♡ Thank you for the free audiobook, Libro.fm.
Synopsis
Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum’s windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams.
Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil’s visions. But when Sybil’s fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral’s cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she’d rather avoid Rodrick’s dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.
Thoughts
I drank in the first book of The Stonewater Kingdom and was left drunk on its prose and imagery. This first offering following the conclusion of the author’s wildly popular The Shepherd King duology does not disappoint. Luminous and lyrical, this story weaves magic, myth, and longing into a story that feels both ancient and new. Upon finishing, I find myself thirsty for the sequel, and dreaming of having my own gargoyle.
★★★★★
☊ Listening to this story via audiobook was amazing. Narrator Samantha Hydeson did an outstanding job.