A perfectly reasonable amount of DNFs this month! I am relieved.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Minor bisexual character
PoV: Third-person, past-tense; multiple PoVs
Goodreads
Blood once turned the wheels of empire. Now it is money.
A new age of exploration and innovation has dawned, and the Empire of the Wolf stands to take its place as the foremost power in the known world. Glory and riches await.
But dark days are coming. A mysterious plague has broken out in the pagan kingdoms to the north, while in the south, the Empire's proxy war in the lands of the wolfmen is weeks away from total collapse.
Worse still is the message brought to the Empress by two heretic monks, who claim to have lost contact with the spirits of the afterlife. The monks believe this is the start of an ancient prophecy heralding the end of days-the Great Silence.
It falls to Renata Rainer, a low-ranking ambassador to an enigmatic and vicious race of mermen, to seek answers from those who still practice the arcane arts. But with the road south beset by war and the Empire on the brink of supernatural catastrophe, soon there may not be a world left to save . . .
Grave Empire is the first novel in an unmissable new epic fantasy series from Sunday Times bestseling author Rich Swan, packed full of action, intrigue and adventure
Did I have a horrific time with Swan’s debut, Justice of Kings? Indeed I did. So was it dumb to pick up the first book of his new trilogy, set in the same world centuries later???
I mean, evidently.
I heard that one of our MCs was an ambassador to merfolk and I wanted in, okay? That is a FANTASTIC idea, GIMME! But not only has that character never met any merfolk, she is unfortunately drowned out by two other PoVs that I couldn’t care less about: one, an out of his depth lieutenant just arrived in the tropics (and someone’s gonna need to explain to me how and why the Indigenous folks are ‘milk white’), and a deeply conservative (by which I mean, US-Republican-type) rich asshole who wants to weaponise a terrifying new plague because Capitalism. Both their plotlines are unremittingly mind-numbing, even with the supernatural horrors involved with both – while our ambassador gets bogged down in an endless Travelling Arc that should have been time-skipped.
Almost no pagetime goes to the Great Silence issue; the ambassador is travelling, then trying to enter a besieged city; the leiutenant hears sourceless weeping and screaming every night and just generally Regrets His Life Choices; and our third dude is an arrogant prick who doesn’t seem to have any reason for what he’s doing.
It really seems that Swan hasn’t learned anything since Justice: the one woman with any power in this book uses sex magic, which wouldn’t bother me if we had other women using other magics as well, but we don’t – so it just comes off as demeaning and ick. Of course she has to bounce on a dick to do her thing. Of course she does!
Renata doesn’t hesitate to leave her sister in critical condition and never worries about her once she’s left, which strikes me less as bad characterisation and more like bad writing. Unless you establish a character as having a very not-traditional approach to emotional attachments, this is, to not put too fine a point on it, batshit.
(Also, don’t think I didn’t notice that the sister is the only openly queer character, and is functionally fridged pages after we learn that about her. NOT A GOOD LOOK, SWAN, FFS.)
(I mean, it’s possible there are more queer characters after the halfway point, which is when I DNFed. But I’m not betting on it!!!)
Also-also, while we’re talking about bad writing: WHY WOULD YOU NOT VISUALLY DESCRIBE YOUR WOLF-MEN??? It’s like Swan assumed that everyone reading Grave Empire read the whole of the previous trilogy, where the wolf-men eventually showed up (I believe). But that is an especially dumb assumption to make, sir! I wasn’t around for that, and now I want to know what your wolf-men look like…AND YOU WON’T BLOODY TELL ME. What the fuck??? This is literally why separate series are SEPARATE SERIES: I’m not supposed to need to have read another set of books to know what’s happening in this one, even if they share a setting!
In fact, it’s not even ‘I need to have read other books to know what’s happening here’, it’s ‘I need to have read other books to know what your FANTASY SPECIES looks like’. I feel like that’s worse. Just describe them for me already. It’ll take you a couple of sentences, max! WHY WOULD YOU NOT???
Bonus insta-lust for some fucking reason on the part of our ambassador towards the one soldier who can get them into a city under siege (and don’t ask me why the fuck they had to go there instead of straight to the mer-people. It seemed very contrived to me.)
Basically, I realised all I was doing about this book was ranting about it to the hubby, and remembered that AHA, I DON’T HAVE TO FORCE MYSELF TO READ THIS. And promptly chucked it out the window.
(Metaphorically.)
Genres: Adult, Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC
PoV: Third-person, past-tense
ISBN: 000853618X
Goodreads
In this stunning conclusion to the Raven’s Trade duology that began with The Gilded Crown, Hellevir’s bargains with Death to save the ones she loves—including the princess she risked everything to bring back to life—may just lead to the ultimate sacrifice.
