I was given a free e-copy of Hardening Steel by Mark B. Gilgam (author), BooksGoSocial (publisher), and Net Galley. Hardening Steel is the first book in the Wandering Blacksmith series.

This review will be spoiler free.

I would characterize Hardening Steel as a coming of an age story with a little bit of magic and a few non-human beings and monsters.

Mr. Gilgam creates a world that is both engaging and dangerous. Majority of the story takes place an island that is thought to be at the end of the world. The island is wet and cold in the winter and hot and full of blooming flowers and sunshine in the summer.

Many people come to the island because the main character’s father has a reputation of being a renowned weapons and blacksmith. The father has the magical ability to create the ideal weapon for each person who comes to the island to get a new weapon.

Magic is an important component of the story. It is believed the island has some magical characteristics that imbue the blacksmith with the capabilities to be able to create the weapons that are sought out by warriors, fighters, and knights from all over the world.

Mr. Gilgam has created a small cast of interesting and engaging characters, especially the side characters. The main character’s family is a found family and they appear to have an ideal existence on the island. The father is the blacksmith/weaponsmith and mother is a healer. Each of the parents is three-dimensional and have something to do in the story.

A few chapters feature a character or a group of characters that come to the island. A couple of these chapters feature an order of knights, its leader, and the second-in-command. The leader and second-in-command characters are the characters I enjoyed the most in the story and they both added a light and comedic touch to an otherwise dark story.

The main character is a youth and an early teen for most of the story. He has the innate ability to learn languages, proficient enough to beat wise and seasoned knights in duels, and as capable as his father in making weapons. The main character is from a race of people where violence is a way of life. The main character is involved in some dangerous situation but always ends up on the right side of things. I felt the main character is too perfect and I think his character arc would have been a little more engaging if the story featured the main character experiencing some reversals of fortune and he responds to the setbacks. I think there is one flaw that the main character has and that is doing things that disappoint his parents, particularly his mother. I hope this flaw of the main character is developed more in subsequent books in this series.

Another aspect of the story that impacted my overall enjoyment of the story is the second half of the story slows to a crawl and took me out of the story on more than one occasion. The ending is solid but could have flowed better if it was a bit tighter.

Hardening Steel does have some flaws, especially with the main character and not having any significant flaws, but I still enjoyed the story and look forward to reading Heavy Metals which is the next book in the series.

I rate Hardening Steel 3 stars.

I would like to thank Mr. Gilgam, BooksGoSocial, and Net Galley for the free ARC.