King of the Dark: Book Recommendation

One thing I’ve really struggled with in 2020 is reading. But leave it to one very prickly prince to snap me out of my book funk.

King of the Dark by Ariana Nash is an absolutely brilliant dark fantasy. As always, Nash knows exactly when to slide the knife in to do the most damage, but things are never so bleak or so hopeless that I wanted to give up. There’s always someone to root for, hope in the dark, a character who won’t back down. I don’t want to spoil too much away, but Nash never leaves the reader steady on their feet for too long. There are twists in this book that absolutely gutted me. In a good way. That’s totally a thing, right?

The characters in King of the Dark practically glowed, fully formed and unapologetically problematic. Nash artfully draws you in to care about characters who are deeply flawed, selfish, and impulsive. Still, their stubbornness and resilience makes them deeply compelling. Vasili comes across as brittle and unyielding, but over the course of the story, she slides back the curtain to give us the shadow of a wounded and resilient leader struggling with too few allies to help him through—and very little use for friends.

I can’t wait to get my hands on book two, Reign of Darkness, out December 4, and find out more about Vasili’s tragic past and inevitable future badassery. But even more exciting, I can’t wait to see how Niko continues to navigate a world that lashes out at him, tooth and claw, at every turn. Basically, I want only the best things for poor Niko, and I have a feeling Nash is going to give him a whole bunch of the worst. It’s gonna be delicious.

And I might just love every minute of it.

We are only a couple of weeks away from the release of the second book in the series, Reign of Darkness, so now’s a great time to catch up on the first and preorder the second so you don’t miss a moment of action!