The ancient world of magic is no more. Its heroes are dead, its halls are ruins, and its great battles between Light and Dark are forgotten. Only the Stewards remember, and they keep their centuries-long vigil, sworn to protect humanity if the Dark King ever returns.
I was granted eARC access to Dark Rise on NetGalley via the publisher through HarperCollins Canada’s influencer program YA catalogue preview. I would like to thank the HCC Frenzy team and the HCC staff member who handles eARCs for granting me this opportunity! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.
Please note that this post contains affiliate links, which means there is no additional cost to you if you shop using my links, but I will earn a small percentage in commission. A program-specific disclaimer is at the bottom of this post.
About the Book
Dark Rise
Dark Rise Book One
by C.S. Pacat
Published 28 September 2021
Quill Tree Books
Genre: YA Fantasy, LGBTQIA+
Page Count: 464
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!
The ancient world of magic is no more. Its heroes are dead, its halls are ruins, and its great battles between Light and Dark are forgotten. Only the Stewards remember, and they keep their centuries-long vigil, sworn to protect humanity if the Dark King ever returns.
Sixteen-year-old dock boy Will is on the run, pursued by the men who killed his mother. When an old servant tells him of his destiny to fight beside the Stewards, Will is ushered into a world of magic, where he must train to play a vital role in the oncoming battle against the Dark.
As London is threatened by the Dark King’s return, the reborn heroes and villains of a long-forgotten war begin to draw battle lines. But as the young descendants of Light and Dark step into their destined roles, old allegiances, old enmities and old flames are awakened. Will must stand with the last heroes of the Light to prevent the fate that destroyed their world from returning to destroy his own.
Amazon US | Amazon CA | Amazon UK
My Review
My Rating: 2.5 Stars
Consider liking my review on Goodreads
Going into this one I was SO excited. This was the single most anticipated title stuck in my mind after the preview event and I wanted to be able to call this one my new favourite YA Fantasy of the year. Alas, my expectations were not met. I’m not personally familiar with this author, but Pacat does have a big following and I was hoping the fact that this isn’t a debut would mean it felt polished. I was told about the Disney villains inspiration behind these characters and plot and I expected big, loud, fabulous characters that made me love them or love to hate them with fiery passion. I did get all of that… in the last 30 pages. If I were reviewing only the last 30 pages or so this book would be a solid 4 out of 5. The rest is a 2.
A fantastic world and cast have been set up for what I do still hope will be an amazing series, and I do intend to come back and read book two. I like this magical version of London, I’m rooting for Will, and I really, REALLY love the LGBTQIA+ friendly romantic subplot elements.
The trouble is that 400+ pages of this book, the vast majority of it, felt like a 30-50 page prologue and first couple of chapters of a much longer book, but carved off and stretched into their own book. It’s slow. The plot, in broad strokes, is good. There’s a story here, it’s unique, the stakes are high, the consequences are real, the payoff is satisfying. With that said, when the characters plunked their stops through the plot into Google Maps and it gave multiple options, they chose the longest possible routes between each consecutive point. This wouldn’t be a bad thing if the scenery was nice to look at, but in this metaphor, the scenery is lots of excessive descriptions of things that don’t matter and wooden dialogue in conversations that were too long for the amount of information they actually needed to convey.
I think if I had gone into this book with no expectations and all the time in the world to read it at the best possible pace for the way it’s written, I might have enjoyed it more. Between the expectations I had and the fact that I felt pressed to get it read in time for release day in between other bookish obligations, I didn’t end up having the patience for this sort of slow circles storytelling. This sort of storytelling has its place, for sure. I think lighter, more pedestrian fantasies written for an adult audience, especially when they really feature romance like this one, do tend to move slower and the audience expects it. Books like The Night Circus do that well (though the prose here does not hold a candle to Morgenstern) and it works. This, however, is marketed as YA, and this decade’s YA Fantasies move fast. That’s part of why I love them. And I can take or leave purple prose, but if you’re not giving me beautiful purple prose that I could read for 50 pages without a hint of a plot point then please just cut to the chase.
Once again, though, I would like to emphasize that the ending was sublime, a great story is being set up, and if book two reads like that last 30-or-so pages then that book is going to be a 5.
Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Want more? Check out my 5 star review of Before We Disappear by Shaun David Hutchinson.
I hope you like the next one better!
It’s a shame this one didn’t meet your expectations.