it felt like a bit too much for me. I will definitely recommend it to any of his already established fans, anyone looking for some grimdark fantasy, anyone looking for an introduction into the genre, or, someone looking for something different to read.

Thank you to Joe Abercrombie, Tor Publishing Group, and NetGalley for sending me the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This grimdark fantasy, following our band of devils, is surprisingly heart-wrenching and hilarious—way more than I could have ever expected.

Honestly, the best thing you can do right now is pick up the damned book.
You’ll meet some incredible characters, each with their own flaws (and many of them), but all of them impossible not to love. My favorites being our invisible elf, the ferrety thief, and Balthazar Sham Ivam Draxi. Not a lowly sorcerer, a damn magician!

And really, that’s all you need to know. This ragtag group of criminals bonds through endless fights and near-death experiences. The book is packed with action, and the battles stretch over multiple chapters—but it never feels repetitive or dull. You get to know these characters through their witty banter, whether they’re on the road or in the heat of battle. I couldn’t help but fall in love with these supposedly unlovable characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first Joe Abercrombie and felt like a fun place to start.

In the beginning it is following two different storylines: a priest given a new commission by the head of the holy church that is not at all what he was expecting and a gutter rat being claimed by a royal family as their missing heir.

It’s definitely pulpy and silly at times but I enjoythat tone in books and it worked very will for this story and these characters. I laughed out loud several times.

There is a very large cast in this band of misfits and you slowly start to get POV chapters from all of them, which allows you to get to know them better. In the beginning, I found I didn’t really enjoy any of them. Alex was irritating at first so I found her perspective a bit of a chore at times. But her chapters tended to be where a lot of the plot was happening. Balthazar’s bloated self importance was supposed to be comical but I found it very grating, especially how often it was repeated in his POV.

However, I found that they all slowly won me over till there wasn’t a single perspective that I didn’t enjoy. Sunny was my favourite and Baptiste second, though I wanted to learn more about her outside of her brief stories about having done everything. I also really loved the Baron and how self-serving he was. By the end, I loved all of them differently.

It reminded me of the Fellowship of the ring very slightly, just in the fact that they get separated and are desperate to get back to each other, but having their own separate troubles and adventures on the way.

I found it stalled a little around the 70% mark while you waited for it to push into the final conflict. It was just such an abrupt pacing shift. The ending was very bittersweet and left me anxious for the next book in the series

Lord Grimdark retunes his scabbard to launch a new fantasy series. It's one helluva ride, rising six hundred pages of scatology, dirty deeds, and mayhem. In short, Joe Abercrombie/Lord Grimdark at his grimdark best.

The Suicide Squad vibe, the gallows humor and banter between the villainous, heroic, and amoral-sexpot elements of the dramatis personae, and the hectic pace of the action all conspire to keep the pages flipping. The alternate-history vibes...there's a Troy but not a Rome?...make each characters' accustomed place in The Gang just that little bit off from here your experienced readers' radar says it ought to be. You'll know inside fifty pages if the tone works for you. What's likely to drive most of y'all off is the relentless onslaught of poo references. That wore my nerve one whole stars'-worth.

What I loved was Brother Diaz whose position as the vicar of the Chapel of the Holy Expediency, a secret society within the church that answers only to her holiness the pope (all of ten years old!) set to deliver the (unwilling) heiress to the imperial throne to take up her mantle (off the shoulders of the current occupant and her four sons, who have opinions about the effort), and if possible keep her extremely base origins from leaking out, as they scraped her literally out of a gutter. Keeping their Viking warrior comadre (not comrade; look it up) from shagging everything/one on the way there, and arriving before her monthly curse arrives. Werewolves don't tend to be good guardians of empresses. (Nor do anthropophagic elves, another gang member who's not intuitively part of the party but serves a function I won't spoil.)

For me, the battle scenes aren't as much fun as they are for Author Grimdark's more committed fans. This is an across-the-board observation appertaining to the gentleman's œuvre entire, so is not grounds for destarring this story. He is delivering the goods as demanded here, though I suspect even his most self-gratifying fans will be hard (!)-pressed to get all the way through the sea battle in the middle.

I enjoyed the trip to Troy a butt-hair less than the story after they reached Troy, when either Author Grimdark reached optimal operating temperature for his story engine or I just finally developed my poo-shedding coating. Whatever it was, that last fifth of the story was more fun than the rest for me. It was at this juncture I finally got the why of the very recent news that James Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment production house has optioned film rights. The current plan calls for Cameron, busy making Avatar content for December 2025 release just now, to co-develop the screenplay with Author Grimdark.

