Synopsis
A drug addict who hunts sorcerers down by tracking their magick, the most renowned swordsman no one has ever heard of, and a thieving magick-wielding woman hellbent on revenge collide during a last ditch effort to stop an insane superhuman serial killer from making himself a god.
The wise run from them.
Swords are useless against them.
Only the fearless dare pursue them.
Rogue magick users are the most dangerous people in the world.
When one of them finds a way to become luminous and break into the source of all magick, even their own kind will join the pursuit.
The Render Tracers always say magick users deserve to burn. Aren couldn’t agree more, Keluwen would beg to differ, and Corrin couldn’t care less either way.
In a world where most people use swords for protection, Aren uses tools that let him see what no one else can see, and he takes advantage of loopholes that can undo magick in order to stop the deadliest people in the world. He is a Render Tracer, relentlessly pursuing rogue sorcerers who bend the laws of physics to steal, assault, and kill. But his next hunt will lead him to question his entire life, plunging him into a world where he can’t trust anyone, not even his own eyes.
When Keluwen finally escaped her fourthparents’ home and set out on her own to become a thief, she never thought she would one day be killing her own kind. She honed her magick on the streets, haunted by her past, hunted by Render Tracers, and feared by a society that hates what she is. Now she joins a crew of outcast magicians on a path of vengeance as they race to stop an insane sorcerer who has unlocked the source of all magick and is trying to use it to make himself a god.
Corrin is a sword fighter first, a drinker second, and a…well, there must be something else he is good at. He’ll think of it if you give him enough time. He is a rogue for hire, and he has no special powers of any kind. The most magick he has ever done is piss into the wind without getting any on himself. He is terrible at staying out of trouble, and someone always seems to be chasing him. When he gets caught up in a multi-kingdom manhunt, he finds himself having to care about other people for a change, and he’s not happy about it.
They are about to collide on the trail of a man who is impossible to catch, who is on the verge of plunging the world into ruin, and who can turn loyal people into traitors in a single conversation. They must struggle against their own obsessions, their fears, ancient prophecies, and each other. They will each have to balance the people they love against their missions, and struggle to avoid becoming the very thing they are trying to stop.
Review
I recieved an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review. I am honored to be taking part in the Escapist book tours as they recommending newer authors to the wider viewership. We Break Immortals is a monumental endeavor on the part of Thomas Howard Riley and many months (probably years) in the making. The story starts out with a murder to obtain power but quickly evolves to be the very epic we have grown to expect in the genre today. This being the authors debut novel has me still shacking in my boots as for what is to come!
Through out the book we follow three primary characters with a little twist at the end of several chapters but more on that later. Aren is hunter a of magic users with the pension for indulging in drugs to numb his pain. As a Render Tracker, Aren is able to use his abilities to render the sorcerers from using their source of magik in order to apprehend them but even that is not a small task. After his endeavors, Aren is tasked by the Lord Protector to hunt down a powerful magick user but this will drive Aren to the edge in more ways than one. Keluwen is in fact one such magick user who grew up on the streets and had to learn her skills without any help. When she discovers that the murder victim is someone she knows, Keluwen joins a group of outcast magicians on the hunt for a mad sorcerer trying to make himself immortal. Corrin is a sword master and a rogue for hire. There is never enough weapons for Corrin to add to his collection as he cares for for them then the people around him. Corrin will embark on a manhunt across multiple kingdoms and it will test everything Corrin holds dear making him choose between the person he is and the person he is destined to become. All three of these story lines will converge and all I can say to that effect is get your popcorn ready and it will be entertaining encounters to say the least.
The worldbuilding in We Break Immortals is grand and very ambitious but the real shining star are the characters. Thomas will get you into these characters heads very early and you will feel their troubles, fears, motivations, and worst secrets. Aren was my favorite character to read and some of the choices he makes will stick with you for a while. The opening few chapters you will get a lot of information thrown at you but it will set up the rest of the story and I picked it up in no time. With this being a 700 page doorstop, there will be plenty of juicy plot and story for every kind of reader to enjoy. Be warned that this story has plenty of blood, gore, and disturbing scenes and you can put it right on the edge of a grimdark novel but it never crosses that barrier. The writing isn’t the smoothest I have ever read because of the details the reader needs at the beginning, but Thomas finds his stride by the half way point and it is smooth sailing towards the end (writing style wise).
To sum it all up, this is a triumph for debut author Thomas Howard Riley! The care for his characters, magic system, worldbuilding, and attention to detail is like he wrote a manuscript for other authors to follow. If this is what he was able to produce for book 1, I can’t imagine how this can be topped but I have been wrong before. Fingers crossed I am once again!
Cheers!
Under The Radar SFF Books 
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