Hellevir’s gift to raise the dead once thrust her into the center of a court filled with backstabbing and treason, where she became duty bound to protect Princess Sullivain, the sole heir to the kingdom’s throne and target of many rivals eager for the crown. But the more Hellevir risked to keep Sullivain alive, and the more deeply she fell in love with the princess, the greater the cost became—for Hellevir’s power can only be granted by the strange figure who rules the afterlife, and there is always a price to pay.
Now Hellevir may have risked too much, and Sullivain has become obsessed with consolidating power to vanquish her foes once and for all—by whatever means necessary. Cast out to the fringes of a country on the verge of civil war, Hellevir is torn between protecting her heart or giving what little she has left to finish what she started. Yet, her connection with Sullivain runs deeper than the mortal world, and saving her friends and family might mean risking the woman she is still bound to by soul and blood.
To stop a war, Hellevir must unravel the last of Death’s riddles and decide, once and for all, who deserves to live, what a life is worth, and whether she can pay the price. This explosive finale to the Raven’s Trade duology is sure to satisfy fans of dark fantasy and queer romance.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
‘Explosive finale’? ‘Explosive finale’?! I made it to 43%, and I was bored out of my MIND.
WHAT EXPLOSIVENESS???
The whole first 40% is a gods-damn side-quest, wherein Hellevir gets involved in the lives of a couple of people in the little village she’s visiting. It has nothing to do with anything. Also: it’s been three years since the previous book, and she hasn’t a) found the next treasure for Death and b) resurrected anyone. I’m sorry??? This is the woman who literally resurrected a bird and a cat because she could…and you’re telling me in THREE YEARS she hasn’t brought anyone, or anything, else back to life?
Frankly, I don’t believe you. Hellevir is addicted, or something like addicted – maybe compelled is a kinder word – to reversing death. Are you seriously saying that in three years she didn’t come across a single dead bunny?
Also – and this really pissed me off – very quickly, we learn that the Onaistism church has now banned abortion. And, look. You never actually established that this church is bad. You know why? Because you never told us what they fucking believe! You didn’t tell us their moral code, you didn’t tell us their beliefs; all we know is that they encourage self-control and compassion (neither of which are bad things, even if you had Hellevir be all ‘why does anyone need to be told to be good?’ which seems very sneering) and once upon a time, members of this church burned people who could talk to spirits and things. We know that a couple of the modern priests don’t like Hellevir and tried to have her whipped in the previous book, but that does not actually mean the religion is fundamentally harmful, just that these few priests are terrible.
So suddenly announcing that the church has banned abortion feels like a quick, lazy way to make us hate them. And that’s why it annoyed me. Especially since the whole side-quest just establishes that Hellevir is prejudiced against the church unreasonably; she assumes the worst of a priest, but turns out to be wrong about that. So I wish Gordon could decide what she wants us to feel towards this church – are you saying they’re terrible, or not? And if you’re saying ‘it’s complicated’, then I would appreciate it if you would TELL ME WHAT THEY ACTUALLY BELIEVE. Jerking my emotions around about it – wasting 40% of a book on ‘surprise, the priest isn’t evil actually!’ – just makes me want to throw the book away. Quit telling me what to feel: show me what they believe and I’ll make up my own mind!
GAH.
And of course Hellevir is then called back to the capital because the princess needs her and I just didn’t care. Gordon wasted so much of my time with almost the full first half of the book, that it had used up all the goodwill Gilded Crown earned. I wasn’t willing to extend any more credit.
Bonus: Gordon continues to not let other animals be characters. Hellevir’s raven companion? He gets to be a character in his own right. All the other animals she can talk to – even the horse who has been with her for years at this point – don’t even get dialogue; we’re just told what they said. To the point that in Gilded Crown I genuinely thought Hellevir could only talk to birds at first, but no, she can talk to anything. It just seems so lazy – if Hellevir had a human companion for three years we’d all think it was deeply weird if they never got to talk, and functionally the horse is the same thing, for her.
Sigh. I really loved Gilded Crown, but I’m sorry, this just didn’t work for me at all.
Genres: Adult, Sci Fi
PoV: Third-person, present-tense
Goodreads
A new standalone sci-fi novel from Edward Ashton, author of Mickey7 (the inspiration for the major motion picture Mickey 17).
Dalton Greaves is a hero. He’s one of humankind’s first representatives to Unity, a pan-species confederation working to bring all sentient life into a single benevolent brotherhood.
