Review: Dawn Razed (Ethereal Earth #4) by Josh Erikson

MY ⭐️ RATING: 4.75/5

Format: Kindle Whispersync

BOOK DESCRIPTION

After barely surviving an onslaught of elves and Templars and assorted monsters- not to mention the devilish machinations of an old god-Gabe and his friends had hoped for some time to recover. But when an overwhelming threat shows up on their doorstep far ahead of schedule, they quickly discover that time is yet one more force stacked against them. Along with practically everything else.
So together with old friends and new, Gabe searches desperately for more allies to form an unprecedented coalition to stand against the coming End--all the while being careful not to mention that it's at least partially his fault.
But even Gabe's rock-bottom expectations are thwarted when the shaky path he envisions for their future suddenly crumbles beneath him, and he's taken on a wild ride far from home…straight into the grasping claws of his own nightmares.

MY REVIEW

A big thing that I love is that Erikson leaves a YouTube link to a 20 minute short story called Brief Gambit, to help catch his readers up. (If you haven’t read books 1-3, it’s not going to help much.) It gives a cool style in which the story is being told to someone else and we are hearing that conversation. There’s nothing better than a “story so far” section!

While there are many great characters in this book and series, Gabe continues to be the very best of all of them, and I love that his development in this story takes huge leaps over where he was in the first 3 books. And while Gabe is my favorite, I think Penny the sprite is a close second. She reminds me a bit of Dross from Will Wight’s, Cradle. Not that they are similar, but just by what they bring to the story as a secondary character, and also almost always stealing the spotlight when she shows up.

“The only real fantasy out here is that there can ever be something so luxuriantly easy as an objective truth.”

Another thing I love about Mr. Erikson is that he does his own narration. He has done a tremendous job so far, and this may be his best work yet! The emotion in his voice when you hear the tremble or the ache just sucks you in and makes you feel how terrified the character is or how much distress the character is in. It sucked me in and my eyes were glued to see what would happen next.

I really need to add more urban fantasy to my repertoire, so far the only two I have read in the sub-genre is Josh Erikson and Dyrk Ashton, and I can’t get enough of either of them. Erikson’s, Ethereal Earth series is such an easy and fun read, and as much as I loved the first 3 books, Dawn Razed takes it to another level! I giggled so much with all of the pop culture references and the puns and the timing of the puns. One thing Josh can do, he’s going to make you smile, more than likely giggle, and maybe even a belly laugh. The other thing that Erikson does well is action, and man is this book filled to the brim with tons of incredible action. I didn’t think what happened in book 3 could be topped, but he did it and I can’t wait to see how he raises the bar in book 5!