Just as dark and bloody as the first book. Also just as misogynistic.

I had the same issues as I did with the first book, sadly.

The humor falls flat for me. Snark is one thing, but this always just feels so juvenile and out of place. The name-calling while creative, really takes me out of the story that's so dark and atmospheric.

I still wish the time jumps were more spread out too. It's not confusing, it's just annoying.

I can't complain that it's too long like I did the first time, because this was just a sample. That would have been nice to know beforehand.

The art is still great, and at this point it's my favorite part.

I doubt I'll bother picking up the full version.

Picking up from where Empire of the Vampire left off, our favourite, foul mouthed last Silver Saint, Gabe, continues to find himself a prisoner at the hands of the Chastain. The tale he recounts on his quest with the grail to break the endless night is high fantasy at its best with well-choreographed action scenes, a talking sword , and a band of characters risking it all who cling to the threads of humanity in a perilous and treacherous fight against dark forces. Where humans are viewed as weak, it is these qualities: love, loyalty, and found family that draw them together and have us rooting for them.

Will Gabe live to tell the tail and see his quest through and what secrets will he learn about himself as he seeks his own answers to his identity?

After receiving an arc copy of this book I was disappointed to find out this was only the first couple hundred-ish pages of the book and not the full thing. However, other than not knowing this going into it, the part that I have read has been incredible. I loved the first book and so far this sequel is highly surpassing expectations. If the rest of this book is anything like the first part, this could easily be one of my top reads of the year. The ending has me highly anticipating the rest and I can’t wait until it comes out. I have a good feeling this will be an easy 5 star read.

Great horror/fantasy set in a vaguely French middle ages. This is a savior tale with a great grumpy warrior protector as the narrator. If you enjoyed Kvothe's tale in the Name of the Wind, you will most likely enjoy this one.

Was really disappointed that this was only a sampler. I have been looking forward to this book for almost two years! Empire of the Vampire was so fantastic! A true testament to Kristoff's talent and a writer. His world building is phenomenal and his characters are so likeable and full of emotion.

The first book was sooo big! The biggest book I have read in a while. This little taste of book two makes it a bit difficult to write a good review because we don't have everything to base it on, however I have written with less before. Though it is hard to get the big overall picture of the story, it is easy to see that Kristoff's second book is going to be as good as the first (at least from what I can tell).

Though a little confusing in the time line, the characters are still wonderful, the world building is clearly there, and the writing is beautiful.

A book as addicting as Sanctus itself…and not in a good way!

(I straight-up panicked when I finished the last sentence. It was extremely disappointing that NetGalley failed to disclose that this was only a 200-something page sample arc of the first two “books” of Empire of the Damned. This made a full review impossible and providing honest feedback challenging. I am still thankful for the opportunity to have read it, but knowing in advance that THIS WAS A SAMPLE may have shaped my initial thoughts into a more forgiving delineation.)

Everything that I loved about EotV–the three different timelines, interview as a framing device, the pacing and lore drops, the banter…In EotD, it all seemed to fall flat.
On its arse.
From the top of the battlements- or was it a bridge over a treacherous ravine?

I forgot, because honestly, the opening of this book was that repetitive. There’s only so much, “We are Running From Vampires! It is Snowing! We are Running out of Supplies and Gabe is Drunk! We are now Running From Vampires! It is Snowing MORE! We are Running out of Supplies and Gabe is Drunk AND out of Vodka–Oh Bless The Seven Martyrs, We Are Saved, Gabe Has Found Some Wine…” that a reader can take without making substantial headway in the overarching storyline.
This was a sample, but it shouldn’t take over 200 pages to amass, what is in total, a paragraph or two of world-building.

Like alcohol, new characters show up far too conveniently and are promptly shuffled off stage before we can wring any substance from them apart from an unresolved headache.

