We Break Immortals

This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: We Break Immortals

Thank you to Thomas Howard Riley and Escapist Book Tours for providing me with a copy of this book! I voluntarily leave this review!

Aren hunts down rogue magick users to send to the fires and chases away his disturbing thoughts with a pinch of malagayne. Corrin is a skilled swordsman who could care less what he's hired for as long as there's money in it for him. Keluwen is a user with a grudge and the means to murder. Somehow, along with their companions, the three will find their stories intertwine in order to hunt down a luminous user. A user unafraid to turn friend against friend and slaughter innocents to gain more power.

We Break Immortals brings readers into a highly detailed fantasy world. Bits and pieces are revealed through storytelling and Aren's fascination with history. Mixed in along the way are discussions on myths and poetry. And let's not forget the variety of cities and cultures readers will experience. I loved viewing the world through multiple characters' eyes because they held such a wide variety of opinions. Their cultural backgrounds and experiences brought to light how differently the world can be viewed based on what a person has endured in life.

Sometimes the amount of worldbuilding delivered through dialogue was a bit much and I had to take a moment to absorb the information. Secondary characters and settings drifted out of scenes as dialogue commenced and the balance of characters and setting tipped. However, with the amount of worldbuilding taking place within We Break Immortals, I can understand the necessity for so much information.

Thomas Howard Riley is one of those authors that will lead you down one plotline and suddenly turn it inside out. The main goals of the characters will shift and change, ensuring you will always be kept on your toes. There will be revelations and betrayals, quick escapes, and devastating moments. And all the while the characters will be just as stricken as the readers, struggling to realign themselves with their new situations. With each new obstacle thrown into the characters' paths, readers will find themselves all the more captivated.

I was also amused by the clever writing style. Two of the main characters forge forward with misconceptions about each other's intentions. This provided wonderful conflict and when the two finally met, the ensuing dialogue was brilliant. While the reader knows the true intentions and alliances, the characters have them completely backward. I have never read a book before that executed such a feat between two characters. I needed to know how the situation would resolve it, if at all.

And I cannot end this review without mentioning the magick system. We Break Immortals has a complex system, and it does take a little while to comprehend. I'm one of those readers who may not fully grasp a concept until I see it in action multiple times. And not only do readers have the chance to see a variety of ways magick is used, but they will also discover that there are ways in which magick users can be tracked. Aren is a Render Tracer and specializes in finding the leftover threads of magick and hunting down rogue users.

Stepping into the world of We Break Immortals ensures readers will be engaged in a gripping story. The characters are delightfully flawed, struggling against not only their inner demons but the external forces working against them. The world-building is in-depth and the magick system is complex. Fans of high fantasy and epic fantasy novels will enjoy this book.