I spent big parts of the read wondering how Cameron could do this with the swearing and the absolute mountains of poo...the Troy happened, and yeah, I see it.

I do not think the, um, the sensitive reader will disfruit this lectorial exercise. I do not recommend it for those who do not resonate like banged gongs to irreverence toward authority temporal and/or spiritual. If a happy day's reading is spoiled for you by the sudden, ghastly death of some character you enjoyed following, avoid all Abercrombie work and start with this one.

If you cannot read the death scene of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop without laughing à la Oscar Wilde, OTOH, this book has a very good chance of keeping you amused and entertained.

I laughed.

This is my first Abercrombie.

I didn’t know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised by the balance between humor, excellent character work, and heart. I’ll be the first to admit that quest stories usually aren’t my cup of tea. Regardless, I had a lot of fun reading this.

The Devils is the first book in a new grimdark series. We follow a ragtag group of individuals called The Devils who, alongside Brother Diaz, must deliver a former thief-turned-princess to Troy in order to unite the two sides of the church. Meanwhile, Europe teeters on the brink of collapse. Self-obsessed nobles fight for control, and rumors swirl that the elves are returning.

I was not prepared to fall in love with these characters. They’re messy, funny, and each one is uniquely flawed. It’s a great start to the series, and I can’t wait to see what Abercrombie has in store for us next.

Thank you to Tor and NetGalley for an advanced reader's copy of The Devils.

The story begins on a saint’s day in one supposedly holy city, and ends on a different saint’s day in a different holy city. Which is just one of MANY ironic twists in the story, as there are absolutely ZERO saints anywhere else in it – and not much in the way of actual holiness in either of those two cities.

Because what this whole entire world needs isn’t saints. Which is a good thing because there don’t seem to be any. Not even on either side of the schism that makes up the not-nearly-as-holy-as-it-claims-to-be church. What this world needs, even if neither church is willing to admit it in public, are devils.

At least, that’s what the church calls them. Because that gives at least the church of the west a reason to lock them up and hold the key very, very close to the ecclesiastical vest until it needs those devils to sow a little chaos among their enemies.

Or take on a mission that the church WANTS to fail. After all, those monsters are the congregation of the clandestine (and unlucky) thirteenth chapel, the Chapel of the Holy Expediency. And monsters – or devils – make a VERY expedient sacrifice when your goal is to save the world.

Even if you plan to damn yourself and everyone else in the process.

The mechanism by which this vast, sprawling, epic fantasy is told is a quest. Or so it seems. But the quest that those devils think they are on isn’t exactly the quest they’ve been told they are on. Well it is, but it isn’t. Because it’s not expedient to tell devils the truth – and why would anyone do that anyway?

Especially since the truth isn’t true on so many levels that it’s lies and deceptions all the way down. It’s all part of one sad and glorious trip to hell that isn’t so much paved with good intentions as it is greased skids towards likely doom.

Which is when the twist in the tail pulls the whole story back up into a future that no one planned to ever see the light.

Escape Rating A: I started this in audiobook, and the audiobook as read by Steven Pacey was excellent. But I got stuck into this one hard, and just couldn’t listen fast enough. So I switched to text. Even reading wasn’t fast enough, but it at least it was FASTER.

This was a WOW of an epic fantasy, and I’m every bit as twisted up by the ending of it as nearly everyone involved in the story turned out to be. Because it was wild and crazy and fascinating every step of the way. Even though I knew everyone was deceiving each other, I didn’t know quite how until the very end, and the thing I thought was the BIG scam turned out not to be. Although there were more littler scams than I had figured out along the way.

I’m also not quite sure this is exactly grimdark. It read more like ‘cynical dark’. Not that the situation is any less dark, but the snarky voices of the protagonists make it feel like a somewhat lighter shade of black than outright grim even though it actually isn’t.

It’s very much as if the Suicide Squad decided to traipse through Westeros to clean up the blood by making it gorier – but with more attitude along the way. Something like that.

But this is definitely a ‘squad’ of some kind – even if a reluctantly gathered one. Which makes it difficult to decide exactly whose story this is. We follow all the characters in turn and turn about so we don’t get a LOT of depth on anyone in particular but we do watch the group coalesce into a surprised but reluctant whole as they keep surviving by pulling each other’s asses out of increasing hot fires.

