RATING: 4.5/5

SYNOPSIS

Will and his comrades went to war to overthrow the reign of dragons, winning battle after battle, and acclaim as conquering heroes.

But now they’ve angered the gods, and may just need the dragons to help them this time…

REVIEW

I had mixed feelings for this book. Firstly, the pros of this book. I loved the character arc of Will Fallows. Apparently when Barph / Firkins, one of the old Gods, betrayed the main characters (Will, Lette, Balur, Quirk) by killing and stealing their divine powers, Will devised another plan to bring themselves back alive from Hell (or the Hallows as described in the book). His plan involved infusing himself with powers from the Deep Ones (an entity who were much more older than the Gods). With such powers, he practically “unmade” the Hallows, which in turn, released an army of the undead, led by an undead general, Gratt. To become more powerful, Will had to be fed from the believes/faith of the people. When he became more and more powerful, the humanity part of him somehow was lost and made him cruel and emotionless. This whole scenario beautifully describes how absolute power corrupts absolutely. The concept and relationship between religion and faith were also highlighted throughout the series. It shows how fragile humans can be when faced with issues of religion and faith and to some extent, humans are willing to blindly follow their believes / religion. In short, we always choose to believe what we want to believe. I loved such a concept instilled by Jon Hollins in this series packaged with his usual humour element.

The main characters also managed to persuade the dragons (who were previously their enemies) to co-operate with them to topple Barph. But of course, the dragons had their own plans as well as the undead general, Gratt. Towards the end of the story, we then see the power struggle between the dragons, the undead general Gratt, Barph and Will which causes so much betrayal and conspiracies. This plot is definitely intriguing and to me, its the climax of the whole story.

At this point, I am definitely rating this book 5/5 star. But then, the ending of the story came. It fell flat. I am not spoiling the ending of the story but seriously, it left so many questions to me. The ending felt kind of a rush to me. Further, I really cant appreciate Quirk and Afrit’s relationship. I don’t get the “I want to break up with you because I can’t stand the sadness if I lose you” reason and it made Quirk such a selfish and annoying character to read. I loved Quirk’s character in the second book but definitely not the third. She was sort of sidelined in this story. Because of these cons, my rating for this book dropped to 4.5/5 star.

All in all, I think this series deserves more attention and it definitely is a fun journey reading it!