Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh

I just wished the author would move on from the tiresome moping scenes. Grief can be a terrible, all-consuming, paralysing thing, but there was so little emotional build-up that it didn’t touch me. There is a deep, never-ending love that gets cut short, but we are never given chance to really care about the relationship so it left me feeling cold as Odessa spiraled into depression and addiction.įor many, many chapters in the middle of the book, the pacing plods along through Odessa's grief.

There are deadly action scenes that should have been pulse-pounding, but I felt no tension or urgency behind them. The opening chapters lack emotion and pull, or, at least, they did for me.

Except, in this case, the writing is so very dry that it was hard to become invested. I like the idea of exploring a real-world concept in a fantasy setting. The use of necromancers, zombie-like creatures called Shades, and the romance, are all ways of adding frills, but so much of this book is taken up by Odessa's loss of a loved one. The thing is, Reign of the Fallen is mostly a book about grief. I think this is partly a case of an author lingering too long on all the things we don’t care about, and partly a case of an author not developing the reader's emotional attachment enough before spending a huge chunk of the book on depressing and repetitive introspection. I’m broken, part of me is missing, and you can’t fix me with copper wires or a piece of string.”Īre you considering this book because it sounds like a dynamic new fantasy with necromancers, action, mystery and a bisexual protagonist? (Also: cover love, let’s not lie.) I was too, but it didn’t quite work for me the way I’d hoped.

Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh