I'm honestly not sure what to make of this book. I enjoyed the read; I certainly wouldn't have read a 600 page book I wasn't enjoying. However, I can't quite understand how I'm supposed to feel here.

If you've ever watched a religious debate between two religions, that's something like what's going on here. Only in this case very real evidence of both sides' gods are clear as day, but each side is still screaming that they are the right religion and those others are heretics and must die. Lots of zealotry and "fun" things like that.

I enjoyed the world building and explaination of religions, even if their followers could be nutcases (though I suppose that's true to life). There were a lot of well thought out characters, though it was getting close to a Game of Thrones level of confusion of names to remember. Both male and female knights were called "Sir," which didn't help matters any.

I liked Malcolm until he chose his religion over his son.

Ian I found to be a petulent brat. He got mildly better toward the end. Gwen was slightly less so.

I think my favorite characters were Friar Lucas and Sir Elsa LaFey. Lucas was the most level-headed out of the lot. Elsa I instantly got the image of Gwendoline Christie's Brienne of Tarth in my brain and it never went away. Not that that's a bad thing. ( )

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway. Review will be added later.

The Pagan Night is a frustrating novel. Not because it is a bad one - it actually is a pretty good one. But it is extremely uneven - and it feels as if some of the less developed parts were added to allow the novel to conform to the standard of the heroic fantasy genre. And the novel drags in the middle - it could have used some cutting. Although if it was cut, I suspect the wrong pieces would have gone.

Years ago the world contained two nations - the South Suhdra and the North Tener, each with their own gods. Then Suhdra decided that their religion, The Celestial Church of the Lady Strife and the Lord Cinder, is the only valid faith and mounted the crusades against Tener. They called it a war, the North called in an invasion. At the end the Northern lords submitted to the new religion, embraced it and changed their ways. And the old religions started to die out. Then inhumans showed up at the door and the two nations united against the enemy. And with a war and a religion behind their backs, things calmed down - the Inquisition is chasing the Pagans that are still hiding in the forests of the north, the old gods manifest as half-crazy gheists that are getting killed and the world seems to finally found its place. Except that the Suhdrans do not really trust the Tenerrans - and the world is about to explode again. Welcome to the start of the novel.

Akers uses words that we know and that bring a lot of backstory and recasts them in another world - the Inquisition and the crusades that we know from the Christianity's history have the same meaning in this world (except that instead of the holy places, these crusades are just going against the pagans); the Pagans are a mix of a lot of religions with some more elements tied together. That is the part of the novel that works perfectly - the two religions are built and executed coherently and completely; without being copies of existing ones. The part that does not really work are the war scenes - they drag. Maybe because I wanted to get back to the real story - the war between the Pagans and the Celestial Church and the minds and lives of the man inside of that war.

The whole story starts with a betrayal, it also finishes with one. It is built on betrayal - every time when you think you can see the lines in the sand, they shift and move. The last betrayal came as a shock - not because I could not have seen it but because I did not allow myself to see it - it made the next novel inevitable but was handled so well that you did not feel as if the novel was ended this way just to have a second volumes - it feels like a whole story split in pieces (and I need to wait a year for the next volume and then another one for the third...)

But it is not just the religions and the wars - it is the people that make the novel possible and highly readable - the Northern families - the Adairs (who are either the biggest betrayers or the only ones that stayed faithful) and the Blakleys (who are the main characters in a way - with Malcolm trying to safe the world from a war and Ian being young and stupid and almost doing all to start a war), the priests - both the main Inquisitor and his pet helpers and Friar Lucas and his vow knight, Sir LeFey (who is one woman that you would like to have next to you) and the southern lords (who are there mainly to be used by the church from the looks of it - except for the few that have enough sense to think for their own).

The novel is full of castles and lists, knights and battle, magic and youthful mistakes. Gwendolyn Adair almost single handedly starts the war - first when she decides to stand for peasants and then when she decides that she can just abandon her post in the war. And Ian Blakley seems to be pulled in all directions at all times - between family and friends, between new and old ways, between love and hate.

At the end of the novel Ian and Gwen are in positions to change the world, half the people we met are dead (or close to that anyway), the war had started and one of the old Pagan gods is back. And way too many people may still have other agendas.

It is a good novel - it won't be to everyone's taste I suspect but it worked for me. ( )