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Adepta Sororitas
Warhammer La rosa en la oscuridad
Opal: un resplandeciente mundo trono de santos y soldados, adorado por el mismísimo Emperador. Tras recibir la misión de recuperar la calavera del venerado Santo Veres, la hermana superior Augusta de la Orden de la Rosa Ensangrentada y su escuadrón se topan de lleno con el festival más sagrado de la capital, un momento de reverencia y celebración.
Pero las cosas no van bien. A pesar de lo que los líderes planetarios quieren hacer creer a Augusta, un peligro político burbujea bajo la superficie, y los ataques rebeldes empiezan a roer las afueras de la ciudad. Sin embargo, la mayor amenaza aún está por llegar. Cuando se vuelve terroríficamente
evidente que un culto Genestealer ha clavado sus garras en la piel del planeta, las hermanas se dan cuenta de que eso solo puede significar una cosa: una flota enjambre viene de camino a Opal y, con ella, la hecatombe del planeta.
Pero las cosas no van bien. A pesar de lo que los líderes planetarios quieren hacer creer a Augusta, un peligro político burbujea bajo la superficie, y los ataques rebeldes empiezan a roer las afueras de la ciudad. Sin embargo, la mayor amenaza aún está por llegar. Cuando se vuelve terroríficamente
evidente que un culto Genestealer ha clavado sus garras en la piel del planeta, las hermanas se dan cuenta de que eso solo puede significar una cosa: una flota enjambre viene de camino a Opal y, con ella, la hecatombe del planeta.
368 pages, Paperback
First published September 9, 2023
38 people are currently reading
216 people want to read
About the author
Danie Ware
59 books205 followersAuthor of the Ecko trilogy (CyberPunk/Fantasy mashup) and Children of Artifice (queer science fantasy). Writer of Sisters of Battle (and other things) for WarHammer 40k, Judge Anderson for Rebellion, Twilight Imperium for Aconyte Books, and numerous short stories.
Reader, writer, crusader geek, re-enactor (retired) and role-player. After seventeen years conjuring PR, events and social media for Forbidden Planet (London) Ltd, you can now find me in the Manga/GNs at Waterstones Piccadilly.
Follow me on most Social Media channels as @Danacea
Reader, writer, crusader geek, re-enactor (retired) and role-player. After seventeen years conjuring PR, events and social media for Forbidden Planet (London) Ltd, you can now find me in the Manga/GNs at Waterstones Piccadilly.
Follow me on most Social Media channels as @Danacea
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
November 13, 2023
The Reader in Darkness
The author of The Rose in Darkness has penned ten Adeptus Sororitas shorts/novels. With such dedication, I’m disappointed by the simplistic portrayal of the Battle Sisters and the Ecclesiarchy. Classroom cliques have more complex politics, and aside from the Canoness, every Sister has the same bland personality.
I was surprised to learn that Sister Superior Augusta is a recurring character from previous novellas. There’s no implied background story, her squad doesn’t banter like veteran soldiers and instances of insubordination imply the opposite. They’re sent to Opal to retrieve a precious relic at the center of an eight-hundred-year religious cycle but appear ignorant of this celebration. How’s this possible? You’re not posthuman Space Marines unable to fathom human customs. You’re the elite militant arm of the state religion!
These kinds of worldbuilding failures occur throughout the novel. The author doesn’t understand the scale of a planet or its orbital industries. A shrine world that’s the destination for millions of pilgrims is somehow a single city that’s small enough to be demarcated by a river. Opal’s soldiers are fewer than the NYPD has officers. Forget economics or logistics; give me clear antagonists. Aside from mobs of nameless monsters teleporting around the city, nothing resembles an opposition force. There’s no void war, orbital landings or armed formations. Instead, disconnected scenes of soldiers dying inundate the narrative while the reader remains in the dark, unaware of what’s happening.
Worse, the author fails to make readers care about the stakes. Rich, corrupt and incompetent bureaucrats are the face of Opal. There’s not a single sympathetic figure among them. One finds themselves cheering for the Genestealers as they kill these caricatures. The most remarkable failure is that the Sisters are written as female Space Marines. A single squad will turn the tide of a planetary battle. Their performance against Genestealers is on par with Terminators. For an author so focused on the Adeptus Sororitas, she doesn’t understand them at all.
Not Recommended.
The author of The Rose in Darkness has penned ten Adeptus Sororitas shorts/novels. With such dedication, I’m disappointed by the simplistic portrayal of the Battle Sisters and the Ecclesiarchy. Classroom cliques have more complex politics, and aside from the Canoness, every Sister has the same bland personality.
