Title: The Shield of Nike
(War of the Gods Companion Story #1)
Author: A.P. Mobley
Genre: Fantasy
Format: eBook
Length: 102 pages
Publisher: Sea of Ink Press
Publish Date: January 12, 2019
Setting: North Dakota

Graphic Deaths, Violence, Parental Death

Korean-American

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to BookSirens and Sea of Ink Press for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

I’m kind of bummed that this ended up being a novella, because I was pretty intrigued by the premise of the story. Although I will say that for the length of this novella, I think it was pretty good and tied most of the things up with just enough left out to leave you wanting more.

There were some aspects about this novel that I was a little confused about because it wasn’t explained at all, or at least not enough for me. It was also pretty graphic at some parts, so definitely watch out for that. It wasn’t too bad that it describes any deaths or graphic violence in too much detail, but they could get there.

This also looks like it could work as a prequel to everything that’s happening in the original War of the Gods series, and explains where our main character Valeria comes from, although from what I read, I have no idea if she or Greg are even involved in the original series.

I like that this novel focused on Nike, since she’s not one of the “main” gods and goddesses that usually get mentioned in some sort of Greek mythology novels, so that was cool. Although I’m also kind of bummed that this was a novella and we don’t really get to see enough of Nike or learn more about her than what she really mentioned in the novel. I’m also curious to know why Nike was chosen, or how it’s possible that… well wait that may be a spoiler so I won’t ask that question. But anyway, yeah I wish I could have seen more of Nike.

I think in the short amount of time that we got to see Valeria, I don’t think we learned enough about her to want to root for her. Although I did end up wanting to root for her after everything she had to endure in such a short amount of time. Ugh I repeated that statement in the same paragraph, gross. I was a little irritated at her because she was pretty hard-headed at certain times and I was just like SHUT UPPPPPPPP AND LISTEN PLEASE! But then, if an MC doesn’t give me a hard time every once in a while, are they even a good MC? I’ll let you decide that for yourself.