The Thirteenth Hour (The Cruel Gods, #1)

Phenomenal, intricate, mind blowing and just bloody brilliant!

All these superlatives can apply to describe Trudie Skies???s book The Thirteenth Hour.

I have been dying to read this since I was first involved with the map reveal, which I think was in August last year. And from the initial view of Soraya Cocoran???s design for the book, it hinted that there was something definitely special about this book. I mean look at it!

The story revolves around our two main characters; Kayl and Quen

The two characters couldn???t be more opposite. Kayl is a Vesper, a race of people from Eventide, who can control shadow and darkness. Well, that is what she thinks she is as she is an orphan that was brought up on the streets of the Undercity of Chime. However she is a bit of a mystery. No one knows anything about her past, like who her parents are etc etc.

Now she is a Godless, a member of a disparate group of anarchists, made up of different races of people from the different realms that make up the domain of Chime. As a person, she is chaos!

Quen on the other hand is highly organised. He is a member of the Wardens, a Diviner. A race of people that can control time. He is fastidious about his appearance, order and following the rules.

We start the story with Kayl missing a tram! From this seemingly innocuous event things go rapidly down hill from there. You see, as I said earlier, Kayl is a member of the anarchist group, The Godless, who are there to fight against the God???s cruel and capricious rule over their mortals. As she and the other Godless are attempting to transport a group of refugees from the land of Eventide, events occur that will change both Kayl and Quen???s life.

After a disastrous incident in which she is noticed to not be affected by the Diviners control of time, she is confronted by none other than the leader of The Wardens. Her boss at the tea shop that she works at intervenes which results in Kayl inadvertently killing the owner.

At the same time a series of Diviner deaths are rocking the Warden ranks. Diviners are turning up with their eyes torn out and their souls ripped from their bodies.

The star Warden, Quen is brought in to investigate the connection and discovers Kayl???s involvement. However, things go from bad to worse. Not only is Kayl accused of murder, she also discovers that everything that she knew about herself is not what she thought. And as she and Quen discover the truth about the deaths of the Diviners, her world will be changed forever.

The Thirteenth Hour is a rip roaring adventure that I totally enjoyed. In truth I was not sure what to expect from the book, I expected it to be good but this totally blew my socks off. I totally fell head over heels with this book. Trudie Skies has really created something special with this book. The world is intricately built and is extremely original. The characters of the book are so vivid and real and I was so engrossed with the story of Quen & Kayl that I was thinking about what would happen next in the story, even when I wasn't reading it.

In addition to a fantastic plot and brilliant characters, we have to talk about the real star of the show, Chime itself. It is such a wonderfully developed piece of world building. Not only is there the description of the environment in the book, but there are also little nuggets of information at the head of each chapter that give details about the lore of different lands and general observations about race, culture and a whole load of other things. But let us get back to Chime itself! In some aspects it is reminiscent of portal fantasy, where the characters have to cross a gate to another world, and in others it is like a Neo ??? Dickensian playground of sin and filth, but with the pristine newness of Industrial age mechanika.

And another thing that jumped out at me was the care that is taken in the book. Let me explain! The story cycles points of view every chapter. One chapter Quen, one chapter Kayl (although this is not a finite rule!), but you can always tell whose chapter it is going to be with the chapter numbers. Quen???s chapters are headed by Roman Numerals, whilst Kayl???s are presented in the standard Arabic numeral forms for easier identification of whose chapter it is, which I have to say that I loved as it gives a clear boundary and you know what to expect. It is these little things that make the book that much more enjoyable.

The Thirteenth Hour is a brilliant start to one of the most original fantasy stories that I have read in a long time, totally captivating me with its engrossing narrative, intricate world building and incredibly dry wit (with some of the standout little tidbits getting ???exceedingly good cakes by Mr Kipler, or the Ferrero Roscher reference, which made me chuckle no end). Oh, and lets us not forget the biscuits. I was just dying for a pink wafer to show up, or maybe a Garibaldi!