I was surprised to learn that Sister Superior Augusta is a recurring character from previous novellas. There’s no implied background story, her squad doesn’t banter like veteran soldiers and instances of insubordination imply the opposite. They’re sent to Opal to retrieve a precious relic at the center of an eight-hundred-year religious cycle but appear ignorant of this celebration. How’s this possible? You’re not posthuman Space Marines unable to fathom human customs. You’re the elite militant arm of the state religion!
These kinds of worldbuilding failures occur throughout the novel. The author doesn’t understand the scale of a planet or its orbital industries. A shrine world that’s the destination for millions of pilgrims is somehow a single city that’s small enough to be demarcated by a river. Opal’s soldiers are fewer than the NYPD has officers. Forget economics or logistics; give me clear antagonists. Aside from mobs of nameless monsters teleporting around the city, nothing resembles an opposition force. There’s no void war, orbital landings or armed formations. Instead, disconnected scenes of soldiers dying inundate the narrative while the reader remains in the dark, unaware of what’s happening.
Worse, the author fails to make readers care about the stakes. Rich, corrupt and incompetent bureaucrats are the face of Opal. There’s not a single sympathetic figure among them. One finds themselves cheering for the Genestealers as they kill these caricatures. The most remarkable failure is that the Sisters are written as female Space Marines. A single squad will turn the tide of a planetary battle. Their performance against Genestealers is on par with Terminators. For an author so focused on the Adeptus Sororitas, she doesn’t understand them at all.
Not Recommended.
May 8, 2025
Opal, a gleaming beacon of the civilisation of the Imperium of Man. A peaceful world deep within the Imperium, where vast crowds pay homage to the Emperor and his great hero, Saint Veres, in a glorious celebration held once every eight hundred years. The Skull of Saint Veres is a great relic, one which has been ordered to be moved to a shrine world, but the local leaders are reluctant to part with it. Sister Superior Augusta of the Order of the Bloody Rose arrives to expedite the process, only to find bubbling cauldrons of discontent and heresy waiting for her. She realises that Opal's opulence and tranquillity is a facade, one that is dangerously close to breaking.
My prior explorations of the Warhammer 40,000 universe have mostly been through the works of Dan Abnett and Sandy Mitchell, not to mention Paul Kearney's two books in the setting, which have meant reading a lot about Space Marines, Imperial Guard and Inquisitors. The Rose in Darkness was an appealing read as it meant switching focus to another one of the Imperium's orders, the Adepta Sororitas or the Sisters of Battle. The belligerent death-nuns of the Emperor, the Sisters step in to situations which local militias can't handle but sending in the Space Marines would be massive overkill, with the addition that their religious rites and devotion to the Emperor give them an insight that some of the other orders lack.
This book is a good exploration of what kind of situation requires the Sisters' attention, as they have to respect local traditions, honour the local Saint's day but also be firm in their objective of removing the planet's most holy relic, which the local leaders are understandably upset about. The negotiations are interrupted when it becomes clear that some outside force is stirring up trouble on Opal, and it's up to the Sisters to identify the threat. When it is identified, all hell breaks loose, resulting in lots of crunchy battle sequences of the kind that make up the backbone of most Warhammer 40,000 fiction.
Danie Ware paints Opal in all its Imperial splendor. Most 40K fiction takes place on the ragged frontier, where the Imperium is fighting some kind of conflict against an exterior threat, but here the trouble is much harder to pin down. Unleashing a storm of bolter fire to take care of an Ork invader is one thing, but when the threat is more insidious and you cannot tell friend from foe, it's a more nuanced challenge, something that Augusta and her troops struggle to initially engage with. The author is operating with a constrained page count here but deftly characterises figures so even briefly-appearing players (like the planet's governor and military commander) are given at least some depth and flavour.
The book's main success is this idea of a world deep inside Imperial space, blessed by the Emperor, relatively rich and opulent, but whose workers are poor and downtrodden, sometimes even starving when the rich nobility sits in comfort just a few miles away, creating a sense of natural anger and resentment even without strange cults or xenos interference. The feeling of tension ramping up through the book is remarkably successful. It also helps the book gives us POV characters both in the Sororitas and in the local population, so we get both an insider and outsider's perspectives as events on Opal reach breaking point.
It is worth saying that The Rose in Darkness is bleak as hell, even by 40K standards. Most other 40K fiction I've read takes the view that, sure, things are bad, people die, a lot of things blow up, but the most positive - or least-negative, anyway - outcome is infinitely preferable to the worst-case scenario. The Rose in Darkness instead evokes the idea of fighting against the dying of the light, of fighting a long defeat for the sake of fighting it, and true heroism is counted by people making a stand for the right reasons in the dark, where nobody will ever see or hear.
