Due to his father’s betrayal, the city guard relentlessly pursues William. He lived his entire life on the grimy streets, befriending the other street urchins.
Eventually, they capture William and his streak of luck ends. William and his friends have to choose between prison or becoming sewer guards. They all choose the sewer guard, expecting an easier time. They chose wrong.
The sewer guards along with their eccentric mage, face more challenges than just rats in the sewers. Whilst adjusting to the sewers, William discovers information about his parents, and their alleged betrayal, but who should he trust?
Can William make it out alive from the treacherous, dim, wet, foul sewers of the city?
Dark bleatings, my lovely tribe! Today we’re diving into a fantasy novel, which – as you know – is totally out of my reviewing comfort zone. That said, I believe I have some fair assessments just as a general reader, so I hope this review is helpful.
Our protagonist, William, is arrested and has to pick his own punishment; two years in jail, or one year serving as a sewer guard. Both very undesirable options. Jail is…well, jail sucks, but those who go into those sewers don’t tend to come out. William opts for the sewers, and so our tale of betrayal, friendship, power structures, and lethal mutants is set in motion. Will he emerge? Will his friends? What will he discover down there, and will that dick who killed his parents ever get what’s coming to him? So many questions!
As always, I’d like to get my criticisms out of the way first because I hate going over them, and I’m proceeding as daintily as possible for this part because I know this is the author’s debut, which is nerve-wracking as all hell. I have a couple of whinges that fall under the umbrella of world-building. I wondered why anyone would pick jail, for example, over prison, when the prison sentence isn’t much longer and everyone seems to know that the sewers most likely mean death. I would have loved to have seen how awful this prison system is that folk would prefer to take their chances with the mutants. I think my biggest “aw, man!” is that most of the women in this book aren’t part of any group or side, but are in there to be the recipients of male violence, or are serving men. It seemed a bit more of an oversight than a depiction of world politics here, which was a shame because the more rounded characters were very interesting. There are also a couple of language choices that I feel should have been picked up on by the editor (I don’t know if they were and the author disregarded such notes, my point is that between the author and the editor, they could have been ironed out).
Now, with that out of the way, I can get around to the part of the review that doesn’t make me curl into a ball of guilt! Things I enjoyed!
I really enjoyed the overall story and thought it was plotted well. I suspect that the author is most likely a fantasy fan/reader, and the weaving of certain elements felt very true to the genre. Deception, loyalty, revelations, plus some “could be supernatural or fantasy sci-fi” details. The characters’ motivations made a lot of sense to me, with antagonists being surprisingly deep the further into the book I went. I think some of the side characters could have been established a little more strongly because there are quite a few (I lose track so easily with numerous characters), but the main characters were immediately identifiable and drawn really well. William, our protagonist, was particularly easy to envision and get on board with, and I liked him a lot.
There was much more going on than I originally assumed, with details and clues sewn in along the way, which always makes me happen when we round the final few chapters and everything pulls together this neatly.
Overall, I gave this a 3/5 (meaning that I enjoyed it and am happy to have spent time with it). I think fantasy fans might enjoy it!
If you’d like to check out the book, I’ve popped a link below for you:
Bleeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
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