‘You are not welcome here, godkiller.’ Read an excerpt from Hannah Kaner’s dark, gritty fantasy debut Godkiller
More about the book!

Enter a land where all gods have been banned, and one young woman is paid to kill those who still hide in the shadows …

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner is the explosive #1 internationally bestselling fantasy debut in a new trilogy, for fans of The Witcher and American Gods.

Read an excerpt from the book below!

About the book

You are not welcome here, godkiller

Kissen’s family were killed by zealots of a fire god. Now, she makes a living killing gods, and enjoys it. That is until she finds a god she cannot kill: Skedi, a god of white lies, has somehow bound himself to a young noble, and they are both on the run from unknown assassins.

Joined by a disillusioned knight on a secret quest, they must travel to the ruined city of Blenraden, where the last of the wild gods reside, to each beg a favour.

Pursued by demons, and in the midst of burgeoning civil war, they will all face a reckoning – something is rotting at the heart of their world, and only they can be the ones to stop it.

Hannah Kaner is a Northumbrian writer living in Scotland. She works as a senior digital consultant in Edinburgh, delivering digital healthcare, tools, and services for the public sector. She has a first class degree in English from Pembroke College, Cambridge, and a Masters of Science with distinction from the University of Edinburgh. She is inspired by world mythologies, angry women, speculative fiction, and the stories we tell ourselves about being human.

Read an excerpt:

It was hard to kill a god in its element. Kissen reminded herself of that with every cursed step she took up the steep hilled slopes of midwestern Middren, Talicia’s once more powerful neighbour. That was until it lost its eastern trade city of Blenraden, and half the people in it, to bickering gods. Terrible for Middren, but good for the coin purses of godkillers like Kissen.

The air was close and chill with the morning; Middren had barely begun to shake off winter’s grasp. Though her right leg was built for hiking, and she had double-bound her knee, she could already feel nubs of blisters forming where her prosthesis met her flesh that would cause her a world of pain later.

The narrow way through the forest was thick with mud and half-formed ice, but Kissen could trace the shape of a foot in the moss here, a turned rock there, even drops of blood in places that told her this was the right way; this was the kind of path people would pray on.

Despite her tracking skills the sun was half risen by the time she had found the marker: a line of white stones at the edge of the track where the ground levelled out to a nearby stream; a threshold. She rolled her shoulders and took a breath. She could perhaps have lured this god to a smaller shrine, but that would take time and patience. She had neither.

She crossed the line.

The sounds changed. Gone was the birdsong of the early morning and the scent of leaves and mulch. Instead, she could hear rushing water, sense depth and cold stone, and smell the faintest traces of incense in the air – and blood.

It was harder to unmake a god than to begin one. Even a recent-born god like this, barely a few years old. Harder still to tempt one with a coin or a bead when it had developed a taste for sacrifice.

The smell of incense grew as Kissen moved carefully down the bank. The god knew she was here. She stopped on the stones of the shore accepting the ache of her legs, the cold of the morning, and sharp nip of blisters. She did not bare her sword, not yet. The river was shallow, but the current was strong, white with foam from the nearest falls.

The air cooled.

You are not welcome here, godkiller. The mindspeak of gods was worse than a needle to the skull. It felt like a tearing of her mind, an invasion.