The Rose in Darkness (****) does what good 40K fiction does well - chunky action sequences, mixed in with moments of supernatural horror - but it does it with an air of melancholy and futility that I had not previously encountered in the setting (despite its reputation), which is interesting, but I suspect won't quite be for everybody.
My prior explorations of the Warhammer 40,000 universe have mostly been through the works of Dan Abnett and Sandy Mitchell, not to mention Paul Kearney's two books in the setting, which have meant reading a lot about Space Marines, Imperial Guard and Inquisitors. The Rose in Darkness was an appealing read as it meant switching focus to another one of the Imperium's orders, the Adepta Sororitas or the Sisters of Battle. The belligerent death-nuns of the Emperor, the Sisters step in to situations which local militias can't handle but sending in the Space Marines would be massive overkill, with the addition that their religious rites and devotion to the Emperor give them an insight that some of the other orders lack.
This book is a good exploration of what kind of situation requires the Sisters' attention, as they have to respect local traditions, honour the local Saint's day but also be firm in their objective of removing the planet's most holy relic, which the local leaders are understandably upset about. The negotiations are interrupted when it becomes clear that some outside force is stirring up trouble on Opal, and it's up to the Sisters to identify the threat. When it is identified, all hell breaks loose, resulting in lots of crunchy battle sequences of the kind that make up the backbone of most Warhammer 40,000 fiction.
Danie Ware paints Opal in all its Imperial splendor. Most 40K fiction takes place on the ragged frontier, where the Imperium is fighting some kind of conflict against an exterior threat, but here the trouble is much harder to pin down. Unleashing a storm of bolter fire to take care of an Ork invader is one thing, but when the threat is more insidious and you cannot tell friend from foe, it's a more nuanced challenge, something that Augusta and her troops struggle to initially engage with. The author is operating with a constrained page count here but deftly characterises figures so even briefly-appearing players (like the planet's governor and military commander) are given at least some depth and flavour.
The book's main success is this idea of a world deep inside Imperial space, blessed by the Emperor, relatively rich and opulent, but whose workers are poor and downtrodden, sometimes even starving when the rich nobility sits in comfort just a few miles away, creating a sense of natural anger and resentment even without strange cults or xenos interference. The feeling of tension ramping up through the book is remarkably successful. It also helps the book gives us POV characters both in the Sororitas and in the local population, so we get both an insider and outsider's perspectives as events on Opal reach breaking point.
It is worth saying that The Rose in Darkness is bleak as hell, even by 40K standards. Most other 40K fiction I've read takes the view that, sure, things are bad, people die, a lot of things blow up, but the most positive - or least-negative, anyway - outcome is infinitely preferable to the worst-case scenario. The Rose in Darkness instead evokes the idea of fighting against the dying of the light, of fighting a long defeat for the sake of fighting it, and true heroism is counted by people making a stand for the right reasons in the dark, where nobody will ever see or hear.
The Rose in Darkness (****) does what good 40K fiction does well - chunky action sequences, mixed in with moments of supernatural horror - but it does it with an air of melancholy and futility that I had not previously encountered in the setting (despite its reputation), which is interesting, but I suspect won't quite be for everybody.
March 1, 2025
Mi primera novela de las Adeptus Sororitas y me ha gustado muchísimo.
Es cierto que le falta cerrar bien la historia, lo importante del desenlace queda muy desdibujado y de repente te mete el prólogo, y que a lo mejor abusa del recurso de los cantos, pero también me ha ayudado a entender que este libro es más épico leyéndolo con música coral.
En cualquier caso está bien, sin grandes sobresaltos en el argumento (no venimos a eso), todo está bien hilado y la historia de Kamilla me ha gustado mucho. Me ha dado ganas de leer muchas más novelas sobre ellas, aunque me gustaría verlas en acción con otras unidades.
Es cierto que le falta cerrar bien la historia, lo importante del desenlace queda muy desdibujado y de repente te mete el prólogo, y que a lo mejor abusa del recurso de los cantos, pero también me ha ayudado a entender que este libro es más épico leyéndolo con música coral.
En cualquier caso está bien, sin grandes sobresaltos en el argumento (no venimos a eso), todo está bien hilado y la historia de Kamilla me ha gustado mucho. Me ha dado ganas de leer muchas más novelas sobre ellas, aunque me gustaría verlas en acción con otras unidades.
October 10, 2023
Whoa! This was really really great! This was an outstanding mix of character writing and action; such a fun read.
October 12, 2023
I really enjoy the stories of Augsta, all of them are a pleasure to read, and so is this new one.
