What do you think?
Rate this book
The Hallowed War #3
The Winter Vow
The third volume in this powerful epic fantasy in the tradition of Robin Hobb and Peter Brett.
Ruling with an iron hand, the Church has eliminated the ancient pagan ways. Yet demonic gheists terrorize the land, hunted by the Inquisition, while age-old hatreds rage between the north and the south. Three heroes--Malcolm and Ian Blakeley and Gwendolyn Adair--must end the bloodshed before chaos is unleashed.
Ruling with an iron hand, the Church has eliminated the ancient pagan ways. Yet demonic gheists terrorize the land, hunted by the Inquisition, while age-old hatreds rage between the north and the south. Three heroes--Malcolm and Ian Blakeley and Gwendolyn Adair--must end the bloodshed before chaos is unleashed.
- GenresFantasy
512 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 21, 2018
4 people are currently reading
158 people want to read
About the author
Tim Akers
52 books167 followersTim Akers was born in deeply rural North Carolina, the only son of a theologian. He moved to Chicago for college, where he lives with his wife of thirteen years and their German shepherd. He splits his time between databases and fountain pens.
- PyrSF
- PyrSF
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 15, 2020
Stuck between 3 and 4
Maybe it was just me. But I had one hell of a time keeping track of the volume of secondary characters and whose side everyone was on. The story was solid but I had trouble staying with it, which is unusual for me barring something like Game of Thrones
Maybe it was just me. But I had one hell of a time keeping track of the volume of secondary characters and whose side everyone was on. The story was solid but I had trouble staying with it, which is unusual for me barring something like Game of Thrones
November 6, 2020
Even after finishing it I'm still not sure what that winter vow Elsa was hunting on based on the blurb is supposed to be. That sums up the characterisation of this book, fuzzy. Every other random character is an imposter closet void worshipper, which feels like either a massive conspiracy, or really lazy writing for cheap dramatic reveals. The next Sanderson this is not.
December 9, 2022
I finished all 3 volumes in the space of a week.
All in all, I give this a solid 3, with a few comments on why it isn't higher.
Warning, might be spoilers ahead.
1. My biggest gripe is the total lack of explanation or exploration of how the magic systems works vs the Pagan. It always seemed to come down to religious iron relics vs organicy pagan 'stuff'.
And then 2/3's of the way through, the void priests enter stage left, which while neatly explaining the actual conspiracy behind the conspiracy, brings a mish-mash of religio-pagan that seems to grant them unexplained god-like machiavelian intrigue and power.
2. Related to the above, the Void-priest element with near omnipotent unexplained power, and innumerable references to forgotten gods, and yet its never really explained in any fashion. We know they have corrupted certain people, however its never clear how they were able to decimate the Inquisitor arm of Cinder's church.
A sop seems to be thrown somewhere where its mentioned that Cinderfell has been decimated, however the Church itself seems to be rather two dimensional in its actions and involvement in this 6+ month long war.
3. I like that the story is told in a rather straight forward, charactor POV way, where the charactors only know what they know, the reader only knows what they know, without the usual anti-story of the antagonist's POV which invariable makes it difficult to actually surprise the reader/character.
That being true, its frustrating that with the fundational, heretical changes in the Church, that when characters meet there isn't more discussion immediately about this. Major characters meet, and spend their time with witty/snarky banter, and not immediately relaying the strange and unexplainable things they've seen. I mean sometimes they do, but other times the only reason it comes up is because of some off-hand remark. Malcom and Lucas are the primary adherents to the Church/Cinder, and it seemed like they were rather dim-witted for much of the story when it became clear things were very, very wrong with their Church.
Priest Tuelle who was with Bassilion gave the only indication that some in the Church were aware there was a problem IIRC.
I've like his other works, and this was a nice read aside from my nit picking.
However I think the author said it best himself when he retold how he called is Publisher and told him he wanted to write an 'epic'.
So from that we can reasonably take away that a long and twisted tale was the desired result, and the story was created to fit that niche. This seems to me to be a bit different than the story that is initially envisioned, which grows and grows to encompass something that ends up being epic.
In retrospect, that would explain a lot of my nits above.
I thinks its fair to grade this effort as a solid 'Good Read', but not something noteworthy enough to recommend as a must read to someone.
All in all, I give this a solid 3, with a few comments on why it isn't higher.
Warning, might be spoilers ahead.
1. My biggest gripe is the total lack of explanation or exploration of how the magic systems works vs the Pagan. It always seemed to come down to religious iron relics vs organicy pagan 'stuff'.
And then 2/3's of the way through, the void priests enter stage left, which while neatly explaining the actual conspiracy behind the conspiracy, brings a mish-mash of religio-pagan that seems to grant them unexplained god-like machiavelian intrigue and power.
2. Related to the above, the Void-priest element with near omnipotent unexplained power, and innumerable references to forgotten gods, and yet its never really explained in any fashion. We know they have corrupted certain people, however its never clear how they were able to decimate the Inquisitor arm of Cinder's church.
A sop seems to be thrown somewhere where its mentioned that Cinderfell has been decimated, however the Church itself seems to be rather two dimensional in its actions and involvement in this 6+ month long war.
3. I like that the story is told in a rather straight forward, charactor POV way, where the charactors only know what they know, the reader only knows what they know, without the usual anti-story of the antagonist's POV which invariable makes it difficult to actually surprise the reader/character.
That being true, its frustrating that with the fundational, heretical changes in the Church, that when characters meet there isn't more discussion immediately about this. Major characters meet, and spend their time with witty/snarky banter, and not immediately relaying the strange and unexplainable things they've seen. I mean sometimes they do, but other times the only reason it comes up is because of some off-hand remark. Malcom and Lucas are the primary adherents to the Church/Cinder, and it seemed like they were rather dim-witted for much of the story when it became clear things were very, very wrong with their Church.
Priest Tuelle who was with Bassilion gave the only indication that some in the Church were aware there was a problem IIRC.
I've like his other works, and this was a nice read aside from my nit picking.
However I think the author said it best himself when he retold how he called is Publisher and told him he wanted to write an 'epic'.
So from that we can reasonably take away that a long and twisted tale was the desired result, and the story was created to fit that niche. This seems to me to be a bit different than the story that is initially envisioned, which grows and grows to encompass something that ends up being epic.
In retrospect, that would explain a lot of my nits above.
I thinks its fair to grade this effort as a solid 'Good Read', but not something noteworthy enough to recommend as a must read to someone.
February 11, 2020
Very disappointing end to a rather uneven trilogy.
July 14, 2020
Very good series. I really want to read more.
February 1, 2022
Very solid trilogy. Wrapped up satisfyingly.
January 12, 2025
A chaotic tale whose storm whips into a wild frenzy of a finish.
September 15, 2025
A satisfying end to this saga of betrayal, heresy, dark magic and carnage, the conclusion of three gripping books
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews