Agoness by Cisi De & Cage Dunn

Guys. Guys. I had an author offer me a copy of their book! It’s my first offer and I’m clearly excited. To be fair, the illustrious Cage Dunn didn’t ask me to write a review… but that’s kind of what I do. So want it or not, here it is. 

Side note: feel free to visit his website here or purchase his book here. 

Agoness tells the story of Landis, a military leader, tasked with protecting Agoness, daughter to the leader of a now forbidden religion as the kingdom learns she exists, and she works through a ritual required to find her an appropriate husband. 

I feel like my brief summary leaves so much to be desired. The book is much more epic battle than “The Bachelor” style romance. And that’s a good thing.  Although I enjoyed the book overall, there are a couple things I could’ve lived with being different. 

• The beginning of the book really confused me. I re-read the beginning after finishing the book and didn’t have the same issue, but I had a lot more background to apply. So maybe my brain just wasn’t working the first time through or perhaps a little more background to fill in pieces at the beginning may have helped. 
• I would’ve loved more details overall. The story is intriguing and there are lots of intricacies, including a world with things like poisonous grass. I would’ve loved to get all the crazy details that De and Dunn clearly had in mind as they wrote the story. 
• The chapters are short. This is actually both something I didn’t love and I did love. In the parts of the story that build toward tension felt choppy. On the other hand, during the tense scenes, the short chapters really added to the choppy/stressful feelings the characters experience. 

Now that I’ve already started into things I loved, we’ll just make it official. 

• Landis. I love that he’s so human. He clearly has spent years making sacrifices to lead and protect his people. This factors into all of his decisions, but De and Dunn do a great job of keeping it real as he thinks through his wants or fears. He worries about losing fights or going down in history as a failure before bucking up and getting to business. So. Relatable. 
• Excitement. There is a lot of adventure/excitement in the story. Very “battle to save the world type” of excitement. It’s fun to have single book rather than a series get to that epic battle level feeling. 
• The book obviously covers saving a once beloved religion now practiced in secret, if at all, but both the book title and woman causing the fight clearly demonstrate that absolute commitment to a cause can cause just as much agony as joy. It’s insightful and well outlined in the story without being “hit you over the head” obvious about it. 

All in all, I’m so happy I read the book. Extremely grateful to Cage Dunn for sharing. And think it’s something you should add to your TBR lists.