Full Fathom Five

 Full Fathom Five by Max Gladstone, 382 pages.

It's hard to even begin describing the premise of this novel, which takes place in the same world as Three Parts Dead. The priests on the island of Kavekana make idols, because there haven't been gods on the island since theirs sailed away during the god wars. The idols aren't like gods, and they essentially function as safe repositories of faith untouchable by foreign gods or deathless kings (a significant part of this book is about fantasy off-shore banking). They can't think or speak, and they aren't sentient. Which makes it a real problem when some of them seem to be spontaneously doing some of those things. Kai, who builds idols, is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, no matter the consequences. Kai is only one of the protagonists, but it would take even longer to explain the street kid/priestess of dead gods, so I'll leave that element a mystery.

I know that synopsis was a lot, but this book is really good! It's twisty and complex, and I had a hard time putting it down for the whole final third. Although this series is designed to be read in pretty much any order, I still feel like I maybe should have read some of the earlier chronological books first, just to appreciate everything. These books are refreshingly weird, and I'm definitely still excited to read more of them.