Dead Reign

Dead Reign (2008) T.A. Pratt

When Marla stops the (not very sane) necromancer Ayers from animating a corpse, she sets into action a chain of events that will have her once again defending Felport from an invader, and learning more about the underworld than she ever wants to know.

Hmm… Hard to come up with a good synopsis of this book without giving away some of the fun twists and turns of the story, so we leave the brief and vague synopsis as is.

Marla has softened a bit over the series so far. Not in a bad way that makes her incapable of doing her job, but in a way that makes it clear she’s doing things because she believes strongly in and cares strongly for something–the city of Felport, where she is Chief Sorcerer. We can also see that beneath her (very) rough exterior, she does care for her friends, and does everything she can to keep them safe.

Once again, Rondeau was my favorite character in the story. Marla is strong and bitchy and self-sufficient to a great degree, but Rondeau is more than her sidekick. He’s complex and very interesting–especially as he’s a demonic parasite. Not that Marla isn’t complex, she’s just not as likable–although this is changing over the course of the series.

And that does change to a great degree over the course of this story. We learn a bit about Marla’s past–and what she went through to get where she is now. To me, this makes her far more sympathetic–and interesting–than she was in the previous two books.

You should easily be able to read Dead Reign without having read the previous two books in the series. In fact, given the fact I didn’t much care for Blood Engines, I might even recommend starting here, just because I find Marla far more likable in the following books.
Rating: 7/10

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