Very much on the other hand, the lack of a single central character feels intentional, as this is the first book in a series featuring the group of devils and not the people they actually manage to save – because they can’t save themselves and that’s kind of the point.

As much as I loved this one, and I did, I have mixed feelings about some of the specifics. Specifically the alternate history and the lack of a central character. Let me explain…

The history is very much based on actual history at the point where the Catholic Church was split between Rome and Byzantium. However, the point of the split in this book seems to be that Carthage either fell later to the Romans or sent out more – and more highly ranked – refugees when it fell. Or something like that as we don’t get as much detail as I would have liked. (My constant lament.) There’s also quite a bit of magic treated rather scientifically just to add to the fun. And the body count.

The one detail we do get that I have mixed feelings about on multiple levels is the way that Elves are substituted for the Saracens in our own history. That’s either going to work really well or come off very badly but we don’t have enough evidence to know which. At least not yet.

The result of these twists in history is that things feel almost familiar and yet not at the same time. It feels like an uncanny valley, in that it’s almost right and then goes a bit sideways and I’m knocked off the pins of my familiarity. (It reminded me a bit of Mary Gentle’s Ash: A Secret History as that alternate history fantasy world also involved Carthage.)

At the same time, the church schism in The Devils had a lot of elements of the Chantry schism in Dragon Age, in that in this fantasy world, the savior was a woman, and all the church officials and hierarchy in the east are women including the Pope, while the church of the west is headed by a Patriarch and men run everything. With magic being elevated in the west and decried in the east, which is where the monsters of the Chapel of Holy Expediency come into the picture. (Dragon Age made this split north vs. south but it is the same split, including the way that magic and its practitioners are treated.)

Because there is no central character – instead a large cast of them – I’m not quite sure this stuck the dismount. The ending feels like it isn’t. An ending, I mean. More like this particular adventure came to something that seems like an end – or at least a pause in hostilities – and that there is more to come. Which is likely intentional as this is the start of a series. Whose title and publication date are TBD and ARRGGGHHH.

A couple of final thoughts before I close this and try to get over the book hangover it’s left me with. One is that this is LONG. It sucks the reader in pretty quickly, and goes trippingly by once you’re in it, but reading this in small sips doesn’t work AT ALL. These people are out of the frying pan and into the fire so often and so quickly that you’re pretty much always thinking, “just one more page, just one more chapter, just until they get out of THIS fix” until you become conscious at the end that you’ve been sitting for hours in the same position and the cat still doesn’t want you to move – or however that works in your house.

Second, this does leave the reader with a big book hangover. If you’re looking for something to tide you over until we at least know when the next one’s coming, I’d recommend taking a look at Brian McClellan’s In the Shadow of Lightning and Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by K.J. Parker for the snarkastic voice, The Moonsteel Crown by Stephen Deas for the gang of cutthroats, Mary Gentle’s Ash and/or pretty much anything by Guy Gavriel Kay for the slightly alternate fantasy history, and especially The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman for the misled and misleading gang of ne’er do wells on a mission they’ve been deceived into that takes them on a walk through different, but equally dark places on its and their way. With the same kind of heartbreak at the end.

Having read all of the First Law universe I knew I was going to be a fan of The Devils, and it was even better than expected. A motley crew of misfits is an easy sell for most people and the pacing helped make this book a success. I feel like there’s a general agreement amongst the fanbase that the original First Law trilogy had some pacing issues, but it was so nice seeing this series take off immediately. The book definitely takes a more comedic tone while keeping Abercrombie’s gore and brutality. Honestly, you could read this as a standalone and it’s a great way for new to the author readers to try out his style in a more fast-paced condensed world with no past homework involved. For me, this was really fun to read and a 4.5/5 mainly just because I was missing the crazy amount of depth I’m used to in his characters, but that could be coming in subsequent books.

If you like snarky gory characters, paranormal creatures of any sort, or have been looking for an entry point to Joe Abercrombie’s books, this one is for you.

I received a copy of this book free from Tor Publishing Group in exchange for an honest review.

