No Gods West of Here By Hanna Gaard

A people-pleasing scholar. A dangerous cult leader. Good luck picking sides.

Talia Salaren is a brilliant scholar and obedient eldest daughter with a bright future decided by everyone but her.

Then she finds a dead god’s salacious journal.

The secrets inside could unravel four centuries of empire. The gods were jerks, and their power was stolen, claimed by five families who built legacies on a lie. Families like hers.

With her life’s work outlawed, Talia flees to Gateway, a frontier boomtown where divine magic is clawed from the earth like gold. She walks straight into a trap — a dangerous expedition led by a cult leader who is very good at making people want things they shouldn’t. He has no interest in studying the gods. He plans to become one.

As their uneasy company pushes deeper into godforsaken territory, the myths she was raised to believe begin to fracture — along with the careful version of herself she’s always performed.

The cult leader is wrong. She knows it.
For once, she wants to be wrong too.

If Talia doesn’t choose what she stands for — and who she’s willing to lose — she won’t just have her heart broken. She’ll become someone else’s weapon.