October 6, 2024
There is a lot to like. The book keeps up a fast pace, there are many well done action scenes, the lore is interesting, and the story has some interesting dynamics at play. There isn't a ton of character development, but enough to round them out a little and provide a bit of a sense of investment. The writing seemed a little rough in parts in terms of the dialogue and the repetitive combat prayers of the battle sisters, but it was more of a mild annoyance than enjoyment breaking. It's an action based book and succeeded in that regard for me. The reading experience was enjoyable.
If you are deep into the Warhammer 40k story setting this might not hold your interest, but if your immersion in that setting is more casual or your are just getting into it this book seems like a decent entry point. You don't have to have a lot of preexisting knowledge about the setting to understand what is going on. If you already aren't interested in the Adepta Sororitas battle sisters as a faction then I doubt this would win you over, but as someone not that familiar with them it was interesting.
Overall not bad, and worth giving a try in my opinion. 3.5/5 if I had to get specific about the rating.
If you are deep into the Warhammer 40k story setting this might not hold your interest, but if your immersion in that setting is more casual or your are just getting into it this book seems like a decent entry point. You don't have to have a lot of preexisting knowledge about the setting to understand what is going on. If you already aren't interested in the Adepta Sororitas battle sisters as a faction then I doubt this would win you over, but as someone not that familiar with them it was interesting.
Overall not bad, and worth giving a try in my opinion. 3.5/5 if I had to get specific about the rating.
June 6, 2025
I'm atheist but these religious zealot lesbian nuns with guns might just win me over
Want to read
September 4, 2023Annoyed to find this sold out in hardback within minutes of pre-orders becoming available.
September 26, 2024
Ahh, good fun. I know some people got tripped up by the logistics of it all but I liked having a story that put the story before the details, the themes before the figures. I liked seeing Opal, and I loved the bubbling numberlessness of the cultists. It very much felt like I was running out of models to clear those gd blips with as they kept popping up. I also liked the balance Ware struck between the dystopia and a reader's need for heroines, not something every 40k book manages for me! I would much rather have a story that works as a story than one which works as a description of the setting, I guess.
That said, GW if you're reading this I thought "maybe I should buy some Sororitas... or some Genestealers... or both??" several times while I was reading this book also, so, y'know, keep publishing Ware. I know what you're in this business for, and evidently she's got the goods.
That said, GW if you're reading this I thought "maybe I should buy some Sororitas... or some Genestealers... or both??" several times while I was reading this book also, so, y'know, keep publishing Ware. I know what you're in this business for, and evidently she's got the goods.
November 2, 2023
I love the Sisters of Battle, although I suspect they’d hate me because I’m a heretic and a coward with a pile of unwashed Nurgle tops. But nothing beats the Adepta Sororitas for being the most 40k in 40k. Their style sings to my heart and no other faction can be so simultaneously divine and majestic yet so unsettling and terrifying (see Repentia, Arco-flagellants and Penitent Engines). The fact that they are also human and not gene-enhanced super soldiers just makes their existence all the more horrific and mesmerizing.
It's a shame then that they don’t get as many stories as they deserve but I always appreciate it when a novel comes out for them. Still waiting for that Miriael Sabathiel novel but in a world of few Sisters books, I’ll devour whatever comes out the gate.
The Rose in Darkness kicks off superbly in a truly relatable piece of mission creep. Sister Superior Augusta and her squad must go get the holy skull of Saint Veres from the planet Opal. Opal, however, is having a massive celebration for the saint and is, as one would expect, somewhat disinclined to just hand it over. As such, the sisters decide to wait for the celebration to finish before collecting the skull. Only then by waiting do they discover that the entire planet might be in trouble and must sort all that out as well, then get the skull, maybe. It’s like my typical workday, only less nightmarish.
As one might expect, tits go vertical, fans get clogged with excreta and Augusta and friends are scrambling to hold back the tide of this week’s brand of insidious, planet consuming evil. Plans are devised, matters escalate, stakes raise, and bolter shells are inevitably loosed upon the enemies of the god-emperor.
So far so typical, but boy if things don’t start getting to me a little as the full scale of the threat starts to unveil and hope starts to falter. Ever since reading The Locked Tomb books my soul seems more sensitive to things, but I cannot deny that I was quietly affected as characters begin to struggle with ever looming failure and loss.
It’s so easy to play to stereotype with a faction like the Sororitas, making them overly zealous and violent caricatures, closed-minded to the point of automata. But here they have much more complex internal lives that resemble something approaching human, something vulnerable and genuinely quite comforting in how familiar it is. They doubt themselves, their abilities, feel guilt and shame for what they did or failed to do. Characters teeter on the cusp of losing themselves to despair, where the degree of loss and grief being felt pulls at their minds. It had me engaged far more than any combat typically does and this sort of struggle permeates the entire book.
It's also rare to see compassion cited in a 40k novel, and as a positive. Compassion? In the 40k grimdark? Surely the foulest heresy. But it works, it would be so easy to just pull the bolt pistol and fire but the battle for the soul has always been so much more interesting and it gets multiple run outs here, especially in the later half of the book. That it is so uncommon, that it is usually seen as a weakness in the context of the wider Imperium, makes its appearance so welcome. Not only that but it is used as inspiration, as a rare virtue that can be a great power in and of itself. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment where it seeps up from the usual stoicism and was likewise caught up in the fate of those who were the most compassionate, the kind souls who somehow have found a way to preserve their hearts in such a bleak and hostile universe.
The epilogue especially just squeezed the life out of me in this regard. Its bittersweet implication and raw emotion levelled me at a stroke and made me desperate to see the future for one character in particular.
I tend not to get too emotional with 40k novels, but The Rose in Darkness succeeded in giving me a fair case of book depression. It’s a fairly standard story in terms of the overarching plot and the nature of the mission, it doesn’t do anything particularly inventive with the setting or lore, but it rather appears to use the mission to explore more the psychology and emotions that arise from it, finding more value in people than anything else, which isn’t always the case with these sorts of stories.
What made things all the worse was that I hadn’t read any of the previous Augusta stories. I looked up, saw my Rose at War hardback untouched, leafed through it quickly, saw familiar names (Viola – frickin’ love Viola, massive heart, massive gun) and, oh no, other familiar names. Suffice it to say my heart won’t be taking a break any time soon.
It's a shame then that they don’t get as many stories as they deserve but I always appreciate it when a novel comes out for them. Still waiting for that Miriael Sabathiel novel but in a world of few Sisters books, I’ll devour whatever comes out the gate.
The Rose in Darkness kicks off superbly in a truly relatable piece of mission creep. Sister Superior Augusta and her squad must go get the holy skull of Saint Veres from the planet Opal. Opal, however, is having a massive celebration for the saint and is, as one would expect, somewhat disinclined to just hand it over. As such, the sisters decide to wait for the celebration to finish before collecting the skull. Only then by waiting do they discover that the entire planet might be in trouble and must sort all that out as well, then get the skull, maybe. It’s like my typical workday, only less nightmarish.
As one might expect, tits go vertical, fans get clogged with excreta and Augusta and friends are scrambling to hold back the tide of this week’s brand of insidious, planet consuming evil. Plans are devised, matters escalate, stakes raise, and bolter shells are inevitably loosed upon the enemies of the god-emperor.
So far so typical, but boy if things don’t start getting to me a little as the full scale of the threat starts to unveil and hope starts to falter. Ever since reading The Locked Tomb books my soul seems more sensitive to things, but I cannot deny that I was quietly affected as characters begin to struggle with ever looming failure and loss.
It’s so easy to play to stereotype with a faction like the Sororitas, making them overly zealous and violent caricatures, closed-minded to the point of automata. But here they have much more complex internal lives that resemble something approaching human, something vulnerable and genuinely quite comforting in how familiar it is. They doubt themselves, their abilities, feel guilt and shame for what they did or failed to do. Characters teeter on the cusp of losing themselves to despair, where the degree of loss and grief being felt pulls at their minds. It had me engaged far more than any combat typically does and this sort of struggle permeates the entire book.
It's also rare to see compassion cited in a 40k novel, and as a positive. Compassion? In the 40k grimdark? Surely the foulest heresy. But it works, it would be so easy to just pull the bolt pistol and fire but the battle for the soul has always been so much more interesting and it gets multiple run outs here, especially in the later half of the book. That it is so uncommon, that it is usually seen as a weakness in the context of the wider Imperium, makes its appearance so welcome. Not only that but it is used as inspiration, as a rare virtue that can be a great power in and of itself. I thoroughly enjoyed every moment where it seeps up from the usual stoicism and was likewise caught up in the fate of those who were the most compassionate, the kind souls who somehow have found a way to preserve their hearts in such a bleak and hostile universe.
The epilogue especially just squeezed the life out of me in this regard. Its bittersweet implication and raw emotion levelled me at a stroke and made me desperate to see the future for one character in particular.
I tend not to get too emotional with 40k novels, but The Rose in Darkness succeeded in giving me a fair case of book depression. It’s a fairly standard story in terms of the overarching plot and the nature of the mission, it doesn’t do anything particularly inventive with the setting or lore, but it rather appears to use the mission to explore more the psychology and emotions that arise from it, finding more value in people than anything else, which isn’t always the case with these sorts of stories.
What made things all the worse was that I hadn’t read any of the previous Augusta stories. I looked up, saw my Rose at War hardback untouched, leafed through it quickly, saw familiar names (Viola – frickin’ love Viola, massive heart, massive gun) and, oh no, other familiar names. Suffice it to say my heart won’t be taking a break any time soon.
