Son of the Poison Rose

 

Son of the Poison Rose

Jonathan Maberry

Publication date: January 10, 2023 by St. Martin's Press

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 5 👢👢👢👢👢

Summary: Son of the Poison Rose marks the second installment of New York Times bestselling author Jonathan Maberry's epic, swashbuckling Kagen the Damned series.

The Silver Empire is in ruins. War is in the wind. Kagen and his allies are on the run from the Witch-king. Wild magic is running rampant everywhere. Spies and secret cabals plot from the shadows of golden thrones.

Kagen Vale is the most wanted man in the world, with a death sentence on his head and a reward for him—dead or alive—that would tempt a saint.

The Witch-king has new allies who bring a terrible weapon—a cursed disease that drives people into a murderous rage. If the disease is allowed to spread, the whole of the West will tear itself apart.

In order to build an army of resistance fighters and unearth magical weapons of his own, Kagen and his friends have to survive attacks and storms at sea, brave the haunted wastelands of the snowy north, fight their way across the deadly Cathedral Mountains, and rediscover a lost city filled with cannibal warriors, old ghosts, and monsters from other worlds. Along with his reckless adventurer brothers, Kagen races against time to save more than the old empire… if he fails the world will be drenched in a tsunami of bloodshed and horror.

Son of the Poison Rose weaves politics and espionage, sorcery and swordplay, treachery and heroism as the damned outcast Kagen fights against the forces of ultimate darkness.

My thoughts: I love everything about this series! First off, it's chunky. While that is a turn off on some occasions the massive page count is needed for everything that Maberry attempts to cover with this one. Secondly, Kagen is a force to be reckoned with. He has brute strength, curses like a sailor (which I find utterly hilarious for some reason), the capacity to love deeply, a determined will, and the desire to right the wrongs that were done to his family and the slaughtered royal family of the defeated Silver Empire. Kagen also has an untapped power that he is only just starting to recognize.

While Kagen is indeed the star of the show there are many other characters that make this series comparable to that other chunky fantasy series (ahem, Game of Thrones). Kagen's own brother the Witch-King is ultimately trying to resurrect magic and take over the world. The Widow is trying to figure out what her role in her new life is. Mother Frey is seemingly attempting to recruit anyone to assist her and her supporters in thwarting the Witch-King. This is a no holds barred, swords out, adventurous tale that just gets better. You'll be saying some choice words at the end of this one! 

I received a copy of this title via NetGalley.