Book Review: ‘Kagen The Damned: A Novel’ By Jonathan Maberry

If you’re a fan of magical, mythical, dark magic, fantasy thrillers, this is the book for you. It starts off strong and never lets up and with an ending twist you don’t see coming, to set up the next chapter in this series. Kagen Vale is hungover and naked in a strange room after a night of drinking and being with a whore. He wakes up to all sorts of noise in the street and sees that the Silver Empire is being invaded. He races to the palace to see his mother and father being killed and everyone else. He fights back as best he can and finds out the Witch-King has awakened and taken over. Magic was forbidden thousands of years ago but he has now arrised. Kagen feels like a failure for not protecting his family and declares himself Kagen The Damned. Kagen wanders the lands drinking and trying to come up with a plan to take down the Witch-King and meets up with a group that also want to take hime down. Plans are drawn up and when the time comes for the Witch-King to be crowned all hell breaks loose and Kagen may just get the revenge he wants but also gets the shock of his life in the process. One of the best fantasy books I have read in years.

You can pick up Kagen The Damned in stores on Tuesday, May 10th from St. Martin’s Press.