February 22, 2024
3/5 Staroritas ™ did I already use that one? Whatever
Okay let me start by saying that I should have looked at this book on Goodreads first instead of Audible. I figured out that the characters had previously published stories part of the way through. I'm not a monster, I would have read them first
Having said that, the best thing about this book was the narrator. Helen McAlpine did a fantastic job. I went and looked through her catalogue afterwards and while most of the books I can tell are not my bag, I'll be checking out her other Black Library entries
The plot was pretty straightforward and if you've read a couple of Black Library books you won't be surprised. The characters were a little too archetypal to really be standouts which is a shame. This is (I'm pretty sure) the first book I've read where the Sisters of Battle are the main feature so I was hoping for a faction-standout entry. I like Sororitas well enough but they're a little too creepy for me to fully get behind them as a faction I love. And there's definitely some of that in this book. I don't mean that as a criticism because that's just how they are. Kinda like how AdMech are a bunch of weirdos. I don't make the rules
There were two main things that kept this from being a higher rating for me. The first and biggest of the two is the talky bits. I like for my Warhammer to have plenty of talky bits; if I just wanted shooting and stabbing (bolter porn as it's known) I'd play a video game. But the conversations all felt circular and painfully long. Like two characters talking past each other rather than to each other and then the conversation ends with some for of acquiescence. If that happened only once, I could forgive it. Frankly that's a realistic way for two headstrong people to talk and that describes a lot of characters in this book. But by the God-Emperor it's not engaging
The second thing is a spoiler that involves deeper 40k lore and I've been unable to find a satisfactory answer. I don't hold it against the book that much because of that. However here is a somewhat spoilery description:
Anyway this is a decent entry into the Bug Squashing genre. Check it out if that's your bag
Okay let me start by saying that I should have looked at this book on Goodreads first instead of Audible. I figured out that the characters had previously published stories part of the way through. I'm not a monster, I would have read them first
Having said that, the best thing about this book was the narrator. Helen McAlpine did a fantastic job. I went and looked through her catalogue afterwards and while most of the books I can tell are not my bag, I'll be checking out her other Black Library entries
The plot was pretty straightforward and if you've read a couple of Black Library books you won't be surprised. The characters were a little too archetypal to really be standouts which is a shame. This is (I'm pretty sure) the first book I've read where the Sisters of Battle are the main feature so I was hoping for a faction-standout entry. I like Sororitas well enough but they're a little too creepy for me to fully get behind them as a faction I love. And there's definitely some of that in this book. I don't mean that as a criticism because that's just how they are. Kinda like how AdMech are a bunch of weirdos. I don't make the rules
There were two main things that kept this from being a higher rating for me. The first and biggest of the two is the talky bits. I like for my Warhammer to have plenty of talky bits; if I just wanted shooting and stabbing (bolter porn as it's known) I'd play a video game. But the conversations all felt circular and painfully long. Like two characters talking past each other rather than to each other and then the conversation ends with some for of acquiescence. If that happened only once, I could forgive it. Frankly that's a realistic way for two headstrong people to talk and that describes a lot of characters in this book. But by the God-Emperor it's not engaging
The second thing is a spoiler that involves deeper 40k lore and I've been unable to find a satisfactory answer. I don't hold it against the book that much because of that. However here is a somewhat spoilery description:
Anyway this is a decent entry into the Bug Squashing genre. Check it out if that's your bag
April 8, 2024
A plot and characters like this probably were better suited for a novella. This being stretched to a full length novel made this kind of drag and feel repetitive.
The plot was simplistic and there's like 4 weird moments where the meat of what's going on is repeated they felt a bit forced the 2nd, 3rd and 4th time, like it's trying to be more complex then it actually is. It's like.... Yes I understood the moral of the story the 1st time and it was decently delivered but repeating it over and over kinda sucked the point dry. It felt unnatural.
The characters were also a bit one note. All of them could have been interchangeable and there didn't feel like there was enough build up to really care for them on their own. It felt like the 'character' was portrayed as this small group of battle sisters as just one chunk that can get chipped away at instead of the feel like any one sticks out as their own person. It wasn't the best character writing and the dramatic moments lost their impact because of it.
The fighting scenes were fun initially but get stretched out so long that you could often like glaze your eyes over in and out of consciousness and not lose much.
Seriously by the end you could totally see where this was going and I wish it just sped up and wrapped it up. I felt like... I knew the story and whether I paid attention or not, nothing was going to be exciting enough to matter unless I just wanted more entertainment from pointless carnage and destruction that added very little.
This I guess is for those who needs a death and destruction fix but overall I wish i skipped this. I was so bored.