Orthwick’s illustrations are glorious, but portray no new information about the grimdark world Kristoff is weaving beyond expanding upon its population of Creepy Femme Fatales. There is nothing wrong with CFFs–I am particularly partial to this trope–but with so many highly cinematic, sweeping landscapes and viscerally-described scenes, I for one, was hoping for a touch more variety.

Overall, this read a lot like a sidequest: Fun, love the characters and the depravity, but the penultimate locked-chest-of-loot ended up being stuffed with cinnamon rolls. No one is going to say no to a chest full of cinnamon rolls, but when you’re going up against legions of the Damned, arming yourself with cream cheese frosting and cinnamon sugar may not yield the ending you’re looking for. A tentative three stars, and I desperately, hungrily hope that I am wrong. I will be saving my final thoughts until then.

Redeemer save us from another mid-series slump!

Great sampler. Iove when we get these and they're meaty enough to really give you a feel for the book and get excited for it

Jay Kristoff does not disappoint with this sequel. All the lore, gore, and drama from the first book have returned, which will please fans. Kristoff's way of conveying emotions is top notch and helps immerse the reader. Can't wait to read the whole sequel!

Thank you St. Martin's Press for the arc of this book!

Warning: Spoilers for the first book!! (Go read it now, then come back.)

There are only two timelines in this one, prisoner Gabe telling the story and the quest for the grail with Dior. Oddly enough, the part where we're being told the story is now told by Jean-François not Gabriel.

Gabriel’s old apprentice joins them for a while. I liked Lachlan and the relationship he had with Gabe. It's a sign of how good a writer he is that I really felt like these two had a history with inside jokes and a deep relationship, despite just meeting him. (I hated that Gabe had this huge terrible secret hanging over them. It made me nervous! I just know it's going to go badly once Lachlan finds out!)

Dior and Gabe's relationship is still the best part. I love how close they've gotten! They're too much alike though, so they often argue.

I don't like Celene. I wanted to because she's a strong kick butt vampire with awesome blood magic, but she's so immature! I lost count of how many times she told Gabe she hated him and blamed him for her death, and couldn't stand the sight of him…

There were only two battles (not counting the time Celene tried to kill Gabe and Dior saved him.) and neither was particularly spectacular. I enjoyed the action in the battle with the Dyvok, but I wish Gabe had killed one of the highbloods. Instead, he's saved by Celene. (Then he almost drowned and was saved by another girl.) I told you, he's a regular damsel, our Gabe. That was all in the beginning though. He's not so hopeless later on. In the battle against the Voss, they're hopelessly outnumbered and he has a really clever plan to get them out of it. Unfortunately, Gabe has the worst luck ever!

Same as the first book, this one was only a part of the story. But it felt way too short! Maybe the Netgalley arc is just part of the book? I hope so. I need more!!

Content: No sex in Gabe's parts, so we get a threesome with Jean-François. (I just realized how that sounds, Gabe wasn't a part of it.)
Lots of swearing.
No torture.
Gore and violence as usual. (The Dyvok kept people in cages for food and I found that whole situation really yucky.)

I absolutely love this sample!! I can't wait for my final copy to arrive. The writing, the characters, the story, are all incredible.

I am disappointed that this is only a sample of the book. And what's more it does not even indicate the page count. So I have absolutely no idea where I am in this 700+ page monster.

Gripes aside, this looks to be a promising start (third? half?) to Kristoff's newest book. I am so excited to read more on March 12th!

This gave a slightly edgier vibe than what was expected. I didn't expect such explicit scenes of violent tendencies, power dynamics, and dismissal of women from the main character. It came off a bit merciless at times. A bit too dark, but the writing style, character recap, and map illustrations made it easier to follow along.

It’s incredibly difficult to review a sampler, and I’m unclear on why the publisher chose to go that route! So for now, this decision left me wanting more & feeling frustrated with where it ended!

