Once Upon a Bibliophile

Warning! This post contains spoilers for the previous books, Falling Kingdoms and Rebel Spring

BOOK- Gathering Darkness

AUTHOR- Morgan Rhodes

SERIES- Falling Kingdoms #3

RATING- 3/5

Gathering Darkness by Morgan Rhodes is the third novel in the young adult fantasy series Falling Kingdoms. In my opinion, Gathering Darkness is where the Falling Kingdoms series begins its decline. A bit dramatic, but I was honestly expecting the story of the Kindred to end here. The expectation throughout the book made the climax fall a little flat and, frankly, this is where I began to lose interest in the series. I know this may come as a surprise, considering the previous posts I have written about this series, but it’s true. This is where, for me, the Falling Kingdoms became more of a chore than a read for pleasure.

PLOT

Gathering Darkness was still a very good, very enjoyable novel, but the story felt like it was coming to a standstill, an end, during this book. The legend of the Kindred took almost full focus in the novel and the characters actually began to (finally) look for them instead of just dreaming about them. However, the build up towards the final confrontation between the characters made me much more excited than the climax deserved. They just did a spell and picked up some crystals. Plus, I was pretty sure that would be the end of the Kindred and the next books would be about something else, but then the author dropped a massive, quite random plot twist that just painfully dragged the plot onward towards another novel.

In short, Cleo has allied with Jonas to try and discover the Kindred. Her deceptive nature is coming in handy in the Damora family, and now might finally be the time she gets her fallen kingdom back for good. Lucia, with help of Alexius and her surprising new friend Cleo, hones her magical powers ready to reveal the locations of the Kindred, but Melenia and the Watchers have dangerous plans for her. Amara and Ashur search for the Kindered themselves and Magnus must decide who he’ll ally with now he’s been betrayed by everyone he’s ever loved. The fight for power continues. It’s time to choose your side.

IMAO, Gathering Darkness was a pretty middling book. Wasn’t amazing. Wasn’t awful. It’s one of those what I call ‘filler books’. Definitely not your favorite. Just something you read to pass the time. It felt a little like that with Gathering Darkness. I rushed impatiently through the less-than-pacy plot and skim read a lot of it. I had a feeling that the ending was going to be amazing. They were going to reveal the Kindred, have a massive fight over who got which one, turn into gods, and then… something was going to happen for the next three books to be necessary. There were moments of excitement and drama, a swashbuckling new rebel and a dangerous plan that could destroy the world, but it wasn’t truly compelling. Sure, there was a few thrilling adventures, but I didn’t feel the same level of excitement as I hope to feel with a fantasy. There was a lot of planning and not all that much doing. In all its 406 pages, there was a rather disappointing level of action.

Of course, not that Gathering Darkness is a terrible novel. I just felt that this is where my extremely high expectations of the series began to decline. After reading the first book and waiting in excitement for weeks for books 2-6 to arrive by circulation at my local library, I was expecting something more Eragon-and-Lord-of-the-Rings-style high fantasy. Heroic and with a very swords and sorcery centered plot. For me, it was a combination of the less- than- interesting writing style and slow plot that let this book down.

CHARACTERS

Gathering Darkness saw two additions to the characters- Felix and Alexius. Alexius isn’t really new, of course, but in this book he comes down from the divine home of the Watchers to join us lowly mortals in the hunt for the Kindred. So you see more of him. In a way. I guess. They do have a couple of POV chapters scattered throughout the book, but generally the story isn’t told through their eyes.

FELIX

Felix is a new rebel added at the beginning of Gathering Darkness. He becomes Jones’ new parter in crime (literally) with Lysandra in prison in Auranos. They make a pretty good team, Felix bringing the physical prowess and Jonas providing the brains (allegedly. He still hasn’t shown any evidence of having one). He has a pretty mysterious backstory and, though overall his morals are kind of in the grey area, he’s a good person. Even though he hasn’t really got much of a POV you soon think you know everything about him. Handsome, strong, heroic… he’s a conflicted male hero searching for love and redemption in a world that’s unwilling to give it up without a fight. Yay.

ALEXIUS

I bet you already know Aleixus from reading Rebel Spring, and he doesn’t really change much. He’s still the same old Alexius. However, through the book, his relationship with Lucia develops and more of his motivations become known. He begins to act as Lucia’s mentor figure as well as her love interest, but his reasons for doing so are unclear… well actually they’re not but I’m not going to tell you what his reasons for doing so are because that would be spoiling it.

AMARA AND ASHUR

Again, you know this deceptive royal pair from Rebel Spring, but they switch from being minor characters to being quite major ones. Their personalities develop and they become a larger part of the story.

None of the other characters really change, and there isn’t any other new ones. The same old crew, really.

CONCLUSION

There isn’t much else I want to say about Gathering Darkness. It wasn’t the best book I’ve ever read, not by a long shot. But it wasn’t the worst. I know I said at the start that this is where the series begins its decline, and it does, but that doesn’t make this an awful book. It was just a little slow, a little boring and didn’t live up to my expectations. I think I would have enjoyed it more if this was the last book. If all the build up of excitement and slightly dreary planning paid off with a thrilling climax to the series. But it didn’t. This is only the third book, and I don’t have the best of expectations for the next three.