The simplest and non spoilery explanation of the plot is Father Diaz is summoned to the holy city by the Pope (who happens to be a 10 year old girl said to be the reincarnation of the "Savior") to head his own church. He’s pretty ambitious and might have been stretching the truth on what his accomplishments have been so he feels extremely under qualified when he finds out his new congregation is a ragtag group of heretics being held prisoner by the church. You’ve got the cultured and smooth talking immortal vampire, the jack of all trades con woman, old cranky knight who can’t die, an elf, a werewolf and a self absorbed necromancer (Balthazar Sham Ivam Draxi is a magician btw. NOT a wizard or a sorcerer. A MAGICIAN, thank you very much.) This group is tasked with bringing the long lost Princess Alexia back to Troy so she can take her place on the throne and unite the two divided sides of the church. But Alexia doesn’t know she’s a princess. She’s just Alex, a street rat. The child Pope uses magic to bind the group to the mission and then a quest begins. Oh and there’s the ever lying threat of elves invading and eating all the humans.

This. was. So. much. Fun. I haven’t read an Abercrombie in a few years now and I forgot how much I love his character work! There are multiple POVs and each character is distinct from the other. I got the audiobook too after it was published and the narrator, Stephen Pacey did such an amazing job. Of the merry band of heretics I only didn’t care much for Balthazar but that’s because he was such an arrogant little turd I wanted to slap him. So I mean, his character was written well because he was supposed to be an unlikable arrogant little turd. And by the end he grew but also I feel like his growth was very sudden. Everyone else, even being murderers and thieves, had likable qualities. Abercrombie is a master at the likable morally gray character.
The book moved at a good pace, I hated having to put it down to do other things.
The world building and magic isn’t super intricate but it's an alternate history type of world and the magic is similar to a lot of classic versions. Necromancy, manipulation of elements, elves, other immortal creatures, binding spells, alchemy, ect. This works great because the characters are the focus. But it’s not to say the plot isn’t interesting. It’s a very classic quest story, lots of action, lots of reveals, lots of politicking. I saw a review that said they found the reveals and twists predictable and unsatisfactory but I enjoyed them thoroughly and didn’t see most of them coming. Maybe it’s because I haven’t read a lot of epic fantasy lately?

My biggest hang up was all of the names of side characters. And a lot of them are fantasy names. I think the audiobook made it easier to keep them straight because each character was done with a very distinct voice. But There were some I had to go back and figure out who was who. Especially when all the politicking came into play. I think this will be a series, but honestly I’m not 100% sure. It’s left open ended but it’s also not a giant cliffhanger. I’m hoping to see more from these characters and this world! I can’t wait for the library’s copy to come in so I can recommend this to all of the fantasy readers!

Joe Abercrombie's latest adventurous jaunt takes place in an alternate Dark Age with a child, female Pope. Elves have conquered the Holy Land, and the Eastern Church is located in the empire of Troy. The black-magic Empress has died, and Alexia, a street urchin, may be the rightful heir. Brother Diaz, a monk good at managing a monastery but not at fighting, has been given command of a group of monsters called The Devils (hard from Tor). Along with a knight cursed to never die, a vampire, a necromancer who will do anything to get his freedom, a nymphomaniac werewolf, and an elf who can turn invisible. Together they have to face powerful sorcerers, and the children of the late Empress who have armies of human/animal hybrids at their command. The pulse-pounding action never stops. The tale is a lot of fun with plenty of twists. I wouldn’t mind seeing the Devils facing another challenge.

Until a very specific scene midway into the novel, I was mentally composing a review that went something like, "if you've read one Joe Abercrombie book, you've read them all." --- I think I've read every word Abercrombie has published, and the Devils felt like a comfortable old shoe. It wasn't up there with the First Law or Best Served Cold or Sharp Ends or the Shattered Sea series either.

But then that scene happened.

And I realized, actually, while every Abercrombie book is a mix between the familiar and an experiment, this one is taking us in an unprecedented direction. Because the implications of that scene are that we are living through the last days, that the Antichrist is upon Earth in the form of the Pope. And so I didn't mind that the ending felt a bit flat, and Alex was more or less beaten into surrender by that Bishop. And I'm genuinely excited about the next book --- even though I really, really want to know what happened to Bedesh and Jeremias from the First Law trilogy, and I've accepted I'll never get answers.

I read this because I enjoyed Joe Abercrombie's previous books, and "getting a ragtag group of people to go on an adventure" plots tend to entertain me. Instead, I DNF'ed this book at about the 45% mark. I found it confusing to keep track of who some of the characters were since they hadn't been given much backstory at this point. They kind of just went from point A to B to C while killing people without much more there.

I would recommend it to readers who like a "monster of the week" type story instead of looking for more characterization.

