Mikayla's Bookshelf: Godsgrave

Assassin Mia Corvere has found her place among the Blades of Our Lady of Blessed Murder, but many in the Red Church ministry think she’s far from earned it. Plying her bloody trade in a backwater of the Republic, she’s no closer to ending Consul Scaeva and Cardinal Duomo, or avenging her familia. And after a deadly confrontation with an old enemy, Mia begins to suspect the motives of the Red Church itself.

When it’s announced that Scaeva and Duomo will be making a rare public appearance at the conclusion of the grand games in Godsgrave, Mia defies the Church and sells herself to a gladiatorial collegium for a chance to finally end them. Upon the sands of the arena, Mia finds new allies, bitter rivals, and more questions about her strange affinity for the shadows. But as conspiracies unfold within the collegium walls, and the body count rises, Mia will be forced to choose between loyalty and revenge, and uncover a secret that could change the very face of her world.

Well, he did it. I wasn't expecting Jay Kristoff to be able to top Nevernight. Second books are often the weakest in a trilogy, and Nevernight was so good that Godsgrave had an even higher mountain to climb. And then, about five chapters in, I realised by scepticism was misplaced. Godsgrave is just as brilliant - maybe even better - than Nevernight. The author takes everything that was so good about the first book and expands it. The world gets bigger, the politics get more twisted and the violence gets bloodier. Everything was perfection. The world, the history, the characters, the plot, the dialogue were all individually outstanding, and together they were absolutely fucking incredible.

After just scraping by her initiation into the Red Church, Mia draws closer to her ultimate goal of avenging the deaths of her family by killing their killers; Scaeva and Duomo. Unfortunately, her end differs to that of her church, and she's forced to go it alone in her quest for revenge. In order to get to Scaeva and Duomo, she has to enter - and win - Godsgrave's gladiator-esque games. By a cruel twist of fate, she finds herself enslaved in her old family home - now a gladiator/slaved training school - where she meets fellow slaves and warriors who make her bloody focus waiver ever so slightly. Mia's fellow recruits were so well written, never once feeling like cliches or plot devices. Mia's almost sisterly relationship with young healer slave Maggot was quietly touching, enough to make you believe that Mia's bloodymindedness could start to falter.

Slave owner Leona was another stand out. While she could have been a standard antagonist or a really good bad guy undone by a sappy back story (my pet peeve!), the author managed to make her an absolute bitch, but a very human one. Constantly battling her abusive bastard of a father, Leona still bought humans to fight to the death, but there were just enough quiet scenes to show the woman behind the mask, even if I did still want to see her get her comeuppance! I was a bit disappointed that Mia's new daemon, the wolf-like Eclipse, was MIA for much of the story. She (it?) had a great back and forth with Mia's original shadowpet, Mr Kindly, but felt a bit pointless given how rarely she featured.

While I loved Mia's sweet and tender relationship with Ash - it was the closest thing to sweet I could ever hope to find in this series! - I just couldn't get fully on board with it because I loved Tric so much in the first book. He and Mia were so good together and shared a genuine bond, so when Mia jumped into bed with the girl who killed him, there was no way I was going to ship their pairing! The sex scenes were just and graphic, hot and well-written as they were in Nevernight. Unlike some other authors, who try to be both graphic and coy and end up sounding like they're not 100% sure how sex actually works, Jay Kristoff goes there! I've read countless, poorly written sex scenes that refer to down there or people reaching their peak (although my personal favourite are those that refer to guys roaring as they climax. Can you imagine someone roaring as they came? You'd laugh your ass off!) but you don't get that here. Sex, language and violence get equal billing in Godsgrave and this book doesn't shy away from the reality of any one of them. I wasn't a huge fan of the early threesome sex scene, simply because it felt unnecessary and therefore a bit tacky. It wasn't like Mia was going for stealth - she poisoned her target and he ended up vomiting his guts up like he was in a Mortal Kombat fatality - so quite why there was a four page sex scene leading up to it instead of her just slitting his throat was beyond me. Still though, Jay Kristoff is a man who knows how to write good sex!

There's an undeniable Gladiator-esque vibe to the book, I had high hopes for the inevitable 'colesseum' scenes, and I was not disappointed! The beasts Mia encountered in the arena brought genuine peril to the proceedings; from giant worms that vomited up their entire stomachs to six-armed, acid-spitting spider women, I was on the edge of my seat for each and every action sequence. Even though you have more than a sneaking suspicion that the protagonist isn't going to be killed off on page 80, the danger feels real and the stakes feel suitably high. I did wonder how Scaeva hadn't been assassinated earlier, given how easily Mia's frenemy Ash was able to sneak around poisoning wine and hiding weapons in the arena.

It's hard not to give too much away, but the story was so, so good! It built on all the best element from book one, expanding the world and history through the new characters Mia meets. The footnotes peppered through the main story linking to supplementary world info and history were carried over from Nevernight, and I personally love them. I guess I could agree with some people who say they're a lazy way of conveying information rather than incorporating it into the chapters, but most of it enhances the story rather fits into it. The notes explained legends, imparted sarcastic wisdom from the narrator and shaded in the details of Godsgrave's history, and they can be skipped without detracting from the main story if you're not into them. Just don't go into this book expecting everything to come up sunshine and rainbows. The story, the world, the characters are all brutal and no punches are pulled in showing exactly what this means. There's a borderline cute scene where Mia and her fellow, terrified new recruit prepare to enter the arena for the first time. In a moment of uncharacteristic softness, she holds his hand, tells him to stick with her and, just for a moment, you think they're going to be okay. And then the lad immediately gets shot in the neck and dies. Yeah, sweetness and light, it ain't!

And the ending ... 'byss and blood, the ending!