This is the third book in James A. Moore's Seven Forges series. It should be no surprise that it's gritty, violent, exciting, full of heroic men and women, magic, and vengeful gods. Yeah, it's all of this.
The Sa'ba Taalor and their Gods have declared war on the Fellein Empire and, under the direction of their gods, the Sa'ba Taalor are not going to take it easy on anyone - man, woman, or child. Because of this, people are retreating to Canhoon, aka the City of Wonders, hoping for protection as the Sa'ba Taalor are not taking prisoners.

Desh Krohan and his peers are looking for a way to stop the Sa'ba Taalor, but nothing looks at all promising. Meanwhile, from another direction, a mysterious individual is gathering an unlikely army and also heading toward Canhoon.

I'm not sure I can keep coming up with adjectives to describe how much I enjoy James A. Moore's work - particularly this series. It's energetic and energizing. The characters are larger than life. Most are heroic, but they are drag-through-the-mud, front-lines heroes, so we are right there, facing the enemy head-on with them.

If possible, this book is more violent than the previous two. It is an absolute slaughter, which of course raises the stakes for our heroes.

This book feels very much like an in-between novel. We get an in-story climax, but we're clearly not at the end of the story. This is not going to be a trilogy. Maybe half way through I wondered why we even had this book. But the answer to that question comes to us as we near the end.

There's plenty of action throughout, but enough story and anticipation to keep us turning pages. But this does feel just slightly more one-note than the first two books in the series. The action sequence at the end is heart-thumping. I swear my blood pressure goes up just from reading this!

Looking for a good book? City of Wonders by James A. Moore is the third book in the Seven Forges series. It's gritty and violent and tremendously exciting. But don't start here, it won't make much sense - start with the first book in the series and work your way to this book.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.