Hello everyone. Welcome back to Bibliophilia Book Reviews. Today I am reviewing The Gods of Vice by Devin Madson. This is the second book of The Vengeance Trilogy. Click here to visit the author’s website. This review has spoilers.
I will begin this review by saying that The Gods of Vice (TGOV) surpasses The Blood of Whisperers (TBOW) by a whole lot. The characters must now chose sides in the war between Kin and Katashi, and each decision they make is another thing I did not see coming. The pacing of this book, like the first, is fast, and I liked that. The author doesn’t stop, and she manages to keep you at the edge of your seat wanting to know what happens next. This book begins where the previous one ended: Malice manipulates Hana with blood magic into killing Emperor Kin, who is the only person between him and Darius. Darius, however, interferes and saves Kin’s life allowing him to escape. And it is here where it is revealed that Darius too is an Empath. The Gods of Vice begins with the aftermath of this assassination attempt, and we learn how Endymion, Hana, and Darius fared. In this book, all three of these characters go through a significant amount of character development, and despite having a few issues with both Endymion and Hana, I really enjoyed The Gods of Vice.
“The whole world is unfair, Endymion. It is broken in every possible way. That’s why we invented gods to see our justice done, because it is easier to say: “Don’t worry, he’ll go to the hells for killing that boy”, than to deal with a world in which the wicked get away with whatever they want and the goods suffer for it.”
I reiterate, this is a heavily character-driven story. At the beginning of the book, Hana is slowing recovering from trying to kill Emperor Kin and is now on Emperor Katashi’s side. She is also his betrothed. And though she loves Katashi, she doesn’t entirely know where her loyalities lie. Emperor Kin wants to marry her, and she knows that this marriage is what is best for Kisia despite her own personal feelings, but she constantly wars with having to put her country’s needs over her own. And though she and Katashi do become lovers in this second installment, her conflicting emotions concerning the two emperors is a constant throughout her character arc. As in the first book, I have to say, I was not a big fan of Hana here either. I understand that she is a woman living in a society in which she is expected to do what she is told. And she tries to fight this tooth and nail by not conforming to the role that society has set out for her despite her royal name—that of a powerful man’s (very likely the Emperor himself) quiet and complacent wife—in order to find a place where she can both have a voice and make a difference. However, as of yet, I don’t like her personality very much. She wants power and to be seen as a man would be seen. What I don’t like about her is that deep down she wants to be a man. She doesn’t like her own sex and equals the female sex to having to follow rules and to be a pawn. This is true, women are treated as inferiors and pawns in this and many societies, but the way Hana complains about it constantly and goes about trying to assert her value—like wanting to fight when she literally has neither any battle experience nor training—makes her come across as childish and spoiled. She is not a strong woman living in a man’s world fighting to be heard and valued, no matter how much the author wants us to think she is.
Endymion’s character arc, on the other hand, is taking a turn I was not expecting. He too has to question where his loyalties lie, and realizes that Empathy is just too powerful a weapon. In this book he still does not know how to control his Empathy powers, and asks Darius to teach him how to control it. But Endymion never really gets there before he and Darius separate, and he is once again overwhelmed and incapacitated by it at the end of the book. This, however, didn’t make me dislike Endymion. I like him more than I do Hana, and I saw all of this as part of his character arc. The thing is, I was expecting his Empathy powers to be more relevant to the plot of the story, and to this point they haven’t been. So, it makes me wonder what’s the point of having this power in the first place then?
The reason I enjoyed this book mostly is Darius. Darius’ allegiances shift between Malice and Kin; Malice brings out all that is bad in him, including his Empathy powers while Kin represents all that is good. And he is constantly at war with himself because of this. Parenthesis. This book has a lot of romance. On the one part, Hana and Katashi become lovers (and I was expecting this) but so do Kimiko and Darius (and this I was not). And I really liked this pairing. But I must point out that this is not a romance book. However, Kimiko might love Darius she is not loyal to him. She is loyal to her brother, and she betrays Darius. And this act accomplishes what all of Malice’s scheming does not…Darius goes back to Malice at last. Later, Kimiko tries to get Darius back but by then Darius has already suffered a second betrayal that there is no going back for him. And by the end of the book, he is no longer Kin’s man and is set out to destroy him.
I loved this book.
The Gods of Vice is a very fast read and I will definitely be reading the next in the series. I gave this book an I Really Liked It And Will Probably Read It Again rating.
