#cs dark fantasy

[csdarkfantasy]

Bane of Blood: La Gorgona

A dark fantasy adult novel, updates weekly

⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ Read it here -> La Gorgona

#dark fantasy #dark fiction #adult literature #monsters #action/adventure #drama #writers and poets #original writing #original fiction #writers on tumblr #creative writing #writing #writers #cs dark fantasy #csdarkfantasy #la gorgona #bane of blood

[bigdreamsandwildthings]

☕️📖🤍

#booklr #book photography #book picture #dark heir #cs pacat #bookworm #bibliophile #ya fiction #ya fantasy #book community #book aesthetic #book lover #book nerd #open book #books and tea #my photos #mine

[austenwazright]

I thing the ideia of the reborns, of Will being literally the reincarnation of Sarcean, sometimes gets kinda misty in my mind, I mean, it's not like Sarcean possessed him and is trying to manipulate Will, like even our poor boy thinks, but he's >>him<<, in flesh and bones. Like yeah we don't know Sarcean but we also really do bc we spent two books in his mind, cause even tho Will sometimes is convinced Sarcean is this voice in the back of his mind, this dark part he has to contain, Sarcean wasn't evil, he was a >>person<<, he was Will, and yeah I know I'm not making much sense, I'll try to use better worlds but they're like >>the same person<< and yeah we know that but we also keep forgetting it

#books #fantasy books #cs pacat #will kempen #sarcean #dark rise #book recs #dark heir

[leah-sz]

Dark Rise aesthetic

"Long ago, [...] there was a world of wonders – of what you and I might call magic. Great towers and palaces, fragrant gardens and marvellous creatures. In that world, a Dark King rose, growing in power and killing those who stood in his path."

#dark rise #dark heir #trilogy #cs pacat #books #fantasy books #ya books #lgbt books #will kempen #james st clair

[hoodlessmads]

Do you want to read something:

Dark

Gothic

Bi main character

Gay

Anime

Queer

Set in 1821 England/Italy but there’s magic

Evil archaeologist family/organization

Bratty blond twink

Unicorns

Basically undead remnants

Incorporeal shadow monsters

Magical artifacts

Mystery of a whole past epic fantasy storyline slowly unraveling

Morally gray characters

Redeemable villains

Imagery

Fruity

People of color in the main cast well-written

Sweet friendships

Toxic gays

The light is not good and the dark is not bad

Main character is an extremely unreliable narrator and also fascinating

He is both terrifying and your poor little meow meow

Then read Dark Rise and Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat (books 1 and 2 of the Dark Rise trilogy). Quick read it now and collect those trading cards! (No really there are collectible cards! Check out his instagram! Someone make a TCG and I’ll play it!!)

By the author of Captive Prince and Fence, though this series is very different in tone from those but with the same level of quality character writing. Seriously C.S. Pacat is out here serving such delicious food for a starving audience.

#dark rise #dark heir #ya book recs #fantasy book recs #I felt like I needed to properly pitch this series #more people should give it and cs pacat a try

[kitausu]

Frankly at this point Will and James should just go find a small island somewhere and live out their days. Like oh you resurrected the Dark King? Sorry he's busy lounging by the pool with his hot boyfriend and can't come to the possession phone line.

#dark heir #kit reads fantasy #cs pacat

[fairydrowning]

"Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say "My tooth is aching" than to say "My heart is broken."

– C.S. Lewis

#this is like so true #mental health awareness #mental heath support #mental health #dark academia #light academia #dark acadamia aesthetic #fragments #dark fantasy #poetry #excerpts #books & libraries #romanticism #book aesthetic #booklbr #dark academism #light academism #cottage core #english literature #cs lewis #quotes #quotations #lit #classic aesthetic #classic literature #classic academia #spilled love #words #spilled thoughts #spilled words

[miles-crow]

Owed art for awesome @wolfhill213 !

I have never read any of Dark Rise books, but thanks to this lovely soul I now know all important lore and theories ha

#dark rise #cs pacat #will kempen #james st clair #fantasy books #dark heir #unicorn #booktok

[lpa6zn]

ⓘ This user is dangerously close to giving up everything and leaving this boring world to jump into a fantasy land.

#books #shadow and bone #grishaverse #six of crows #leigh bardugo #the atlas six #olivie blake #miss peregrines home for peculiar children #ransom riggs #fantasy books #fantasy world #harry potter saga #the marauders #narnia #cs lewis #his dark materials #philip pullman #percy jackson #rick riordan #greek mytology #the cruel prince #holly black #the spiderwick chronicles #neil gaiman #the sandman #shadow hunters #cassandra clare #star wars #once upon a time #storybrooke

[artbylenshypnotix]

@marzipanthots Hi Here are some of my Top MM Love stories - Enemies to Lovers.. Slow burn, hot hero tortured, MC1 abused by MC2 turn Lover , MM Whomp books - highly recommended

#1 Captive Prince - CS Pacat

#2 Prince’s Assassin - Ariana Nash

#3) Kate Aaron - Free Men Series - MM Romance - The Slave, The Soldier, The Master

#4) Ann Somerville- The Surrogate - hell yeah MMM

#5) Ai No Kusabi book series - holy shit - an elite kidnaps the head of a street gang and and sets out to break him down until he’s a willing Pet/ sex slave - MM

#5.5) Taming Riki book series the Alternative Universe of the Ai No Kusabi series -MM, MM

#6) Bloodraven PL Nunn - only for the strong - M M(other) -Serious Warning labels

#7) Jex Lane - Beautiful Monsters - ( Captive, Sire , Broken) MMM(Other) - Warning Labels

#8) Ariana Nash- Silk and Steel (4 books) Series - Fantasy MM

—- What’s your favorites?

