Dark Heir
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, surprising, 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 arch 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 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 shocking 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 the hidden away dark palace that cannot be woken up, but it’s the characters, their interactions, and their desires that I find 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
