Blood and Empire
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Power is never granted… it can only be seized.
BLOOD AND EMPIRE begins best-selling author James Maxwell’s long-awaited new epic fantasy series, THE GATEWAY SAGA—a gripping tale of ambition, sacrifice, and defiance in the face of destiny.
Young seamstress Bethany dreams of becoming a diviner, one of the select few able to navigate the mysterious gateways that unite the empire. But without wealth or education, and only her mother to raise her, she is on a path to disappointment.
Then Bethany meets Charlton, a cleric, who offers her books and guidance, and she glimpses a life she had thought unreachable. Her problems grow, however, when her ambitions draw attention and her father re-enters her life, confronting her with a past she still needs to come to terms with.
As invasion threatens the empire, and intrigue and betrayal create fault lines amongst the highest circles, Bethany must learn to master both powerful forces and herself, in order to confront the darkness within her own bloodline—and save the empire from itself.
What readers are saying...
“This is ambition, magic, and political knife-twisting that’d make Game of Thrones look like a polite debate club.”
"My one complaint? It ends."
Series
Featured Series
1 primary book#1 in The Gateway Saga
The Gateway Saga is a 1-book series first released in 2025 with contributions by James Maxwell.
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I received this book as an ARC.
The overall premise of the book is good, though there are several things which make it challenging to get through.
First, the story itself has a strange mixture of falling flat while introducing additional confusion since the descriptions leads you to believe it is from a single POV and then you find out there are multiple.
There is world building and a lot of details to set up an epic fantasy; however, it almost seems like the entire book is to lay the foundational world building and to get you to book two. Which I totally understand is how a series builds, but usually the first book gets the basics of the story, characters, world and starts the main plot then ends on a cliff hanger. A lot of this book felt confusing or disjointed, almost like it should have been a prequel novella VS a standalone intro to the series.
There are some great themes throughout and I think there is a great potential for the story in book two. I will be interested to see how the author continues the series.