Synopsis:
From holy cup comes holy light;
The faithful hands sets world aright.
And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight,
Mere man shall end this endless night.
Gabriel de León has lost his family, his faith, and the last hope of ending the endless night—his surrogate daughter, Dior. With no thought left but vengeance, he and a band of loyal brothers journey into the war-torn heart of Elidaen to claim the life of the Forever King.
Unbeknownst to the Last Silversaint, the Grail still lives—speeding towards the besieged capital of Augustin in the frail hope of ending Daysdeath. But deadly treachery awaits within the halls of power, and the Forever King’s legions march ever closer. Gabriel and Dior will be drawn into a final battle that will shape the very fate of the Empire, but as the sun sets for what may the last time, there will be no one left for them to trust.
Not even each other.
Review:
F*CK MY FACE!
Gabriel de León’s crude colloquialism accurately sums up all the feelings and emotions I had while reading the final book of Jay Kristoff’s masterpiece, the Empire of the Vampire trilogy. Empire of the Dawn magnificently caps off this series, firmly entrenching it in my personal Mount Rushmore of fantasy series, if not the top spot.
Picking up immediately after the insane ending from Empire of the Damned (which if I was forced to pick a fave book, it would be Damned), the Holy Grail, Dior Lachance, and her surviving army of the living rushes headlong toward a long overdue confrontation with the vampire king, Fabien Voss. As expertly told unreliably from Gabriel’s and Celene’s narration, we see nothing but bloodshed, treachery, betrayals, fornication, quippy banter, and blood supped/wine drinketh’d aplenty.
As the way Damned was told via our dastardly, bickering sibling narrators, it’s very hard to talk about Dawn without heavy spoilers, but it is safe to say that Kristoff nailed the landing. While there weren’t as many twists and the ending I saw coming because I was paying attention to all the subtle hints dropped throughout the series (trust me, if you haven’t, you’ll be so pissed at yourself for not picking up on them), there was one ‘oh shit’ moment that I truly wondered if Kristoff totally zigged when I figured he’d zagged. I was so thrown off that I thought all my careful sleuthing was for naught. He surprised me, that crafty Aussie. And that turn made the ending all the more sweeter.
Gabriel and Celene are two of the most compelling protagonists I’ve read in a long time, and their storytelling and story arcs are just stellar. I thought making Jean-Francois the de facto main character in Damned was a really smart move, and it paid off in spades here in Dawn. Sure, Gabe and the Last Liathe are the mains of their tales, but Jean-Francois is the historian writing out their tales, and this allowed us readers to react to the twists and turns with him. But none of that would have worked if Gabriel and Celene were not as amazing as they are. Their hatred, their bickering, their pure distaste for each other cleaved the heartache of Dior’s journey down to the marrow. These books would not be the same if it weren’t for Gabe and Celene, and by the third book, they are exactly who you think they would become.
I will say that the beginning of this book differed from the previous two in that the relentless pace was not as drastic, and I think that was a smart move by Kristoff. Yes, the danger of the Forever King’s army is ever present, but unlike Vampire and Damned, Dior isn’t being relentlessly hounded. In fact, the beginning almost has a modicum of hope lacing it. But in true Kristoff form, things go to shit really quickly. Characters begin losing said hope, especially ones who deserve it all (man, Kristoff puts Aaron and Baptiste through the wringer and then some in this series). Once we get to the heart of the empire and Fabien finally takes the field, the wheels go completely off the rails and good lordt does it get bloody and painful! Characters we’ve journeyed beside for two books are brutally murdered. More redshirts are introduced only to be slaughtered right away. Some we thought might make it to the end certainly do not. This world is not for the faint of heart, survival is a crapshoot.
The action is precision. Emotions are ripped to shreds and sucked dry. And then Kristoff went ahead and buggered Gabriel three ways from Sunday by bringing back something from his past. My jaw dropped and I don’t think I put it back up for multiple chapters. On top of that, every inkling of joy remaining in Gabe’s life is violently torn from him, every person he loved destroyed. Himself…no too spoilery…
I’ve gotten this long into the review and haven’t mentioned the smut, so here it is: THERE BE SMUT. Ok, there is, but not as much as Damned or even Vampire. In a very funny scene with Celene and Jean-Francois, he asks her to describe a smutty scene and she essentially becomes the voice of the audience saying why would someone describe secksy time in such detail. I really did laugh out loud at that one. There is a very horny scene with Gabriel and Phoebe, but not as intense as Damned. But the icing on the cake is what fans have demanded from book 1. IYKYK. And yes that scene was everything desired AND MORE!
So how to end this review? I mean how does one articulate the ending of one of the best fantasy series ever written? I could quote Gabriel some more, but let’s end this with some hope since that’s all this series was about, a dream of hope in ending Daysdeath: a horse lives!
Thank you to Jay Kristoff and St. Martin’s Press for giving me a physical ARC!
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