The plot was simplistic and there's like 4 weird moments where the meat of what's going on is repeated they felt a bit forced the 2nd, 3rd and 4th time, like it's trying to be more complex then it actually is. It's like.... Yes I understood the moral of the story the 1st time and it was decently delivered but repeating it over and over kinda sucked the point dry. It felt unnatural.
The characters were also a bit one note. All of them could have been interchangeable and there didn't feel like there was enough build up to really care for them on their own. It felt like the 'character' was portrayed as this small group of battle sisters as just one chunk that can get chipped away at instead of the feel like any one sticks out as their own person. It wasn't the best character writing and the dramatic moments lost their impact because of it.
The fighting scenes were fun initially but get stretched out so long that you could often like glaze your eyes over in and out of consciousness and not lose much.
Seriously by the end you could totally see where this was going and I wish it just sped up and wrapped it up. I felt like... I knew the story and whether I paid attention or not, nothing was going to be exciting enough to matter unless I just wanted more entertainment from pointless carnage and destruction that added very little.
This I guess is for those who needs a death and destruction fix but overall I wish i skipped this. I was so bored.
September 24, 2025
Not too much to say about this one. I enjoyed it well enough, but I don't really have any strong feelings about it. If pressed, I'd say the plot is very well structured. The tension gradually builds up over the course of the novel, as the situation progresses from hints of an impending threat to a literally apocalyptic conclusion, but most of the cast are a bit one note and the fight scenes, although well described in places, often dip too far into summarisation rather than staying in the moment itself.
The bad guys in this one are a Genestealer Cult, probably one of my favourite factions in Warhammer because they embody a unique blend of very human relatability with a very alien cosmic horror, and I think that's fairly well portrayed here. This is a story where the ordinary failings of a society, greed, selfishness and complacency, have caused it to fall victim to a sinister alien intelligence. That said, I recently played the Void Shadows dlc for the game Rogue Trader, and that has a somewhat similar story to this which also revolves around a Genestealer Cult becoming uncovered and attempting to seize control, and in my opinion, is a better execution of that premise.
The bad guys in this one are a Genestealer Cult, probably one of my favourite factions in Warhammer because they embody a unique blend of very human relatability with a very alien cosmic horror, and I think that's fairly well portrayed here. This is a story where the ordinary failings of a society, greed, selfishness and complacency, have caused it to fall victim to a sinister alien intelligence. That said, I recently played the Void Shadows dlc for the game Rogue Trader, and that has a somewhat similar story to this which also revolves around a Genestealer Cult becoming uncovered and attempting to seize control, and in my opinion, is a better execution of that premise.
February 19, 2025
Si has leído novelas de la saga Los Fantasmas de Gaunt, puedes esperar algo similar, pero con Hermanas de Batalla.
Me gusta el rollo inspirador/aterrador que imprime esta novela en los personajes de las Sororitas, también la relación que tienen con la divinidad del Emperador y cómo la gente se relaciona con la religión en el Imperio. Las Hermanas molan bastante en general, la verdad.
Al margen de quizá ser un poco lenta, la única pega que le pongo es potencialmente un poco spoiler:
.
En general la recomiendo, si no has leído 40k, te puede gustar la novela bélica y te llaman la atención las Hermanas, esta novela está bastante bien.
Me gusta el rollo inspirador/aterrador que imprime esta novela en los personajes de las Sororitas, también la relación que tienen con la divinidad del Emperador y cómo la gente se relaciona con la religión en el Imperio. Las Hermanas molan bastante en general, la verdad.
Al margen de quizá ser un poco lenta, la única pega que le pongo es potencialmente un poco spoiler:
.
En general la recomiendo, si no has leído 40k, te puede gustar la novela bélica y te llaman la atención las Hermanas, esta novela está bastante bien.
January 10, 2024
Are you a fan of the Adepta Sororitas? If so, you'll enjoy this book and I would definitely recommend it to you. However if you're looking for your next Warhammer read, I wouldn't recommend this; there are many different, better books out there and unfortunately this fails to hit the mark.
There are many things that didn't 'hit' with this novel, to the dreadful repetition of the sister's praying to the bland combat scenes. The plot unfolds slowly with plot holes apparent throughout. The sisters barely stand apart and any characterisation of them is minimal. Alongside this the genestealer cult seem nonsensical and make bizarre decisions. Just odd storytelling!
There are certainly better Warhammer novels out there - give this one a pass.
There are many things that didn't 'hit' with this novel, to the dreadful repetition of the sister's praying to the bland combat scenes. The plot unfolds slowly with plot holes apparent throughout. The sisters barely stand apart and any characterisation of them is minimal. Alongside this the genestealer cult seem nonsensical and make bizarre decisions. Just odd storytelling!
