Our novel begins with us being introduced to our narrator, Cade, a war mage. He is a narrator that wants to remind us he isn't like the stereo-typical wizard we are familiar with. Cade is violent, broken, and doesn't care about being a hero or a Gandalf want-a-be. He just wants to complete his job, no matter how despicable it may be and get paid. But because of violent events that happen early in the novel, he goes on an adventure to try to save humanity from outside forces. To do this, he will need to recruit a colorful group of characters, each with a unique magical or spiritual discipline and that will become known as the Malevolent Seven.

The novel was enjoyable and a fun read. The cast of characters were interesting. The cover was great how after reading the book it is a silhouette of the team without providing any spoilers. I could go into a lengthy description of each of the Malevolent Seven, but that would diminish what I found enjoyable about the novel, which was the discovery of each new member of the team as it was introduced in the novel. Also, a magic system that was centered around different mystical and spiritual words was creative and enjoyable.

The author demonstrated great skill by ending each chapter to where you were compelled to then read the next chapter. There were times where I couldn't put the book down as I needed to find out what was going to happen next. The author's sardonic wit was evident like in other novels, which also were entertaining.

The biggest problem with the novel was that with the number of characters that many of the Malevolent Seven were underdeveloped. Some of these characters are not fully rounded characters to where you are truly invested in what happens to them in the novel. Under 400 pages, this was understandable that not all of the Malevolent Seven were developed, but it did take away from this being a great fantasy novel. A great fantasy novel is where you are emotionally connected with the characters. This was where this novel falls short for me.

Overall, I enjoyed these characters I was introduced to. And like any good fantasy, by the end of the novel I want to know what happened next and hope there were will be more adventures with The Malevolent Seven in the future.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher Jo Fletcher for providing me this ARC for my honest review.

Seven powerful mages want to make the world a better place. We're going to kill them first.'

But this book isn't about those mages. It's about mercenary wizards accustomed to fighting for nefarious leaders hell bent on overtaking kingdoms.

But they then are tasked with a job that isn't all it seems. Six, wonderists, inferals and aurols come together to "maybe" stop a murderous band of brothers from stepping in and taking over the realm. There is such amazing character building and a fully developed world that pulls you all the way in. The Malevolent Seven is such a great and unique fantasy book you must read.

Thank you to @netgalley and @hachettebooks for letting me read and review this amazing book.

This is not your scrawny wizard casting spells at each other from across the room book. These are killers and people you do not want to share a horizon with. Unfortunately they might have to save us from the end of the world.

Seven wonderists are needed to kill Seven other wonderists brothers, poetic flair and all that. And oh look at that, the evil boss Cade was on his way to kill for being just the wrong brand of vile died on his own. Probably a good idea to leave town rapidly and take this new gig.

The story has twists, turns, and commentary on some of my favorite constructs. Give it a read and if you like this maybe check out The Greatcoats or Spellslinger.

Thank you Netgalley, Hachette Book Group, Jo Fletcher Books, and of course Sebastian De Castell for "The Malevolent Seven." Enjoyed it so much I snagged a physical from The Broken Binding.

Reasons to read:
-The characters are fantastic and mess with the accept ideas readers might have, like the demon who gives affirmations and hugs
-Corrigan, everyone needs a Corrigan in their life
-Really good motivation to strike a child, who deserves it
-Magic is done in a really good way
-When the crazy hits the fan it gets messed up
-Great banter
-The indigo goes well with my color choices

Cons:
-Pour one out for the real victim of the story
-There are some evil people and systems of society in this story, so that can be a put of. Thankfully a lot of them a brutally killed.

Over the years Sebastien de Castell has managed to solidify his place as one of my all-time favorite authors, primarily due to the amazing versatility of his writing. Each new series he starts always seems to present a stark departure from his previous works in terms of tone and sub-genre. Although I have to admit I was skeptical when I first delved into The Malevolent Seven as its dark and depressing nature completely caught me off guard for some reason. It's a lot darker than what I usually read and yet I loved every goddamn moment I spent reading it. I can still remember messaging a friend of mine when I was contemplating whether to abandon the book after the first chapter and then probably confusing them a while later when I started telling them I thought they should read it.

Normally I would attempt to pinpoint one or two specific aspects of this book that contributed to my immense enjoyment of it but I find that almost impossible this time around as I loved every aspect of this book. The characters themselves are fantastic despite their frequent portrayal as these morally reprehensible people driven by money, survival, or just the urge to use their own magical abilities. I don't know how an author takes such characters and makes you love every one of them but somehow Sebastien de Castell managed to do so.

