Bloodwoven by G.J. Terral stars Lin, a strong and loyal (to an annoying degree) soldier and believer of the Binding Tenants. But when a sequence of events leads him down a path he never pictured himself embarking on, he begins to question everything he was ever taught.

I’ll tell you, I love a good “the things I learned may not be the only way” kind of story. Character growth, self doubt, heartbreak, pile it on and give me more. Bloodwoven has this in spades.
What really shines about Bloodwoven is its characters, especially that of our main character Lin, and the antagonist – who is a conniving, slivery bastard that when you think our heroes have them cornered, they escape. Not through any b.s., but through cleverly designed plans. I appreciate a villain who is powerful but is able to cause a whole bunch of problems without using such powers. In fact, I don’t feel like the villain of Bloodwoven is necessarily that much stronger than our heroes – at least, not as strong as a major villain may be in other fantasy works – but really does shine with his intelligence and clever manipulation of people, politics, and rules.
The magic system is also incredibly unique – so unique, I’d prefer not to name anything specific about it in this review. As more of the world’s magic was unspooled, I found myself smiling, shaking my head, muttering “you clever SOB.”
One thing I wanted to see more was more of the world, which is really is an unreasonable ask, considering the point of this book is to be shorter and not as large in scale as your everyday epic fantasy book. It’s also a bit contradictory since I’m going to simultaneously praise what it’s able to do in a relatively short word count. But I like epic scale, dang it!
However, with the way Bloodwoven ends, I get the idea that we may be seeing an expanded world in the sequel.
In short, Bloodwoven is a triumphant debut that manages to mix great character development with an excellent magic system, and does it all within a relatively short page count. G.J. Terral is one to follow, and should be on your list of up and coming authors to check out.
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