The Death of Dulgath - Review

Author: Michael J. Sullivan

Genre: Fantasy 

Format: Paperback

Pages: 448

Jumping back into this series has been the best way to end the year. While I know this is one of my favorite series. To the point my copy of The Crown Tower has seen better days, I always forget how much I adore Hardrain and Royce. How much I enjoy the world Sullivan has created, and the stories he tells within them.

The Death of Dulgath has been on my shelves for far longer than I wanted to admit, but what matters is I finally picked it up. Or, well finally dove into the audio book. The two fellows they cast to play Royce and Hadrian are spot on, and it's the voices I'll hear anytime I go back to re-read the books. And, I will go back, I always do. No matter how many times I've read them. 

The Crown Tower is a comfort read of mine.

What I liked about this book is a great a number of things. The first is how well it fits into the series itself. The Death of Dulgath was written a few years after the series was originally completed. However, reading them back-to-back like I have, you'll never notice. This is set about a year after The Rose and The Thorn, and it's like no time had passed between writing the one book, to this one.

I also really like that this one is very Royce-facing with its plot. While yes I do know how this series ends, it's nice to see more of his backstory, and his history laid out in these books than we saw in the first two books.

Now if you read this series in publication order, that will mean very little to you because you'll learn most of this that way. But! If you are reading them the way I did, in chronological order, it's nice to get to know a bit more about Royce before all of that gets dropped on you.

As for the plot, it's not my favorite, my heart is always in the Crown Tower, but I liked it. I enjoyed Lady Dulgath and the way they wove Royce's past into the story. Scarlett was a joy! She's one of my favorite side characters. The plot moved quickly, and I had to use chapter breaks to stop listening. Normally I don't keep my audiobook going long at work. This week I made an exception as I got to the last three chapters.

Once you start putting the puzzle together and the end is nearly there it gets really hard to put down. I also loved the nod to the prequel series we got in there. It took me a second to realize what Royce was talking about when he saw the painting. I might even have just glanced over it if I'd been reading it because I've only read the first book, Age of Myth, but I remembered the girl and her wolf.

So I thought that was fun!

And I loved this ending. I am bummed I was promised holes to be punched in chests, but that never happened. However, Hadrian did get to throw down quite a bit in this one. Though, did we really have to keep drugging the poor man. Still, I thought Lady Dulgath had an amazing solution to the problem. There so much double and triple crossing in this book, it's really shows how good Sullivan is an author that you never get confused.

And the voice actor they cast Sherwood, did such a good job with him. He sounded exactly how he should of, smarmy and annoying. Like he has a punchable face. 

Such a good book. So glad I finally picked it up, and I've already jumped straight into the next book, The Disappearance of Winter's Daughter!

HAPPY READING!!