That’s what they told him, anyway. The only actual members of Unity that he’s ever met are Boreau, a giant snail who seems more interested in plunder than spreading love and harmony, and Boreau’s human sidekick, Neera, who Dalton strongly suspects roped him into this gig so that she wouldn’t become the next one of Boreau’s crew to get eaten by locals while prospecting.
Funny thing, though—turns out there actually is a benevolent confederation out there, working for the good of all life. They call themselves the Assembly, and they really don’t like Unity. More to the point, they really, really don’t like Unity’s new human minions.
When an encounter between Boreau’s scout ship and an Assembly cruiser over a newly discovered world ends badly for both parties, Dalton finds himself marooned, caught between a stickman, one of the Assembly’s nightmarish shock troops, the planet’s natives, who aren’t winning any congeniality prizes themselves, and Neera, who might actually be the most dangerous of the three. To survive, he’ll need to navigate palace intrigue, alien morality, and a proposal that he literally cannot refuse, all while making sure Neera doesn’t come to the conclusion that he’s worth more to her dead than alive.
Part first contact story, part dark comedy, and part bizarre love triangle, The Fourth Consort asks an important how far would you go to survive? And more importantly, how many drinks would you need to go there?
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
I’m not sure this is a bad book, but it is definitely not a me-book. I wanted intricate, detailed worldbuilding, and I absolutely did not get it. It didn’t help that the prose is very ‘bestseller-y’ – plain, direct, lacking much description.
That’s why some people are going to really enjoy it, though. If you DON’T want lush prose and alien anthropology, then you’ll probably have a better time with this than I did. I suggest checking out other reviews, if you’re considering giving it a try – what I read bored me, and the reviews I’ve seen don’t indicate the plot gets any more interesting.
I suspect Ashton is just not a me-author! Which is fine.
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Representation: Disabled MC
PoV: First-person, present-tense
Published on: 10th June 2025
ISBN: 0593973208
Goodreads
A debut fantasy romance filled with hope after heartbreak, secrets, and betrayal, as a dancer-turned-spy must decide how far she will go to secure her freedom
My protector is gone, revealed to be a monster. But I remind myself that I am not a damsel. I’m no princess bound within a tower.
I am a shadow.Vasalie Moran was once a dancer in King Illian’s court, until he framed her for murder. Barely surviving her two years in the dungeons, she’s suddenly called to face her king. He offers her a deal: become his spy at the six-week royal Gathering and he’ll grant her freedom.
As Illian’s orders grow bloody and dangerous, forcing her to harm and betray those around her, Vasalie discovers that the monster she serves may be aligned with a bigger monster—one far closer to home. With her world threatened, Vasalie enlists the help of Illian’s brother and greatest adversary, the infamous King of the East.
As the rivalry between brothers escalates, with Vasalie caught in the middle, the horrifying truth of her past comes to light. If she wants to survive, she must decide who to trust, who to fight for, and how much of her soul she’s willing to damn in the process.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Think I have to admit this one is going nowhere, and DNF it.
The premise is great, but the execution (and worldbuilding) didn’t live up to it. I was here to see a disabled dancer learn how to dance again after her disability; instead, we got a character who…mostly just pushes through her pain to do whatever she wants? She doesn’t have to relearn or change much? As a disabled person, this really isn’t the kind of representation I’m looking for: ‘just push through the pain’ is… I don’t know how to articulate it, but it’s disappointing. There’s no real sense of her having to adapt and adjust; nor does she really seem to process what’s happened to her, or explore what it means to be a dancer when your body just can’t do what it did before. (Partly because she seems to be able to do what she wants, it ‘just’ hurts.) I mean, we literally time-skip over the months she spends re-learning how to dance! What?
I liked the idea of her incorporating props into her performances, but the idea wasn’t very ground-breaking – and it didn’t help that the prose was shockingly plain: I was expecting very lush description, because how else do you describe dancing???
Well…very bluntly and mechanically, if you’re Arena, I guess. Which doesn’t at all convey the joy, pleasure, or wonder of dance as art. Doesn’t make it interesting or fun to read about, either.
I immediately had a problem with the worldbuilding when we discovered – very early on – that in the previous generation, a king divided his kingdom in three so each of his three sons (the current kings) could have their own kingdom. That…is so incredibly unbelievable. What monarch would do that? How would that be done? You would have so much work separating them into three new economies! Didn’t you have to invent new currencies? Tax areas? At least two whole new governments?! NO ONE WOULD DO THAT. Not without a war to necessitate it. Where would you find the PEOPLE to be the new departments of education or whatever – presumably most everyone who wanted to work at that already are, so did you split the existing departments in three??? WHAT???