#mmm #mm romance #content warning #captive prince #enemies to lovers #dark fantasy books #cs pacat #Ariana Nash #prince’s assassin #whomp books #Jex lane #beautiful monsters #silk and steel #highly recommend

[csdarkfantasy]

⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ Lovely new avatar by @christinevioletart

#dark art #dark fantasy #commission art #avatar #csdarkfantasy #cs dark fantasy

[bigdreamsandwildthings]

Got my hands on my top two most anticipated new releases this weekend 🖤

#booklr #book photography #book picture #fourth wing #iron flame #dark rise #dark heir #rebecca yarros #cs pacat #bookworm #bibliophile #fiction #fantasy #book community #book aesthetic #book lover #book nerd #my photos #mine

[gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun]

I haven’t read Dark Heir yet, but I read Dark Rise in May and got obsessed.

Please enjoy this playlist I’ve made for it (art was a random image I found through google, dunno if the source is ai or something else), and if you have any song recommendations please send them my way!

#dark rise #cs pacat #dark heir #dark fantasy #queer fantasy #I’m so gay for James it’s not even funny #Spotify

[thetypedwriter]

Dark Heir Book Review

Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat Book Review 

Warning: *Spoiler Warning for both Dark Rise and Dark Heir*

Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat has been my most anticipated read. Not of the year, not of the month, just in general. More than any other sequel coming out, I could not wait for Dark Heir.

In preparation, I even reread Dark Rise to ensure that I had a full and complete understanding of every sentence and nuance put forth in Dark Heir. 

I was so incredibly excited for this book, especially as I found Dark Heir to be titillating and maybe the last book I read that truly took me by surprise and made me gasp out loud. 

I wouldn’t say I’m disappointed, because I think Dark Heir is good, but I also don’t think it’s perfect and having the astronomical expectations that I did have certainly didn’t help. 

Dark Heir picks up immediately after Dark Rise ends. Similarly to the first book, the gang is trying to stop the dark king from reaching his full power and face off against Sinclair, Simon’s father, in various moments with an array of tension and methodologies, all interwoven with intrapersonal moments of romance, friendship, and self-actualization. 

The biggest weakness of the first book was its middle. The beginning of Dark Rise starts off intriguing, with Will on the loose and an action-packed fight scene onboard a ship.

The ending of Dark Rise hits you like a bomb. The realization that Will is actually the dark king will never not be one of the greatest plot twists of all time. 

Other than the middle slog, though, Dark Rise was excellent. 

My biggest frustrations with Dark Heir are the treatment of the villain and the multiple POV’s. In Dark Rise, Simon is the big baddie. He’s calculating, manipulative, powerful, and charismatic. In Dark Heir, however, C.S. Pacat tells you that you’ve got it all wrong. 

It’s not Simon that is characterized by all those traits, but his father, Sinclair. All the attributes given to Simon in the first book are essentially just handed over to Sinclair with the attitude of making you feel stupid for thinking Simon was the villain in the first place…even though that’s what we were told in book one and Sinclair hadn’t even been mentioned previously. 

I find it frustrating when authors diminish an antagonist from one book to make another villain seem worse and more powerful later on.

Let Simon and Sinclair stand on their own, separate and distinct. Don’t minimize what happened in book one so that Sinclair seems more evil and important in the sequel. 

It didn’t work for me, and the fact that we don’t even see Sinclair is also a poor choice. For the villain to never even show up (other than possessing others) reduces his threatening presence overall and the tension I get as a reader decreases every time another page passes without Sinclair ever showing his face (it worked in Harry Potter only because another villain was there to fill the void). 

My second frustration is the amount of POV’s. In the first book, there were three POV’s: Will, Violet, and Katherine. In book two, we get Will, Violet, Cyprian, Elizabeth, James, and Visander.

It’s too many. Three is already pushing it and by increasing it from three to six, the overall arc for each character gets less spotlight and therefore less development. 

That being said, I like all the characters and loved seeing their POV’s. However, because there were just so many of them, I felt like it was quantity over quality.

Whereas I would have preferred the quality of less POV’s than the breadth of more, especially as several of them were with each other, as in the case of James, Will, and Cyprian and then Visander and Elizabeth. 