Then there's the plot itself which seemed to hold me in a constant state of suspense, leaving me perched on the edge of my seat the entire night as I read it. Though if there is one thing that truly does shine more brightly than the rest of this book it's the magic system. I don't know that I've seen a magic system as unique or interesting as the one in The Malevolent Seven and I can't wait to see more of it in the next book.

In summary,  I truly enjoyed this book and I've already started recommending it to everyone I know who likes to read. I'm even considering getting the audiobook version tonight so that I can listen to it on my walks to and from work. I'm definitely looking forward to the next book in the series as I have a lot of theories about what happens next and I'm curious to see if I'm right or wrong.

I received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review

I’m a huge fan of Sebastien de Castell’s GREATCOATS series, as my reviews of those books will show. So I was greatly looking forward to his newest work, The Malevolent Seven, as the publisher’s blurb (see below) seemed to show it had a bit of that same wry tone to it. And while the new novel does share that voice to some degree, as well as a few other elements (particularly in the banter area), I was less enamored with both the characters and the style/structure of the novel and less emotionally moved by the events. That said, while the book overall wasn’t quite my cup of tea, I can see a lot of people enjoying it as a “beach read” sort of book if you like those sorts of works.

The title makes clear the general premise of the book if you’ve seen The Magnificent Seven (if you haven’t you absolutely should, the original preferably). There’s a town being terrorized, and somebody is putting together a group of Not-Heroes-At-All-Really-Not-At-All as mercenaries to fight the group terrorizing the town. We start with our main character, in this case the magic-user (“wonderist” in the terminology of the novel) Cade, and as the book progresses, he picks up the other members of the group one by one. Once the gang’s all together, it all culminates in a big battle. To fill in a few of the details:

The book opens with Cade and his wonderist colleague/quasi-friend (these folks don’t have “friends” per se) working as mercenaries and destroying a city for Lucien, an absolutely awful lord, one who is bloodthirsty and traffics in humans, including children (those may be his good qualities). Cade, who despite his constant protestations, has at least a partial conscience, plans on killing Lucien, but things go awry, and he finds himself forced into the position of getting the above-mentioned gang together for the above-mentioned reasons. He begins with Corrigan and a just-created “blood witch” from the camp, and then it’s off on the recruitment journey, which includes a trip into Hell itself. All of this is further complicated by Cade’s secret past, greater forces that inhabit other dimensions, and the schemes within schemes within schemes driving the events.

To start with the positive, the magic system, which I won’t detail here, is pretty intriguing, and the extra-dimensional aspects involving the “Celestines” is fascinating. The book moves at a fast clip (more on that later as well). The banter, when it works (more on that later) can be laugh out loud, and I particularly liked the relationship/non-relationship between Cade and Corrigan. And one of the characters — the Rat Mage — when given time to shine, was a true joy to spend time with.

As for the negatives, which admittedly for me outweighed the positives, if I were to try and generalize their nature, I’d say the book felt more like a sketch of a novel, or an early draft, rather than a fully honed work. The explanations of the magic system, how this world works, the relationships amongst the dimensions, etc. too often felt like brief info dumps that interrupted the story’s flow so the reader could get whatever information was necessary for them to have at the time. The book’s fast pace, while a plus in some ways, also felt a detriment as I never really felt the group as a group, never got a real full sense of most of the characters, and several of the characters felt under-utilized. The banter when it worked was fun, but I honestly can’t say it worked more than half the time; the rest of the time it felt either forced or perfunctory, and the comic tone often felt a bit off amidst the truly grim events (readers’ mileage will certainly vary on this one). And the premise of bad-folks-doing-sometime-with-a-good-result never really felt real to me. Yes, Cade and the others have done/do some horrible things, say “funny” things at horrible times, but with Cade especially it just all felt very surface. Despite (or perhaps because of) all his protestations of being a bad guy (and there were a lot of protestations), it never rang true. Finally, I admit to feeling a bit uncomfortable with the portrayal of the female characters.

While I confess to being disappointed with The Malevolent Seven (I’m a huge fan of de Castell’s GREATCOATS series), the book was a fast read with some enjoyable moments. I can’t say I enjoyed it all the way through, but it never felt like a slog, and I never considered not finishing it. I wouldn’t qualify it as “bad” book, just not a “me” book. And even despite that, because de Castell has proven himself so many other times, I’ll probably give a sequel a shot if one appears, which is certainly possible given the ending here.