:edited to add: the wonderful Alyssa took the time to educate me in the comments, and in fact dividing kingdoms between heirs does seem to have been a thing that really happened in the real world. However, it didn’t happen in the kind of borderline-Medieval/Renaissance period (as best I can tell) which Arena has vaguely based the setting on – probably because the societies were too complicated by that point to easily split one economy into three. And obviously, it’s Fantasy, storytellers can invent whatever they want with no need to be historically accurate – but then you have to convince me that this works, and Arena doesn’t come close. It’s all hand-waved, with no sense that I’ll have any of my hundreds of questions about the practicalities answered later.
It didn’t really get better from there. A lot of telling-not-showing (especially with things like emotions), too many characters who made no sense to me, and just – generally not the aesthetic/vibe I was hoping for? Prettier prose would have papered over most of those issues for me, but as previously stated, the writing is very plain and not to my taste.
I really hope we get more stories with disabled MCs in the future, though! May this be the first of many!
How were your DNFs this month?
Oh no, nerd brain activate…. Dividing the kingdom between all sons or even heirs was in fact the way it was done for thousands of years. Primogeniture was actually a kind of cultural revolution because it theoretically allowed kingdoms to stay together. It at least allowed the idea of continuity after the death of a monarch even if in practice folks mostly ended up going to war and killing each other anyway. We take primogeniture for granted because it hung on in England into the 20th century as a way of keeping estates together (that’s where you get the whole 1 for the estate, 1 for the war, 1 for the church idea); but even after the idea of primogeniture took off kingdoms would get divied up between sons and cousins and folks who needed bribing constantly. It doesn’t really strike me as weird even if the book is set in what I presume to be sort of a modern day monarchy. I mean look at Brexit. Since when do rich people care about causing a crisis?
(I’m sure the book is terrible; I’m so sick of first person present tense.)
No no, give me all the nerd-brain!
That is BONKERS to me, honestly. (Not that primogeniture is actually smarter.) I must research immediately, it is bonkers but fascinating. Clearly they found a way to deal with all the practical issues fairly well, if it was something people were doing for so long…? Thank you for telling me!
(Oh gods I need it to go away already, why do authors keep writing it???)
Oh no they didn’t come up with practical solutions! Well it kind of depends. Gavelkind was the tradition in England and mostly resulted in tiny little field sized kingdoms constantly at war with each other. England is the country I know the most about from the phase of my life where I was obsessed with the development of the English language. I might be misremembering the story but I believe the reason the vikings walked all over the English when they arrived was because three royal brothers had already been fighting each other, wasting the lives of their soldiers and neglecting the crops in the field sort of thing. The nords had already invented the notion of primogeniture and brought that along with their invasion. You can see some of these politics going on in the background of Hild by Nicola Griffith with the king deciding to spurn his son and hand territory off to more powerful lords in hopes of keeping them allied to him only to change his mind and try to build his son back up when it’s too late. Have you read Hild? I really love that one. There’s been all kinds of ways of dividing up kingdoms after the passing of monarchs and England is a really tiny slice of the world to study it through.
I DO remember some of that from Hild! I just didn’t realise all the mini-kingdoms came about because eedjits were splitting their kingdoms between theirs sons…but yes, just the wiki page on historical inheritances has been FASCINATING to read, I have so many terms and cultures to look up!
In context of Dance of Lies, though, I stand by my critique bc how this works isn’t explained, and the three new kingdoms all seem to be what we’d consider nation-sized, not fiefdoms. Plus the culture being copied straight out of primogeniture-era Western Europe, by which point dividing kingdoms doesn’t seem to have been as much of a thing? (Did all the neighbour countries have to scramble to get more ambassadors to send the now-three-kingdoms??? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.)
But!!! Thank you for taking the time to educate me, because a) I love learning new stuff/being corrected when I’m wrong and b) this is genuinely really interesting!
Am reading the Antlered King now, and it isn’t really going anywhere, mostly retreading ground from the previous book. We did get exposed to the Torture Pear, however.
I’m pretty sure I got to the torture pear part. And rolled my eyes pretty hard. Sigh.
Thank you for writing this – I’m also someone who hated Justice of Kings but was intrigued by Grave Empire, and you just saved me some trouble. The lack of female characters who make it to the end of the book alive and well is something that still bothers me ~2 years on, and it sounds like that hasn’t improved at all. :S
(Also just shout out to your blog in general – it’s my go-to location for finding cool, upcoming fantasy books!)
You are extremely welcome! I’m very glad I could help you save some time on Grave Empire XD
(And eee! Thank you so much!!! You seriously just made my day 😭)