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group and Netgalley for providing the advanced reading copy of "The Devils" to me in exchange for my honest review.

The razor sharp humor , the complex characters, the found family!! This book was great and I also loved the audio!! Highly recommend this book!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

5 stars

I absolutely loved this book. The narrator was incredible and brought so many characters to life. A motely band of misfits are brought together by the girl pope to go on quest. While you may think a werewolf, vampire, old knight that can't die, a necromancer, thief, an elf, etc. are devils, I loved them all. The book is both violent and laugh out loud funny. This was my first Joe Abercrombie book and I can't wait for the sequel.

Steven Pacey is now my favorite narrator! Fantastic job.

Joe Abercrombie’s The Devils marks a bloody, blasphemous, and blisteringly clever return to form — but not to the world of the First Law. Instead, Abercrombie plunges readers into a bold new setting: a grimdark vision of Hell caught in the gears of bureaucracy, ideology, and unholy war. It’s everything you’d expect from the Lord of Grimdark, but with a surprising dose of satire and fresh mythological flair.

At its core, The Devils is a war story — but one filtered through Abercrombie’s signature lens of moral ambiguity, character-driven plotting, and razor-wire wit. The protagonists are a squad of damned souls — heretics, monsters, and outcasts — pressed into a demonic war effort against Heaven. Think The Dirty Dozen meets Paradise Lost by way of Blackadder.

What makes The Devils shine is its cast. Abercrombie has always excelled at crafting morally gray, deeply human (or in this case, inhuman) characters, and this novel is no exception. Each member of the squad carries distinct wounds — some literal, others philosophical — and watching them clash, scheme, and evolve is the novel’s greatest pleasure. The dialogue crackles with gallows humor, bitter irony, and surprising moments of pathos.

Thematically, The Devils skewers the machinery of war, blind faith, and systems of control — infernal or divine. It's a war book, a satire, and an existential reckoning all in one. While the plot takes a bit to cohere in the early chapters, it crescendos into a thrilling, bleakly hilarious second half that sticks the landing with bloody flair.

Why not a full 10? While The Devils is ambitious and fresh, some readers might find the worldbuilding a bit opaque at times. Abercrombie throws you into Hell’s deep end and expects you to swim — and while that pays off in atmosphere and originality, it occasionally leaves you grasping for firmer footing. Still, the payoff is well worth the plunge.

In short: The Devils is dark, daring, and devilishly entertaining. Abercrombie fans will feel right at home, even in Hell. And newcomers? Prepare for brimstone, blood, and some of the best-written damnation you'll ever read.

Highly recommended for fans of:

- Grimdark fantasy with bite

- War stories with broken heroes

- Satire wrapped in barbed wire

- Joe Abercrombie at his most unhinged

Hell has never been so fun.

(4.25 Stars)

This is not my first time reading from Joe Abercrombie, but I would also say that I'm not his typical reader. Most of his books don't interest me and it's been probably about a decade since I last read from him. But something about this new fantasy of his just vibed with me right from the get-go. Maybe it's the dark take on religious fantasy, the promise of chaos that comes with a band of notorious ne'er-do-wells, or the clean slate of a historical fantasy world not overtly connected to his other series — or maybe all of the above. Whatever the reason may be, I had a great time with this.

For the record, I also listened the audiobook, in which Steven Pacey gives a truly stupendous performance. Highly recommend!

This was just a gruesomely delightful fantasy romp from start to finish. As the premise says, the story centers a cast of misfit criminal characters who all come from the darkest backgrounds, who are all brought together by religious decree to escort a long-lost princess back to her kingdom. The story is violent, gore-y, and at times bawdy, but I found that it was nicely balanced out by a consistently comedic voice and this surprisingly endearing cast of characters. It's just fun to follow them on this quest, to see how they're consistently tripped up by their own thorny natures, and to feel the sense of genuine camaraderie that builds between them with every new mishap.

I also appreciate the story's larger question in regards to the cicular nature of morality. It flips the question of "who are truly the Devils?" back onto the audience in surprisingly insightful ways, and the answer is less straightforward than you would think. The story is exploring the transitive property of how if good people can do bad things in order to achieve "good" ends, then the inverse must also be true. It's about how trying to establish a moral hierarchy where "good" and "evil" are clear-cut concepts that never change and never overlap is a fruitless exercise, because shades of both exist within all of us at different times and in different contexts.

