Godsgrave - Jay Kristoff

Godsgrave is the second in Jay Kristoff’s “Nevernight Chronicle” fantasy series. The series looks at the actions of Mia Corvere, a young woman with a thirst for revenge, a talent for assassination, and a companion who lives within her shadow. I really enjoyed the first outing in the series, which blended some sharp dialogue with a strong core narrative and solid characterisation, so this new entry was hotly anticipated. To get it out of the way: I enjoyed it. A lot of the same things that made the first book work are resent here, and there was enough new material that I kept on turning pages.

Kristoff has created a detailed and thoroughly convincing world, with flashes of renaissance Italy and strains of late Republican Rome. Those influences seep through in the text, which is largely centred around a series of gladiatorial games. There, slaves compete for the honour (and profit) of their masters, and one of the lucky competitors gets their freedom, and the chance to hobnob with some of the highest born and most well-protected members of the aristocracy. Which is handy if your revenge requires you to assassinate them. Thus does Mia Corvere end up infiltrating one of the gladiatorial houses, with nothing much between here and her vengeance except a small pile of other people’s bodies.

Mia is always a pleasure to read. At heart she’s a young woman who has been through severe trauma. But she’s not just that, being something of a multifaceted dark jewel. There’s a brutal pragmatism, with a charming indifference to body count. But that exists alongside a personality which longs for and fears connection and emotional intimacy. As those around her become friends and colleagues, and not just obstacles in the way of her goal, she struggles with the ruthlessness required to follow through on her goals. This is further emphasised in her travails in forming romantic attachments; watching the often surefooted Mia stumble through serious emotional entanglement is a terrifying delight. She is, as the saying goes, so sharp that she might just cut herself, and we’re left waiting to see what she does. The hard-skinned assassin is here, the ruthless killer – but also a lonely woman and the armour she’s placed over a traumatised young girl. At the end, Mia is a complex, troubled, troubling character – and the intricacies of her personality, and her own internal conflicts, make for a compelling protagonist.

In this she’s ably assisted by a strong supporting cast; if we see them through Mia’s eyes, they’re no less believable for all that. Really my only complaint is that we don’t see enough of them. That said, if Mia is possessed of conflicts, the same isn’t to be said of her closest compatriot – the mysterious creature that lives within and shapes itself around her shadow. The eponymous Mr. Kindly is sharp-witted, and has a dry, wry tongue like a razor, which is rather fitting really. There’s an acerbic, venomous humour to his chats with Mia which had me chuckling in appreciation every time he popped up. I’m still not sure what he gets out of his relationship with Mia, and am interested to find out as the series proceeds, but for now he’s just a lot of fun to read.

The footnotes laced through the text, placed there by our narrator, have a similarly waspish and cynically observant style; some may find them too much detail, or dislike the style, but I think they fit for the way the text is constructed. That they’re informative as well as often blackly humorous is a plus.

The world is as vivid as ever. There are moments when you can feel the crunch of sand beneath gladiatorial sandals, or see the tinge of blood on a knife. The pace is quick, and tends to end in blood, or violence of one sort or another. But if there’s more than enough action set-pieces to satiate the most blood-thirsty, there’s also heart-rending and surprisingly uplifting emotional beats. The world Mia inhabits is one filled with living, breathing humans – and the systems which they’ve created. The politics of the world are happening out of frame of the novel, but they’re still impacting it; as we become more aware of the intricacies of the social systems of the space, and the inequalities that exist within it, so does Mia, and that’s one of the more emotionally evocative arcs of her character.

I haven’t touched on everything here, but to sum up: the world continues to be a multi-layered gem, filled with both small, convincing details, and strangely familiar institutions. Mia is a sharply observed and complicated woman, and her vengeance is fast-paced, bloody, and a bloody good read. If you’re already a fan of the series, Godsgrave is a fantastic entry. If you’ve not started the series yet, I strongly advise you to start immediately. This is top stuff.