![A book cover featuring a person with red hair, wielding two swords, leaping into action](https://sites.lafayette.edu/newquisk/files/2021/12/empires-ruin.jpg)
I enjoyed the world building – and world destroying – in Brian Staveley’s Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne, in which alien gods walk the earth, an Empire struggles to survive against an ancient conspiracy, and the Kettral – elite, giant-bird riding warriors – try to stay alive through it all. This book picks up five years later … and things haven’t gone well for the Empire. The Kettral are all but wiped out and rebellion against the Empire is wide-spread. This book is part of my Summer 2022 reading list, which you can check out on GoodReads.