W P Wiles’s The Last Blade Priest is set in a vivid fantasy world where the traditional and the progressive clash. The novel flips between two perspectives, those of Inar, a master builder for the conquered kingdom of Mishig-Tenh, who has the ability to see and manipulate minerals in stone, and Anton, a Blade Priest for the God Mountain, whose existence is built around human sacrifice but is secretly against bloodshed.

Inar, the son of a notorious traitor, is forced to work with the conquerors and report back any information he can glean from the League, a military power which believes it is civilising the world and looks down on the barbaric traditions of Mishig-Tenh: ‘The League does not