14 must-read SFF releases that will make your September magical
By Lacy Baugher
As the Shadow Rises – Katy Rose Pool
The highly anticipated sequel to Katy Rose Pool’s fantasy debut There Will Come a Darkness, As the Shadow Rises is poised to take everything you loved about the first novel and turn it up to eleven.
The sequel continues to balance five different POV characters – Beru, Jude, Anton, Ephyra, and Hassan. Though several of these characters’ stories have begun to intersect, they still each have their own journeys, with goals and agendas that don’t often align with one another’s.
Hassan, now a king in hiding in the occupied city of Nazirah, wants his kingdom back. Ephyra is searching for a mysterious item that can allegedly save her sister’s (undead) life. But Beru is busy trying to atone for all the lives her zombie-like existence as a revenant has taken from others. And now that Anton is officially the Last Prophet, what does that mean for Jude and the other followers of the Order of the Last Light?
The official synopsis has a few more story details.
"The Last Prophet has been found, yet he sees destruction ahead. In this sequel to the critically-acclaimed There Will Come a Darkness, kingdoms have begun to fall to a doomsday cult, the magical Graced are being persecuted, and an ancient power threatens to break free. But with the world hurtling toward its prophesized end, Anton’s haunting vision reveals the dangerous beginnings of a plan to stop the Age of Darkness. As Jude, Keeper of the Order of the Last Light, returns home in disgrace, his quest to aid the Prophet is complicated by his growing feelings for Anton. Meanwhile, the assassin known as the Pale Hand will stop at nothing to find her undead sister before she dies for good, even if it means letting the world burn. And in Nazirah, Hassan, the kingdom-less Prince, forms a risky pact to try to regain his throne. When the forces of light and darkness collide in the City of Mercy, old wounds are reopened, new alliances are tested, and the end of the world begins."
As the Shadow Rises is available on September 1.