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MY ⭐️ RATING: 5/5
Format: Kindle Whispersync
BOOK DESCRIPTION
Hadrian Marlowe is trapped.
For nearly a century, he has been a guest of the Emperor, forced into the role of advisor, a prisoner of his own legend. But the war is changing.
Mankind is losing.
The Cielcin are spilling into human space from the fringes, picking their targets with cunning precision. The Great Prince Syriani Dorayaica is uniting their clans, forging them into an army and threat the likes of which mankind has never seen.
And the Empire stands alone.
Now the Emperor has no choice but to give Hadrian Marlowe—once his favorite knight—one more impossible task: journey across the galaxy to the Lothrian Commonwealth and convince them to join the war. But not all is as it seems, and Hadrian’s journey will take him far beyond the Empire, beyond the Commonwealth, impossibly deep behind enemy lines.
MY REVIEW
At this point I shouldn’t be surprised with what Ruocchio puts in front of me, from the moment this started it captured me and never let me rest, even in the final chapter and until the final paragraph, I was entranced by the story. In my review of Demon in White, I called it “a scintillating throat punch of a good time.” This was not that, did I love this? Absolutely! Was this a good time? Absolutely not! I would say that it was an emotional gut punch, but that falls short of what Kingdoms of Death is, try an emotional drop kick to the gut that just keeps kicking, that’s what this is, and that’s the best way to describe this entry of The Sun Eater Saga. I can’t say enough about how great this story was written, I thought Demon in White was going to be my favorite because of the action, but with how I was feeling throughout this story, it’s hard not to say that this is now my favorite.
“Pain, I have said, forms the basis of all morality, for no man who suffers pain doubts that it is evil. No one who experiences pain can even question it.”
While Demon in White was much more action packed with its story, Kingdoms of Death slows down a bit, but still has plenty of action throughout. This is most definitely the darkest story so far in the series and is much more cerebral and brutal than any of its predecessors. Ruocchio did such a phenomenal job of making something just so emotionally devastating, and giving such a roller coaster of emotions. Heartbreaking scenes that’ll live in my mind forever, including a scene I quite literally screamed out “NOOOOOOOOO” and actually made me tear up, yeah… it’s one of those types of stories. Though there were plenty of scenes that just turned my stomach over and over into knots of anguish, there were times where the emotions were much lighter and sent you down a different hill with a wave of emotions. Samuel Roukin played a huge part in that once again, I felt every scene in my soul because of how much he gets into the characters and the story, it’s so powerful and wonderful to feel that type of energy because it flowed into me as he read.
Wolfmantula.com 