Blurb:

The first installment of USA Today bestseller David Dalglish's latest epic fantasy trilogy about immortal demigods, civil wars, and ancient evil will be irresistible to classic fantasy fans and will appeal to readers of James Islington and Anthony Ryan.​

Six immortal siblings. Five sworn to peace. One demands a throne.

Radiance, the mysterious power of life and creation, is theirs to command. Death cannot claim them. For hundreds of years, the ever-living ruled with ease. Yet when the world is nearly broken beneath their reign, the humbled six swear a vow: They will sit upon no thrones, wear no crowns, and no longer teach humanity the gifts of radiance.

But after centuries of peace, Eder rejects their vow, anoints himself Voice of Father, and spreads a new, cruel faith across the land.

Faron cannot allow such indiscretion. Returning from a self-imposed exile, he swears to crush Eder’s kingdom, and he will not do so alone—Sariel, their cold and calculating brother, knows all too well that an ever-living’s dominion is bound for brutality and destruction. But to overthrow a nation, they will need more than each other. They will need an army and a ruler who can take the throne their own vow forbids. And so, they pledge themselves to the fanatical Bastard Princess, a woman with incredible powers she insists were given to her by the goddess Leliel.

But Eder’s conquest is not what it seems, and it will take more than a holy war to stop an immortal who has heard the desperate plea of a god.

Review:

For a long time, I’d wanted to pick up one of Dalglish’s works but never could choose which one to begin with. Thankfully for me, The Radiant King essentially fell into my lap, and here we are.

This was a rather long book at around 600 pages, but I absolutely TORE through it. I’m not a particularly fast reader, and usually a book this long would take me multiple weeks, but I think I finished in just one. I attribute most of that to the pacing. Dalglish does an amazing job splitting this book up into its constituent parts. Chapters don’t drag. Arcs don’t feel abrupt and sudden. And by the time I’m done with one page I’m immediately flipping to the next, regardless of whether or not it's the end of the chapter (which is something I know people tend to do). Another fantastic aspect for this book’s pacing was the worldbuilding.

Sprinkled in here and there, with a few larger dumps when called for in the form of exposition, expertly navigated dialogue, and so forth, we get a very fine picture of the world of The Radiant King early on. With every consecutive page, it gets fleshed out more and more, until we are practically right in the story with the main characters.

I say practically because if I WAS in the story, I would rip my hair out and run and hide from almost everybody.

We follow siblings, there are six of them, but one of them has mysteriously disappeared decades ago and hasn’t been found since, and so we only really deal with five. A few of them have more minor roles (one has a few chapters, the other shows up late) so we see the contents of this story play out through three of the brothers; Faron, Sariel, and Eder.

These siblings are almost gods amongst men; they have a power that lets them do all manner of things, though it varies between siblings. They have a VERY storied past, one that haunts them, and so they’ve vowed never to create a kingdom again. However, when Faron reawakens from dying in order to be reborn (I’m still not quite sure why he had to do this, to be honest, and it kind of bothers me…) he finds that one of his brothers, Eder, has created a kingdom, and given their power to the people. A big no no.

He reunites with Sariel, and the two go on a crusade of sorts, using and befriending a princess blessed with their power from birth to stop Eder. Along the way they meet interesting friends—a young boy who definitely got more than he bargained for, and avery cute, very old, very companionable coyote.

We learn how this new kingdom came to be, and what the others were doing in Faron’s stasis, of sorts. The story—at least in terms of these warring siblings—was rather unique, and for that I had a grand old time. I enjoyed the bit where the elves had a mystically valley maze to trap humans, because I always like grotesque fey-like faerie elves, compared to stereotypical ones we might see in Tolkien inspired stories. The elves were not a particularly integral part of the story, but nonetheless a pleasant surprise.

I am, as I have said time and time again, a HUGE fan of flashbacks, interludes, what have you. We get some here, but very sparingly, and very randomly. I enjoyed them, they provided a great deal of information and backstory and development—or at least set up for it—but their occurrences were a bit out of place at times, if I’m being honest.

By the end, we’ve had our characters all painted out for us, and we reach the big finale. And what a finale it was. I still don’t know what to make of it. Who lives? Who dies? Who… changed? Its all so strange, so different, but it was SO COOL. This was one of the more out there endings I’d read, reminding me of Berserk and the Witcher, and I say that with high praise; those are two of my favorite series.

This story was a lot of fun. Was it my favorite, no, because I can only have so many, but it IS one I will be keeping an eye on, especially when the later books in the series come out, as I am eagerly awaiting the continuation to those that remain of the siblings, and the others that are tied to them.

One last thing, though, and minor spoilers ahead. In the afterword/author’s note/whatever you want to call it, Dalglish mentions that Sariel and Faron were originally the same character. This was something I didn’t know I was going to read, but wasn’t surprised about in the slightest. They were meant to come across as different, kind of as two sides of the same coin, but to me… They would have been better off as a single character. I enjoyed the journeys each went, and I understand the roles they played in the story. But in terms of their characterization, while one was outgoing and the other was broodish, they were more or less the same person. Would that have affected the story a lot? Probably. Thats why Dalglish wrote it and I didn’t, and he did a fantastic job at it. But hey, I felt the need to be honest.

In the end, The Radiant King by David Dalglish was a wonderful tale that tells us blood is thicker than water, but makes us question if that's really even true. Fast, action packed, and one hell of a ride, The Radiant King is perfect for fans of monster filled dark fantasy, especially if you’ve enjoyed the Witcher or Berserk.