Heart of Stone – Ben Galley

Golems are built for war and little else. In centuries past, they were a terrifying staple of the battlefield. Empires were conquered on the backs of golems. Now, time and fear have whittled their kind down to a precious few, kept only by kings and warlords. Task of Wind-Cut is one such machine of war. Task was built to kill. Built to win. Thousands have died at his stone hands. He cared once, perhaps, but far too many years have passed and too much blood has been spilled. Task has become numb to the chaos he wreaks for his masters. A slave to the spells that bind him. Now, Task has a new master to serve and a new war to endure. In the far reaches of the Realm, Hartlund is in the grip of civil war, tearing itself in two over coin and crown. This time, Task will fight for a boy king and a general bent on victory. Beneath his formidable stone, Task longs for change. For an end to this cycle of warfare. For proof of light and good amongst the foul darkness of humanity and war. It will take the mind of an unusual stable-girl to change his.

Welcome back everyone, after a disappointing romance last week I moved onto a war novel. And this isn’t any old war novel. This is a fantasy war novel!

I hadn’t looked this book up before agreeing to review it, so other than the blurb I really didn’t know anything about it. All I’d really gleaned from the blurb was that there was going to be a war and a golem. Past that I didn’t know what to expect.

What I discovered is a story that follows three sides of a war with the golem, who is strangely human like, stuck in the middle. As it was quite heavy on the war and spy aspects, I did find myself at about half-way through needing to stop and read a couple of feel good romances. I think if the book had been split over a duo or trilogy, I wouldn’t have needed to do that.

But when the book is three times longer than most of the books, I read these days I did feel that I was getting emotionally drained. If you love war type books you probably won’t find that you’ll need something lighter. But since this was the first war novel I read with no romance, or anything else light, in it I did need that break.

From about ¾ of the way through the book I realised how all the pieces would fit together and some of how it would all play out. That doesn’t mean that I was able to predict the ending. With this being a fantasy novel, you never know what can be possible making guessing endings extremely difficult.

I would have loved a little bit more at the end to really wrap it up. Maybe a few years later? I found myself feeling like I was missing some small detail about the story when I was reflecting on what I’d read to be able to write this review for you.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this review, next week I will be reviewing the fourth instalment of the Time for Alexander series, Storms over Babylon by Jennifer Macaire. Continue to read further down to find out about the author.

Author Bio

Ben Galley is an author of dark and epic fantasy books who currently hails from Victoria, Canada. Since publishing his debut The Written in 2010, Ben has released a range of award-winning fantasy novels, including the weird western Bloodrush and the epic standalone The Heart of Stone. He is also the author of the brand new Chasing Graves Trilogy.