Winds of Strife

The Dawnless Night, Book 1

By: U. G. Gutman

Narrated by: Amanda Leigh Cobb

They burned me and mine. I'm not done until I burn them and theirs in return.

Witch hunts have plagued the kingdom of Olyanath for decades. Thousands were slain due to the king’s paranoia of women who practice Senspiritic magic. No more.

Nye and his companions have seen enough of murder and misogyny. Fifteen years have passed since he joined the witch hunters, and now, at long last, an opportunity to destroy them from the inside reveals itself. An opportunity to overthrow the king and end his reign of cruelty. But 15 years of pretense have taken a toll. The strive for vengeance has steered Nye toward a path of violence and villainy. His hands are stained by the blood of countless innocents, his heart is scorched by grief, and his sanity hangs by a thread.

Even if he can kill the king and see this revolution through, it may not suffice to purge the voices from his head.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2021 U. G. Gutman (P)2021 Podium Audio

Deep, magical, a world to discover

I loved it.

it was deep and heavy with a full world to immerse myself into.

every character has a dark side or an unknown depth that is slowly discovered, and as the story progresses, they change and evolve.

amazing.

A Great debut for both the author and the series!

I really enjoyed this one.
The world building and magic system were top notch (very Sanderson-esque) and gripped me from the very start.
The morally grey (dark grey) characters were interesting, if somewhat one note.
The ending was not as climactic as I may have hoped, but that left me wanting to know more about what's going to happen next, and I'll definitely check out the next one.

All in all, a great debut, and a great first book in the series. Hope the author builds on it to reach even higher.

Fantastic Fantasy Debut!

This audiobook was a great listening experience! The story was great, and the narrator did a fantastic job of bringing the story and the characters to life! Looking forward to the sequel!

Awesome magic system and characters, recommended

There’s an intriguing balance of the magic system in this one. While many characters and powers can seem overpowered, the author did well to show us just how limited they actually are.
Take Diane, for example. She’s incredibly powerful, she can beat anyone, but she can’t force people to think the way she wants them to think. And this is her goal. Her powers can’t magically bring her that goal, and that’s cool. Also she can’t really use her powers to defend herself from Nye because that will only make things worse, and that’s just sooooo real!


I also liked the system of rock-paper-scissors between the different powers. Felt a bit reminiscent of gaming, in a good way.
The characters are very deep. Nye with his mental disorder, for example, all the voice-hearing thing, it was really intriguing to follow. And I love how it was contrasted with Glitter’s attitude.

I did have some issues with the plot. Some of it felt a bit forced or coincidental, but it was always in the small stuff.
The big, pivotal moments were all planned with cause and effect in a satisfying way.
But the small stuff… eh, some of them were a little weak.

Overall I give Winds of Strife 5 stars because of the reading experience. The book isn’t perfect, but most of it is A LOT of fun to read, and I hardly felt the length of it. Only in a few chapters. Looking forward to book 2! The epilogue really leaves the reader on the edge of the seat!!

A Great Debut

I am a little late writing my review here. Winds of Strife is a great debut for an author whose career I look forward to following very closely. The Story we get here is one of madness, darkness, and the struggle to be better. Nye is a character that you want to root for but struggle with to justify his actions. I supposed my biggest suggestion to all is that If you are looking for a book that tackles emotional, mental, and physical abuse through the eyes of fantasy look no further.
In this book, we deal with many issues on morality and if the ends do justify the means. The magic system alone is unique and well developed. The characters are well fleshed out and highly dynamic and there is a little something for everyone in this story. Overall this was a solid 4/5. I really enjoyed this book. I have the physical and the Audio. With a fantastic narrator and high quilty physical copies. Any way you consume Winds of Strife promises to be an enjoyable experience.

If you love anti-hero stories this one is for

First of all I think I need to address the fact everyone is mentioning this is the Author's first book in their reviews. Yes, it's his first book, BUT this book is on a higher level than most books coming out in later years, so keep in mind it's not just a good first book for the author, it's simply a good book.

Now to the story and world building. The world the author created seems rich in history and feels alive (every action the MC takes has a butterfly effect on the world). But sadly we don’t get to see much of that. We only get glimpses of history when the princes draw them or when they have a discussion on the etymology of the curse words in their world. I would love to read a chapter about one of the characters strolling in the city and get to know it better, because then I would get to know it better as well. Having said all that, we do get to see a complex and interesting new magic system that governs the world. Harnessing one's emotions can make you do incredible things, and knowing how to harness more than one makes you a force to be reckoned with. I love the fact that essentially every one can learn magic if they're given the chance at a young enough age, that makes the emotional based system feel more real.

As for the story, the plot involves two main groups trying to undo the witch hunters organization. One from within and one through attar complete chaos. I won't get into who does things better because of spoilers, but know that each group has their "crazy person" calling the shots. On that note the author did a really good job portraying the MC's madness and the whole story gets better by it. As a twist lover I must admit I was a bit disappointed because the big important twist was unnecessary from a reader's point of view. I get confusion is important, but making the twist to be a bit more confusing and not having real stakes for the characters just felt, well, pointless. So yeah, the hero did an extra layer of confusion, but it was needed only because the author decided it was needed, so he might as well could go without the extra layer… having said all that, the story itself is very interesting and having a mad man calling the shot as the main anti-hero is refreshing.

The book gets a 4.5/5 for me and it's highly recommended as a good fantasy novel.

And for those of you who fear starting a new trilogy and not knowing if it's going to be published, the author finished the next two books but now fixing them to be even better :)

Great debut!!

Winds of Strife is a VERY solid debut of the author U.G Gutman! He has been able to create a compelling world with a thrilling story where the nights are getting longer and longer and the only way to stop them seems to be hunting down witches. To achieve it, the king uses the Harbingers, a group of warriors that are able to harness magic (yeah, magic!!!) to their purpose.

So, let's talk about the magic!! Very reminiscent of Brandon Sanderson's magic, Winds of Strife has a magic system that follows very clear rules! (we have witches and magical powers but they don't spontaneously do whatever they like!) The magic is based on emotions (how cooool is that? - very very cool!)

The characters are gray, like really gray! and we have some trigger warnings about mental illnesses & physical abuse... but the author makes it work! It doesn't have clearly hateful characters (well, just one, lol!) and all of them do good and bad stuff- I think that's the magic of this book, to be honest!

All in all, a great book if you want to jump into a new world with a great magic system!!

grimdark. meets hard magic system !

Excellent doubt book, it has its flaws, but the world-building and crazy magic system (obviously influenced by Sanderson), in addition to the grimdark vibe, make the book worth the ride. This book deals with certain heavy topics such as mental illness and abuse, very thought-provoking but not meant to be read by all readers. If you like Sanderson's magic system and writing style with a grimdark, feel this book is for you!

Emotion-based powers? Sign me up!

Hard magic system ✅
Morally gray characters ✅
Questionable decisions ✅
Mystery ✅
An explosive ending and a truly fascinating epilogue ✅
A very messed up, but realistic (not graphic) portrayal of abuse ✅
Great narration ✅

Don't trust me on it, see for yourself!

P.S. the beginning is relatively slow, but don't let that fool you—everything will come back around and slap you in the face eventually

solid magic system, interesting crazy hero-villaim

besides that, the plot developed is a bit too easily. I recommend it if you want a simple and clear fantasy