I absolutely loved this!

Cade is a mercenary with magic. He has more scruples than you would expect from a mercenary, but he's far from perfect.
He must find six other mages and defeat a very powerful enemy that wants to make the world a better place. But who would it be better for?
This has it all. Humor, magic, great characters and a fantastic plot. I am ready for more!

The description for The Malevolent Seven sounded like a lot of fun, and I found the idea of the main character being not a good guy very appealing. I hoped for something fun and different, but I felt like I was dropped in a group of bad guys who had far too much heart and they ended up in what felt like a battle between heaven and hell. It was fun to read with some interesting travels, but I expected a story full of broken mages who are the bad guys going up against mages who are supposed to be worse than them, which I didn’t feel like I got.

First of all, this book lost my interest probably about a quarter of the way through. I really enjoyed the beginning and wanted to settle into a fun story about people with not much of a moral compass. And then I got stuck in the same scene for multiple chapters, and the molasses pace just didn’t work for me. It became mildly interesting soon after, but I wasn’t really blown away by the gathering of the rest of the crew. They ended up on a side quest that was fun, but felt like it took too much of the book to get through, and then the second half hit and it felt like a race downhill.

But I think my biggest problem was Cade’s characterization. In the first half, he seemed like a halfway decent bad guy. I liked him. But, as I got to know his backstory, he suddenly seemed less interesting to me. I didn’t like that he seemed kind of clueless at the beginning only to be revealed to have certain deductive skills that were then very well played at the end, but kind of felt like it came out of left field after the first half. I did like the other mages and creatures around him. The blood mage was delightful, and his friend felt very much like a suitable bad guy. I kind of wonder what the story would read like if he had been the one telling the story. All the characters had unique and interesting personalities that made them a fun group, but the story is told from Cade’s perspective and I’m not sure I enjoyed his characterization enough to really like this book.

I felt like this story was trying to do a little too much, so it definitely followed what I expected from the description, but it also followed some other tangents I wasn’t expecting, or, really, liked. I had hoped for quite a showdown at the end, which I got, but not in the sense I expected. I also wasn’t expecting a quest to take about somewhere around a quarter of the book, nor was I counting on what felt like a battle between heaven and hell. It lent itself nicely to the magic system, which was interesting, but only truly understandable if one reads through the Author’s Note at the end. I did enjoy the humor peppered throughout, but I felt like too much was thrown at this story, so it felt overly long.

Now, there were some things I did enjoy. I loved the blood mage and the boy she was close to before she became a blood mage. She was fascinating and I enjoyed reading about the changes she underwent. The reveal about the boy was also really wonderful and I loved it. I also loved the demon Cade deals with. He was so much fun and I found myself hoping to see him more often.

The Malevolent Seven delivers what it promised, but also added a lot more than I expected or wanted. I wasn’t a huge fan of Cade, though I liked the rest of his group. I loved the magic system, but disliked the heaven vs. hell type story line. I really enjoyed the end, but the first half felt far too slow and the quest felt a little too long. Overall, not a terrible story, but not quite for me.


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

Sebastien de Castell’s The Malevolent Seven is absolutely brilliant. This ain’t your daddy’s fellowship of heroes…because heck, they aren’t really heroes, lol. I loved these characters. They are so complex and so well fleshed out, especially Cade. Loved how he acknowledged to doing horrible things and yet still had his own sense of what he considered right and wrong, walking a twisted mirky gray line. The story was great, but the magic systems…wow, talk about complex. I can’t even imagine how much work Sabastien put in into creating the various magical stylings. Dark, twisted, brutal, and yet still quite amusing at times. This book made me an instant fan of de Castell and I can’t wait to dig into his backlog. I’d like to thank Hachette Book Group, Mobius and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an eARC of The Malevolent Seven.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R16I2NLFI1UZHR/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

Usually I like to root for the good guys, the noble heroes questing for a righteous purpose against all odds. This is not a root for the heroes book though, this is grimdark where the characters are complicated, cruel and there is no HEA guaranteed. The Malevolant Seven is a band of mercenaries, in it for the money and power, but mostly money. For sell to the highest bidder and no job is too dirty if the price is right, no matter how much it might stain your soul.

