ARC Review--Warrior of the Wild by Tricia Levenseller

How do you kill a god?

As her father's chosen heir, eighteen-year-old Rasmira has trained her whole life to become a warrior and lead her village. But when her coming-of-age trial is sabotaged and she fails the test, her father banishes her to the monster-filled wilderness with an impossible quest: to win back her honour, she must kill the oppressive god who claims tribute from the villages each year or die trying.

I received this ARC in a fair trade on the booksfortrade hashtag. My review is completely honest and voluntary, I was in no way compensated for this review. 


If you love Tricia Levenseller's Daughter of the Pirate King, you're going to love Tricia's next heroine as she's a tough as nails warrior woman! Warrior of the Wild is Tricia's standalone novel that follows Rasmira, the only female warrior in her village and when she's betrayed by people she thought she knew, she finds herself outcast from her village with an impossible task set before, she should want to seek redemption. This was a fast paced story filled with adventure, surprises galore, and MONSTERS! 

Rasmira is the only female warrior in her village and she's been trained to follower in her father's, the leader of the village, footsteps. But when she and the other warrior trainees take their final test to prove themselves, Rasmira finds out she has been betrayed by the people she thought she knew. It's not long into the story when we find Rasmira being outcast into the wilds. She's give an impossible task known as a mattugr that basically sets her up for failure in its impossibility. The task? To kill the god that has been terrorizing their villages for years.

I was quite surprised that once Rasmira is on her way to her seclusion in the wilds that she encounters two other outcast teens. At the same time, I was actually hoping for something like this to happen because I couldn't imagine reading a 300+ page book about a heroine who didn't get to interact with anyone other than monsters and the god she is tasked with killing. She meets Soren and Irik, two boys who failed their final tests and have their own impossible mattugrs ahead of them. While Rasmira is loathed to let herself trust again, she finds herself doing just that with these boys. They discover that if they have any hope of returning to their homes, they will have to learn to work together.

I quite enjoyed Rasmira's interactions with Soren and Irik! And never fear, there is no love triangle here as Irik is already spoken for! But that leaves Soren up for grabs! Soren is the first to "fall," yet Rasmira isn't about to let her heart get broken again and constantly shuts down Soren's attempts. It was rather realistic to see Rasmira being unwilling to trust Soren whatsoever. The way that she was betrayed would definitely leave its scars on you and trusting again wouldn't be easy. But as you can imagine, that begins to change, ever so slowly, over the course of the novel.

I really enjoyed Rasmira's character. She wasn't perfect, she had her flaws, but I really liked that she began to learn that about herself and slowly change (in the right ways) to become a better person. She wasn't horrible mind you, but there were little things that get pointed out to her eventually and though it's never stated, you can clearly see her trying to be better.

The ending was quite amazing! I loved everything that led up to it and then the grand finale itself! The story leaves us in the perfect place too! It's the way I prefer my series (and standalones) to end! Warrior of the Wild has a lot going for it! It's action packed, there's MONSTERS, seriously scary and deadly monsters, romance, humor, shocking surprises, and growth from lessons learned. It was thought provoking in a roundabout way.

There were only a few minor things that bugged me about this. Nothing too extreme, but I feel like I can't say with confidence that it was a flawless read. Sure there were times when I didn't agree with Rasmira's choices, but I feel like that's typical of any book because if she made the choices I wanted her to go for, there wouldn't be a story! Lol. Perhaps I just needed more to the story as well. Just the simple MORE. I think if there was just a little something more to it I would be all over giving this one five stars. It's still a tremendously worthy story that I still highly recommend! It's definitely different from my usual fantasy reads and I really loved the warrior woman vibe it had going! This is a story not to be missed!


Overall Rating 4/5 stars


Warrior of the Wild releases February 26, 2019