Will’s agony of being the dark king and trying to fight against himself, meanwhile seeking understanding and acceptance, is nothing short of brilliant. Will’s chapters were by far my favorite because they were so conflicted, in the most interesting of ways.

After Will, my favorite POV is Elizabeth’s. Her childlike way of speaking and understanding the disturbing world around her was always intriguing and poignant (and often hilarious). I liked that her POV offered a different view of what was going on compared to Will and his gang. However, her POV makes Visander’s obsolete. 

Violet’s POV could have been good, but she is imprisoned the whole time. I actually think the only reason is C.S. Pacat did that was because having Violet around the gang would have influenced the plot too much, so she just needed Violet locked away—cue Mrs. Duval with her controlling powers (which was never explained???). 

Violet’s chapters were boring, which is a shame because I really adore Violet. I would have loved to have seen the tension in Will’s chapters by having Violet close by the whole book and to see her relationship with Cyprian blossom and grow.

But no. Instead she’s locked up for 90% of the book before escaping just in time for the climax, interacting with virtually no one except some old journals. 

Cyprian’s POV was fine, but useless, as he was with Will 90% of the time. 

James’ POV was interesting, but not needed. I actually think a part of James’ allure is his mystery. What is he planning? How is feeling? What are his intentions?

A big part of my initial curiosity about James stemmed from those questions. In Dark Heir all that disappears. Because we get James’ POV, gone is the mystery about what James is planning, his true motivations, and his feelings. 

Honestly, if the whole book had switched off between Will and Elizabeth that would have been perfect. If three was absolutely needed, then I would take Violet too, but otherwise? All the other POV’s were not needed and only took away from other storylines. 

I feel so strongly about this because I really like all the characters. I find them all complex, intriguing, highly motivated, and conflicted for a variety of reasons.

C.S. Pacat did such a great job creating them that I want to see their storylines through. What I don’t want are filler POV’s that don’t offer much in the way of plot. 

The last niggling frustration I’ll briefly mention before getting to the ending is the setting. In book one, we get huge (maybe too long) descriptions of the Hall of the Stewards and of London.

In book two, we get none of that. We get descriptions of the dark palace and some small villages in Italy and that's about it. For a huge epic fantasy, the world felt very small and very unimaginative. 

The highlights for the book were definitely the characters and their interactions. Those proved to be just as good as the first book, if not better.

The relationship between Will and James, between Will and Violet, Violet and Cyprian, Cyprian and James, Violet and Tom, Visander and Elizabeth—they are all chef’s kiss! 

Truly, each and every character has such intense and significant ties to all the other characters that it kept me devouring each page like a starved man. This is where C.S. Pacat really shines. 

The last thing I’ll mention to bring this review to a close is the ending. Did it have the bombshell explosive conclusion like Dark Rise?

No, no it did not. 

Was it still good?

Yes…for the most part. The culmination of all the characters meeting underneath the mountain in the dark palace was great. However, I wanted more. 

There were several moments where a huge revelation or climactic fight was about to happen when the castle just happened to shake, or an earthquake appeared, or chunks of rock fell from the ceiling.

It felt cheap and frustrating to get cut off from an important moment, especially as this happened not once, but several times near the end. 

Additionally, the twist of James wearing the collar in the final pages would have been so much more powerful and shocking if we hadn’t literally read in the chapter before that the collar clicked around his throat by Sloane/Sinclair. 

 It doesn’t make any sense. 

Why give away your biggest shock factor? I have no idea.

Even after writing this, I realize that James’ POV might have actively been a detriment to the book overall, but especially to the ending, which was nowhere near as crazy a plot twist as Dark Rise. 

In general, I still liked this book. I would consider it leagues better than other YA novels, especially in terms of characters and their relationships, but it’s not without its issues, even compared to its predecessor. 

Frustrations aside, I enjoyed Dark Heir. The plot was palatable enough—there’s a dark army slumbering beneath a mountain in a hidden away palace that cannot be woken up, but it’s the characters, their interactions, and their desires that I found truly appealing. 

Recommendation: Reread Dark Rise like I did to fully appreciate the brilliance of it, and then read Dark Heir. It won’t be as good, but that’s okay. You’ll still get the character moments you’ve been craving before it’ll leave you wanting more.

Let’s hope that the next book will fulfill any lingering needs we have and (dark) rise to the challenge. 

Score: 7/10

#dark rise #dark heir #cs pacat #book blog #book review #book recommendations #ya fiction #book rec #popular fiction #books #popular books #top books #favorite books #fantasy #lgbtqbook #7/10

[kitausu]

Nobody does this kind of push and pull the way CS Pacat does it.

#kit reads fantasy #dark heir #cs pacat

[heyyoitsbooks]

The cover for Dark Heir looks so good and I'm so excited to pick up my own copy this fall!!

Check out the first book in this series: Dark Rise by C. S. Pacat

#dark heir #dark rise #c. s. pacat #cs pacat #queer fantasy #fantasy books #books #literature #bookblr #book blog #look at that artwork #beautiful #support local bookshops instead of amazon