So I appreciate what the story is doing overall, and I loved the voice and the storytelling methods employed to get it across. I think because I don't consider myself to be a "Joe Abercrombie fan," I was able to really enjoy and appreciate what the story was doing, perhaps even more than someone who's read every single one of his books and who might have seen these techniques or characterizations employed before. I do love that the story takes its time to wind down and I think it ends in a really great place, but I think there were maybe a couple of sections before the denouement that may have been slightly over-long.

I didn't realize this was the first book in a new series when I went into it, but I can confidently say that I would happily read another 600-page installment any day of the week — which is saying something! If you're also someone who doesn't regularly read from Joe Abercrombie, I think this could be a great entry point to his work. Definitely enjoyed!

A roadtrip fantasy comedy read based loosely on alternative history but mixed in with a fantasy Europe where a young girl serves as Pope. Then there is also the cast of characters who are sent to protect a girl who has been declared as a missing princess complete with rag tag crew, lots of jokes and comedy, and a very "tv" show like read. This honestly felt like reading a tv show script, it's fun to watch however reading this was a bit harder. It's a huge book and I honestly feel like it functions better as a tv show rather than as a book. The book was harder to get through because you kind of go all over and it just is harder to follow along with as opposed to if you were to watch it as tv episode. I've loved Joe's previous books so I was so excited to read this one but it just kind of missed the mark for me unfortunately. I definitely think that other readers, or newer readers of Joe's will have a delightful time with this and it's a funny read that leans heavily into the comedy aspect.

Release Date: May 13, 2025

Publication/Blog: Ash and Books (ash-and-books.tumblr.com)

*Thanks Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group | Tor Books for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

This was a mash up of all my favorite things in Before They’re Hanged and Best Served Cold PLUS a gang of hilarious mythical creatures!? It’s the perfect formula and easily the best fantasy release of 2025.

The Devils is a fast-paced adventure/road-trip comedy set in what's loosely an alternate history magical Europe, complete with a young girl serving as Pope. And sometimes, the pope needs a team of devils to take care of messier issues. Brother Diaz is tasked with leading the devils as they embark on a journey to protect a girl plucked from the streets and declared a missing princess. The devils are to protect her until she can claim her throne, but of course there are are plenty of dangerous escapades along the way.

While this isn't a First Law book, it reads like Abercrombie in terms of style and tone. I do think this really leans into being more plot driven than character driven, which isn't my personal preference. But it is funny and fast-paced with a large cast of characters and (of course) unexpected twists. There are some moments where it slows down enough to really connect with specific characters, but I wish there was more of that. The ending is certainly a ride! Expect lots of irreverent humor, and a wild cast that includes a very old vampire, a werewolf girl, and an invisible elf. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Thank you to Joe Abercombie and @orbitbooks_us for this ARC.

This was my first Joe Abercrombie book, and it blew me away. A band of misfits, each carrying heavy emotional baggage, are sent on a quest to return a long-lost princess to a distant throne. Naturally, everything that could go wrong does, spectacularly. 🗡️🔥

💀 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐝𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭?
Abercrombie created characters that burrowed into my heart, every single one. From an elf who just wants a friend to a disgraced knight clawing his way back to honor, each chapter reveals unexpected layers. Even amidst the blood and brutality, Abercrombie threads in vulnerability, humor, and raw human truths. 👏

Also, his ability to balance gut-punch violence, political intrigue, and razor-sharp banter is unmatched. And somehow, the worldbuilding sneaks up on you; it’s rich but never overwhelming.

💀 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭:
🖤 Found family vibes
🔥 Morally gray characters
🗺️ Quest-driven fantasy
🩸 Unapologetic violence and gore

💀 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐞?
Steady and unrelenting. There’s a lot of introspection and character growth, but the plot never lags. Multiple POVs keep the story fresh and momentum strong. ✅

💀 𝐃𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤?
This is absolutely one of my top reads of the year. The character arcs, gritty world, and gut-wrenching choices hit every dark fantasy note I love. Abercrombie is a master, and I cannot wait to follow the Devils wherever they go next. 🖤

💀 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟:
📚 Jay Kristoff
📚 Anna Smith Spark
📚 Richard K. Morgan

💀 𝐌𝐨𝐨𝐝: 🖤 Dark | ⚔️ Brutal | 🥀 Surprisingly emotional

💀 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞:
🗡️ Sharp banter and antiheroes
🧩 Complex, layered group dynamics
📖 Grim quests with high personal stakes
🔥 Stories that make you feel and flinch