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The MC, Khraen, is a demonologist, which are known for common use of human sacrifice. Khraen is a distinctive and memorable character for a lot of reasons. I wouldn’t describe him as an anti-hero, I would say he’s straight up a villain. He’s a quite a different type of villain than I’m used to, though. Khraen has had his heart broken into pieces and scattered throughout the world, and because of that he’s suffering from amnesia in the beginning of the book and is almost animal-like in nature. However, each time he finds a piece of his heart, he restores a bit of himself and his memories. This is the second book in a row where the main character has amnesia – which is strange since I haven’t read one of those kinds of books in ages.. I think this book is marketed as adult fantasy, so expect relatively descriptive sex scenes and (not relatively) graphic violence.
Black Heart (Detective Dan Riley, book 1) by Anna-Lou Weatherley Black Heart (Detective Dan Riley, book 1) by Anna-Lou Weatherley
As I broached the subject of the world-building: the world might seem a bit overwhelming at first, as there are gods, demons (who used to actively interact with people), hence, also parallels worlds, where they dwell, necromancers, elementalists, shamans, sorcerers, wizards, demonologists (also dragons; mountains and lakes can be woken up and driven into fury, Kraken can be summoned,too) In this quest story we follow the main character, who wakes up buried alive in the middle of nowhere, hungry, cold and has no recollection of what happened prior to his awakening. What he soon finds out, though, is that there are other versions of him wandering around, each having a piece of obsidian in their heart that holds parts of his persona (memories of his past). After killing the farmer’s horses, we rode them south, exchanging our dead mounts for new ones whenever their appearance decayed to the point they became recognizable as corpses.”However, both of those things were kind of dragged down for me by the execution of the story. The narrative is overly repetitive where it feels like it hits the same story beats over and over and over again. Ditto for the characterization. I don't know how many times we had to get inner thoughts from the main character about his conflicted nature. My best estimate is approximately 10,000. I found myself saying "Dude you murdered someone in cold blood right at the beginning. You're a homicidal maniac. Just embrace it." Fletcher had a similar issue with how often we are told people at large dislike the main character because of his skin color. It feels like he belabors this point to absurdity.
The Ink Black Heart: The Number One international bestseller
Also, the mc has a magical ability of detecting whether someone is over 19 or not 😉 (Idk what is so distinct about 19-year-olds but whatever) That night the Empire fell, and the world sank into a thousand years of darkness."Phenomenal and highly immersive world-building, top notch characterisation, beautiful, poignant and macabre prose while at the same time self reflective due to the POV, and lastly, a solid magic system that fuses elements of speculative science all interwoven in a highly addictive plotline that keeps you wanting more after every single word uttered from my most beloved anti-hero. "Something was wrong with the old man; he wasn’t quite the right shape. His skull, a little too oblong, his limbs a little too long. He looked stretched. Eyes, too large, oddly oval, glowed violet as he studied me. He blinked wrong, liquid, one eye at a time." The prose in this was pretty great, I can’t speak to typos or errors since I listened to the audio, but the dialogue was natural and fluid. It was descriptive enough to create a world but not so much so that it slowed down the story. As far as originality, it’s not that the concept of wizards vs evil necromancers is a new thing, but I haven’t seen it from the necromancer’s point of view before, so in that way it felt fresh.Fabulous book. A serial killer is hunted by Detective Dan Riley and his team. Grips you and doesn't let go.’ Consumer Reviewer Like all things grimdark—the murdery bits, the stabby-stabby times, the people popping off in clouds of blood like angry little zits; Despite chasing the shards of his heart, Khraen’s great capacity for change is the driving factor of this novel—I suspect it will permeate the rest of the series, as well. The supporting characters play a part in this, driving Khraen towards or away from his old self. Fletcher has assembled quite the cast – a necromancer who stirs something up in our poor lad’s memories; a caravan guard who treats Khraen like a human being despite the midnight colour of his skin; an old friend who knows everything about Khraen’s former life but is a bit stand-offish when it comes to sharing; and plenty of mages, all of whom Khraen hates in a way that defies reason itself. Strange, that – as he is the victim of just such hatred himself. Everyone in the North, where Khraen awakens, sees the colour of his skin as a mark of the stain of his soul. Derided and loathed, Khraen doesn’t have much of a reason to like the society he discovers in this brand-new world. Khraen just woke up, and he’s starving. He’s confused and disoriented and doesn’t remember much at all of his life before he’d been killed. All he knows now is that he is being drawn to the fragments of his obsidian heart that have been scattered about the world by whoever it was that murdered him.
Books The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup | Books
I wanted to summon one, to bind it to a sword. But not just any demon, I wanted their master, the Lord of the entire Hell. He had a name, and it was the End of Sorrows." "You. Will. Obey!Khraen, our protagonist, wakes up in a grave with no memories of his life. He discovers that there are people who look exactly like him, and who carry an obsidian piece in their heart. Every time he consumes this piece, after killing them, he regains some memories of who he was. The more time he spends in the world, the more he realizes how the population despises him for his dark skin. What Khraen does is covered in part in this book, the first in a new grimdark fantasy trilogy from Michael R. Fletcher. When the body of a man is found with his wrists slashed in a London hotel room, it appears at first to be a tragic suicide. But Detective Dan Riley suspects there is more to this case than meets the eye and the pathology report confirms his worst fears – the victim was poisoned and suddenly Dan is dealing with a murder inquiry. This really reminded me of books by Mark Lawrence and I certainly think if you've enjoyed his grimdark stories with Jorg then you'll probably enjoy this too. I did see some of the twists coming, but that didn't lessen my enjoyment at all and I found the character easy to engage with even though they do some dispicable things. I enjoyed the journey of discovery, even when it was a dark one.
The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith | Waterstones
I'm retroactively adding a star after reading the rest of the trilogy. My original review stands below, but the next books redeemed the series for me. In truth, Fletcher gifted us with a wildly original dark fantasy concept and executed it with brutal flair. That might have been part of my initial dislike; it was just so different, standard epic fantasy expectations didn't properly apply. Anyway, it's an interesting ride and I highly recommend the series to grimdark fans.No le pongo las cinco estrellas porque como he dicho antes ha habido cosas que me han faltado, pero me lo he pasado bien leyéndolo. Supongo que ha sido un aire fresco de tanta novela romántica últimamente. Aunque, a decir verdad, me hubiera gustado haberlo leído en otro momento porque no me encuentro en mi mejor momento, pero bueno, lo hecho, hecho está. The water elemental cowered. It remembered me. It remembered how I brought it here, how I bent it to my will. The world is one of magic permeating ever facet of life. Wizards rule, after overthrowing the old, evil demonologist emperor. There appear to be dozens of schools of magic, and each one has its own laws and capabilities. It's a varied world, Fletcher has created with heavens, hells, ancient ruins, and a mystery hidden at its core. Why do people end up behaving the way they do - is it nature, or is it nurture? Do people turn out to be good or evil because of their upbringing and environment or it in their innate character to be either one. Khraen struggles with the moral implications of whatever memories he has. He is not able to comprehend how he turned out to be the way he remembers and is repelled by his actions in his memories. But then, the more people treat him like an outcast, the more anger and resentment he starts to feel. The question remains - knowing what little he does, will he continue down the path which will make him like his memories or does he have the freedom and choice to be something else in a cruel world. I found this aspect of the story fascinating. Michael Fletcher portrays this brilliantly. We can see how easy it is for someone to start down the slippery slope where violence justifies violence and evil begets evil. Even though Khraen tries hard to be decent, the environment and the action of the system & people makes him lash out.
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