The fact that it was not disclosed that this was a sample and not the full novel is bullshit. I loved EoTV and the writing and characters are just as good here but how can I give full feedback on a quarter of a book. I can definitely recommend the book and Jay Kristoff generally but I can't recommend this bait and switch by the publisher and Netgalley.

Five stars for anything Jay Kristoff writes - I can’t wait for this book!

Zero stars for the publisher not disclosing that this was a sampler and not the full book. That was a really unfortunate disappointment

Overall average three stars

One of the best books I've read. It was so fast paced and picked up right where it needed to! I love this series, and think the author has a great grasp on what his world is, and continues to bring us deeper.

I struggled to get through the writing style of the first book, Empire of the Vampire, but I was able to read this ARC right after reading EOTV, so it was fresh in my mind and I didn't struggle with EOTD. It also meant I finished it way faster. 700-something pages and all of I sudden, I was at a cliffhanger and it just ends??! What??!

Nearly every series has their filler book and this one felt like that. There was some exposition and reveals but honestly, it was very little. I've connected with Gabriel and Dior enough to continue this series, but so far, the Nevernight Chronicles is still my favorite of Jay's books. Be warned, if you decide to read this series, it is NOT for children. It is incredibly violent, profane, gory, and BLEAK - figuratively and literally.

Thank you to the author, St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for allowing me to read an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The bloodthirsty sequel to the dark fantasy series by Jay Kristoff Empire of the Vampire, is here, and we are well and truly damned. Sadly, Empire of the Damned falls into the classic “sequel”itis trap, and ends up being all bark, no bite.

I have been a fan of Jay Kristoff for awhile now, and devoured his dark YA trilogy The Nevernight Chronicles. His new series The Empire of the Vampire with its self-titled first book, released to near-mainstream acclaim, with praise for his gritty and violent storytelling, a fresh coat of bloody paint thrown on the vampire fantasy genre which has lately fallen into the mire of romantasy. The novel went a long way in bringing the vampire genre back to its dark fantasy roots with large parallels drawn to the massively successful Castlevania franchise. Being an avid grimdark fan, I picked up Empire of the Vampire and enjoyed the quick pacing, creative cast of characters and dense worldbuilding, all held together by Kristoffs hyperedgy prose (more on this later). When the possibility of reviewing the new entry Empire of the Damned came across my desk, I jumped at its throat, fangs bared.

Sadly, Empire of the Damned is all filler, no killer. And I am utterly disappointed.

The novel continues the travels of our protagonist, the paleblood (halfblood) swordsaint, Gabriel de Leon, as he tries to end the eternal night and eventual utter dominion of the vampire lords. He does this by protecting the scion of Heaven, heir to the great Redeemer himself, Dior LaChance. Similar to the first book, this tale is also told in the form of a “recounting of events” as our protagonist languishes in the dungeons of the dark Empress of Wolf and Man, via her faithful historian, Marquis Jean-Francois Chastain, a pureblood vampire of the ruling bloodline.

“There is no one more afraid of dying than things who live forever”

This time around, things are obviously more messed up than ever, as the scion of heaven is missing, her protector, the halfblood knight having failed to protect her from the clutches of the big bad Voss bloodline (who’s patriarch was killed by Dior in book 1 and hoo boy they’re pissed off now!) However, the similar format of the story was immediately a step backward, as it felt like the trope while novel in the first book, had run its natural course, and it was time to move the story forward. It also took away a lot of the danger and gravitas of the story when told backwards, when we know that key players in the narrative are still alive.

Empire of the Damned felt like a story cut short in the middle, and I am still unsure whether I received the entire novel as a review copy (and I tried to confirm… a lot) and it was not just “part 1”. That’s how abrupt and unfulfilling the climax to the sequel felt. While it felt like a natural stopping point in the overall narrative, it did not do a good job of setting up, what I assume to be the finale of the series. This book truly felt like Book 2 of 4 or even a five book series, at how little the story pushed the plot forward toward its grand sequence. It is to be expected that the middle book in many trilogies tends to flounder as the author tries to set up the board and move all the key players into the place for the final showdown, while adequately setting up just enough lore to expand the world, while also creating enough tension to leave the reader salivating for the next installment that will be the crescendo of all the hardwork put into a seemingly lackluster book two.