There are certainly better Warhammer novels out there - give this one a pass.
February 4, 2025
This is one-third of a great book. However, I don't mean to suggest that the other two-thirds are bad, they just cover the same ground. Over and over again. It's like a story written in triplicate.
I don't entirely blame the author, to be balanced, I'd probably put about two-thirds of the blame on the publisher, which is clearly rigidly enforcing a word count and then accepting a novel that, at best, should be a novella.
And that's a shame. For 40K, it's well done and delivers what you want. It just trudges along into tedium.
(I've not actually finished the book yet. I have a chapter or two to go. If there turns out to be some astonishing payoff, I'll come back and edit.)
I don't entirely blame the author, to be balanced, I'd probably put about two-thirds of the blame on the publisher, which is clearly rigidly enforcing a word count and then accepting a novel that, at best, should be a novella.
And that's a shame. For 40K, it's well done and delivers what you want. It just trudges along into tedium.
(I've not actually finished the book yet. I have a chapter or two to go. If there turns out to be some astonishing payoff, I'll come back and edit.)
August 11, 2025
I’m reading the novels of the factions I play and it’s the second Adeptus Sororitas book that does not fully feel like Warhammer 40K or like it represents a religiously fervent order in the grim dark future. I read multiple books at the same time and a couple of times I thought I was reading a “romantasy” given the descriptions of the Sisters. We get it, Camilla is tiny. Also, a very tedious “rich people bad” contemporary lens is dumped consistently in the narrative. On the up side, it did remind me a tad of playing Space Marine 2, but in sewers and with Sisters of Battle.
November 8, 2025
Es el primer libro que leo del mundo Warhammer y me ha sorprendido para bien. Tengo las miniaturas de las novicias para montar, pintar y jugar con ellas, y quería conocer más; no solo del mundo 40k sino también de las Hermanas. Aunque mucha terminología no la conozco y he tenido que consultarla en internet, está escrito de una manera que me ha enganchado de principio a fin. Es cierto que pausé la lectura porque me saturé un poco, al no estar familiarizada con este tipo de novelas de ciencia ficción, con tanta acción bélica, ¡pero he disfrutado mucho de la lectura!
August 4, 2024
Overall I enjoyed this one a lot more than I thought I would. It has some issues here and there like I think a specific moment could have be trimmed down or removed and some of the characters are a little flat. But the upside to this is Sister Superior Augusta who is a proper badass. Really looking forward to reading her previous stories, and would definitely recommend this one for a good Sisters of Battle story. The audiobook is excellent as well, the narration by Helen McAlpine is so good.
August 16, 2025
No sé que me esperaba de una novela de la Adepta Sororita, pero he encontrado un libro muy interesante. Si bien la trama puede parecer predecible (para quien conozca las facciones beligerantes es muy evidente), no por ello le resta emoción hasta la última página. Por contra, quien no tenga mucha idea del universo de WH40K puede perderse entre tanto latinajo y nombres muy específicos que no explican muy bien.
March 27, 2024
Life and some laziness got in my way, so it took me a while to finish this book, but this book was a great read. Action from the first page. This was no Nathanial Hawthorne book. It was action and adventure and politics and intrigue and drama all wrapped neatly into scary story. Read it. It’s a great book.
January 20, 2025
As an Adepta Sororitas player, I'm predisposed to enjoy any story that follows the mighty Sisters of Battle. This book loses its way a little in the middle, but when it picks up at the end with the obligatory mighty battle against the Genestealer Cults. Ora Imperator, praebe nobis tuam fortitudinem.
February 23, 2024
Concerning yourself with numbers in 40k is a fool's game, nonetheless the scale in this book is just a bit off. I would happily read more from Ware, ideally Astra Militarum where there is more freedom for her to write for humanity.
March 11, 2024
Fantasically written. Gives a good account of sisters. The story is intresting and very catching. This is the second book, which i didn't know until finishing. Didn't feel i missed anything due to skipping ahead.
October 18, 2024
since I've been reading so many of these, I thought i'd start reviewing them. autism goes brrr. honestly, the rose in darkness is way better than i was expecting. Right up there with spear of faith. If i were to recommend a full-length sister book, this would probably be my second choice.
January 16, 2024
It was a nice read. A classic battle between the imperium and the geanstealers/tyranids. Something you can enjoy as an easy going read.
September 15, 2024
Enjoyed it but it felt simplistic and the off “screen” death really bothered me.
September 16, 2024
women!!!
March 14, 2025
Una aventura perfecta para conocer de cerca a las Adepta Sororitas y a los cultos Genestealer. Se pasa volando. Ojalá hubiera durado el doble.
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