I've read Sebastien de Castell before so I knew the writing was going to be great and the story surprising. He has a great sense of humor and tension in his writing style that lent itself well to this book. Just read the synopsis and you will have a good idea of how great his writing will be throughout the story.
It wasn’t Archon Belleda’s fault her defenders couldn’t beat us. They were locals, patriots fighting for a noble cause, while we were mercenaries, motivated by greed and lousy upbringings, loyal only to the fees our employer had promised us.

The PoV is from Cade Ombre, a man not totally at peace with being a mercenary, but he is also definitely not a good guy either, well at least anymore. He has one, mostly true friend, in a thundermage but other than that everyone else has been just someone to work with for the money. His last job has just gone incredibly wrong so time to pack up an move onto the next one. He will just need to find the rest of a team to go up against the seven strongest mages ever known on a quest that seems like the worst idea ever, but could be the one to save him if the prize is as good as it is claimed to be.

Just need to pick up a new crew along the way (the last crew didn't turn out so good) and off he goes to probable certain death. There is a lot more to it than that of course. There is a battle waging between good and evil (you decide which is which) that is ramping up and Cade and his crew might just be puppets for one side or both. In our travels to gather a team we learn of Cade's past, pick up an understanding of the world and magic in it and come to understand that good and evil is very subjective depending on your perspective.

I was captivated by the writing in this book. It is dark and the humor is also dark sometimes, but fun none the less. I enjoyed the journey Cade and crew took. It was full of surprises and betrayals. I will not say we get a HEA because well we do not, but the conclusion is satisfying and at the end I was hoping for more journeys with the crew assembled/left.

This would be a great book to try out Sebastien de Castell's writing to see if it is for you. Great story with interesting, unpredictable complex characters. A story of good, evil and all things in-between. Full of strange friendships, journeys for redemptions and a quest that might just save humanity, accidentally of coarse.
Every profession has its traditions, and among us wonderists, it’s basic courtesy to say something rude and hurtful to each of your comrades before heading into battle. The logic – if there is such a thing in this sorry business – is that since such despicable insults could never be intended as last words, they instead convey your conviction that both of you will survive to laugh at such ill-chosen sentiment .

This was an amazing book. It started a bit slow but the interplay between characters was phenomenal. I was thinking that this was modeled after the story line of the Magnificient Seven but with magic and sorcery. It gave more as the book showed how the characters evolved and came together. Definitely good back story leading up to the confrontation that the Malevolent Seven were bound for. The detail was well done although the portion introducing Alice was a bit long. I understood that the author wanted the reader to have all the details. I really enjoyed it and found it kept me interested till the end. I am hoping for a sequel perhaps?

Malevolent Seven is not your normal story where there is a clear black and white, good and evil. Or maybe there is a clear difference in the world, but the characters deliberately don't follow it. Either way, the main theme can be summed up by Cade's speech at the end. There may be two sides, but they are not good and evil. Rather, they are what you stand for vs what you stand against.

Overall, it was a good book, but Cade's tendency to remind the reader he is not a hero was a bit overplayed.

Thanks so much to the publisher and to Netgalley for providing me with an e-ARC copy of this book!

I have scheduled promotional posts around release day for this book and I will provide a full review on my Instagram once I am able to get to this read.

Rating 5 stars on Netgalley as a placeholder for me to update later once the review is complete.

Will also provide a full review on Goodreads once read.

Thanks again!

Thank you to NetGalley and Hachette Book Group for this earc

This book was so much fun! I absolutely adore Sebastien de Castell’s writing and this book was a perfect example of it. He always makes every book he write so incredibly entertaining. All the characters were completely crazy but had so much heart. The story could have used a bit more world building but you can let it slide because it will make you feel all the feelings. Reading Castell’s books is like coming home to your crazy found family.

I've sort of been sitting on this review for a while now not quite ready to write or post it. It's just that while I enjoy the book and there are some really good moments, some excellent character building, a few nice gotcha plot moments, there's still something missing. One more time through the edit process probably would have helped but it didn't get that so on a scale of 11 I'd have to leave this at a solid 7. Which is disappointing when there was so much to work with.


This review is based on an advance copy that I received for free.

Sebastien de Castell struck a great chord with me when I read The Greatcoats series. That set was excellent world building, characters and story.
The Malevolent Seven was a whole lot of fun, as well.
One thing that got me about this book was that even though no one was supposed to be really likable, I enjoyed most of the characters in the book.
Among other things, de Castell is a great world builder. He really knows how to build a great, cohesive world. This is very much on point for this new setting.
I’m hoping that he’ll set another book in this world.