While this story does flesh out some of the side characters, namely a character relative of de Leon that dove into the story at the climax of the first book, many of the new side characters and plotlines felt like utter padding and provided very little in terms of setting the stage of the ultimate big-bad showdown. I waited patiently as the story plodded along, while the characters spent their time rue-ing the tragic and frankly, excellently crafted story and action setpieces in Empire of the Vampire, but did very little else to push forth the narrative in a new direction. The shtick of “I have to protect you from the forces of Darkness hot on our tails” does get a little tiresome, especially when the Darkness kinda stays away for so much of the book, that the threat never felt imminent to the reader, no matter how often Kristoff had our characters say it to each other.

There are precisely two action set-pieces, well written in classic Kristoff fashion. His action storytelling is among the best in the dark fantasy space, with eloquent descriptions of violence painted with an elegant hand. I wish he spent more time fleshing out the dire nature of a world on the precipice of darkness where mortals are no match for the blood lords, and are mere chattle to be fed by the immortal host.

Jay Kristoff’s prose has become a thing of a controversial argument in the dark fantasy spaces. Many criticize his overly flowery prose as nearing a purple hue, and he was certainly throwing all he had at us, flexing all his edge in Empire of the the Vampire. Sadly on Damned, while he seems to have reined his prose to be less needlessy verbose, it goes even further to make the entire affair rather bland and flat. In addition, his tumblr-esque wordbuilding like “swordsaint”, “duskdancer”, “wealdling”, “daysdeath”, “dreamwalker”, does more to push the series towards a younger audience, and I can imagine, the grittier consumers among us would roll our eyes at the cheesy/edgy nomenclature. If that wasnt enough, his overly crass dialog crafting especially in the “quippier-than-thou, you f!@$# b@#!#$@” back and forth between Gabriel and Dior, while fun the first few times, gets awfully tiresome especially in book 2, where the stakes are considerably higher and the worldview more grim. Kristoff doesnt nearly have the helf that Joe Abercrombie, Mark Lawrence, or even Michael Fletcher has to use abrasive dialog as a value-add to the scene.


“It matters not what you hold faith in. But you must hold faith in something.”

It feels like Empire of the Damned wanted to deal with the emotional aftermath of the dramatic ending of the first book, where Gabriel has to run from human and vampire alike, while Dior struggles to come to terms with her pivotal nature as the savior of the world in the body of a teenage girl in a world of horror. Yet again, the actual narrative fails to capture much of this angst in a rewarding or sincere way. While de Leon spends a LOT of time pining away for his lost wife and daughter, and trying to care for and train LaChance, Kristoff simply did not devote enough time to weave the “meta” plot into the more immediate plotlines. The angst felt extremely “filler” and as a reader, it was a lot of “fine, lets move this along and get to the plot already”, rather than be walked through rewarding character development.

This book felt less like a story of Gabriel and Dior, and more about the new side character. While they are an absolute badass in terms of both character and action, they felt like more of a narrative anchor, forced into a “come with me to fulfill your destiny” while constantly at odds with the primary protagonist. It all felt entirely too tropey and hamfisted. Add a new set of meh antagonists, and you really have an overly dilute chalice to sip from.

While I will still eagerly thirst for the third, and daresay final installment of the series, Empire of the Damned felt truly anemic.

This felt to me like just a bridge to get to book 3. I still love all of the interactions between Gabriel and Jean-Francois. That is the best part of the entire book. There is not much action in this book as compared to the first one. I would have liked to get more in this one. But I look forward to the next book.

A genre departure for me but worth the risk! Very engaging story, very descriptive, will be watching for the full version. 4/5 Stars.