Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It seems to me that immortality should make you realize that anyone but you should be in charge of anyone with a finite life span. That there is what we call a power imbalance. That there is what we call privilege. Immortals have both the blessing and curse of time. Give them “magical” powers on top of that? Yeah, no thanks. 

The Radiant King couldn’t have come along at a better time for me. I’ve been searching for an epic fantasy series with a lot of action, found family vibes, political intrigue, unique magic, and a large streak of darkness for a while now. I didn’t want a romantasy in any way (I love romantasy, but I do read a huge amount of it) but didn’t mind a minor subplot or two of it, but I did want powerful female characters in the central cast and for the book to be LGBTQ+ friendly. Most of all, I kind of wanted no one to be what one would call morally “good”. I wanted a whole bunch of really messy people in a really messy world. 

That’s what I feel David Dalglish delivered here: Six extremely messy (and all insane, to some degree) immortal siblings (I don’t think they’re biologically related–think more spun into existence?) who all have divine powers of a sort and are toxically devoted to one another. There’s nothing one can do that won’t be forgiven, with time. After all, they have a lot of it. What happens, though, when one of them seems to be going too far? How far is too far? Where is the line?

The characters in this book jump off the page, grabbing your attention and holding it as they keep you engaged in this compelling story. I won’t lie and tell you there weren’t a couple of places where the pacing stalled just a bit, but it truly wasn’t enough to put me off when I was so invested in where this book was going, the story it was telling, and what was going to happen to these characters I had gotten to know. Dalglish shows off brilliant world building skills here, creating a deep mythology for this series, intense geography for the plot, and the ingenious broken tower that serves as the most important landmark in the whole book. It’s all vividly rendered and feels wonderfully fantastic. 5⭐️

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: 5 Star Review/Action-Adventure/Book Series/Dark Fantasy/Epic Fantasy/Fantasy Series/Political Fantasy

TW: Body horror/lots of blood/lots of violence/animal euthanasia