A huge thank you to Hatchett Book Group for the eARC (via NetGalley)!

Its hard not to be biased in my review, having read a couple Greatcoats and Spellslinger books. Plus having my first eARC be a book by one of my favorite living authors.

To start, this book is not for the feint of heart.
The plots and twists will startle, but its a journey. There are some brutal and gory moments - so fair warning.

That being said. Book introduces Cade Ombra - a hired fortunalist war mage - helping a Prince wage war. Alongside him, is his longtime companion Corrigan (tempestoralist - thunder mage). From here, things take so many unexpected turns - just to gather all seven for a common task.

It is all told in the narrative of Cade Ombra, who has a sarcastic wit to him. Even though its told in 1st person, the reader is still able to grasp an understanding of the entire cast of characters, their connection to Cade and Cade’s perception of everyone else. Which quite frankly, is a mixed bag of sarcastic insults, admiration, and disgust - depending on who Cade is referring to. I mean.. who hasn’t internalized similar thoughts about their companions - then bottled it up because a bigger reward is anticipated in the end.

The plot .. I cannot delve deeply into. Let’d just say its a wild ride that picks up fast towards the last 3rd. Trust De Castell to get you there.

Speaking as someone who had to take a break from reading due to work exhaustion - I picked up where I left off (around 120 page mark), and finished it in a day and half. I couldn’t stop - I had to find out what happened after each chapter.

If you find yourself loving De Castell’s prose, characters and his interesting plots - I suggest going into his completed Greatcoats series (to tide you over until the next book for Malevolent Seven).

This was so much fun to read! Funny in a blood soaked way. Having the shit hit the proverbial fan and splatter quite so thoroughly probably shouldn’t make me smile quite so much… but I found this book a hoot to read.

A group of mercenaries with magical abilities become anti heroes in this fast paced fantasy. In theory, the recipe for a brilliant book, but in reality something just didn't work for me. Something about the main character rubbed me the wrong way and I just didn't connect to the story. The magic was interesting though!

Thank you to the publisher for providing a copy for review.

I am a seasoned De Castell reader and have read the Greatcoats series, as well as a few of the Spellslinger books. Cade is a wonderist, a mage who works as a mercenary, taking jobs for some truly terrible people. On the run, he and a ragtag team of unhinged magical outlaws take a suicidal job to save the world.

I like the premise and the ideas in the book, but it was the writing that fell flat for me. De Castell likes to write stories about magical worlds that are broken (like in Greatcoats) but I felt like this book didn't take enough time to establish the premise and the magical system before breaking it apart. I did like the magic system and world a lot, but it was hard to feel like big reveals about the nature of magic were high-stakes when I didn't get to spend time understanding what was normal for the system, or feeling immersed in the world and characters. Maybe a hard-core fantasy reader wouldn't care, but definitely would alienate readers less new to his genre.

I'm also not really so sure about his using the sexual abuse of children as a plot device in order to show "these are bad people". Definite trigger warning for that. Also, the part where an "enslavement" charm is used on a character who has been described as black also felt questionable. Definitely could feel the presence of the white male writer on this one--definitely effort at diversity, but things just didn't feel all the way thought through? I think this genre is tricky and could have used a better edit, because what and who is considered "grim" and "dark", and who scary things happen too/how they're described can alienate a reader. This is the second De Castell male main characters who is a protective figure to a teenage girl, which is interesting. He writes plenty of female side characters, but I'm curious to see if he ever writes a main character who isn't a man. Although effort seems to have been made I think this doesn't branch out from the male hardcore fantasy reader demographic.

Thank you for the ARC! I enjoyed the opportunity to check this out ahead of time.

The Malevolent Seven is a fun book with a really strong voice, Unfortunately, I think the voice is almost too strong. It reminds me a bit of a cross between John Scalzi and Christopher Buehlman. This will probably be right up some people's alley, but for me the self-referential in-jokey voice-iness started to grate on me. Buehlman does a darkly humorous take on the first-person narrator in The Blacktongue Thief, and I think it works much better in that book because the voice, while humorous, remains very much of that world. It creates more immersion, rather than being immersion breaking.

Still, it's not bad. The Malevolent Seven is very readable and throws you into the action right away. While I personally prefer books that work to build some emotional investment in a character before throwing them into a life or death situation, if you like your action fast paced, you will probably enjoy this book.

All in all, this one was not for me but I think there are readers who will enjoy it a lot.