When the Crimson Keep abandoned her in the wilds of Aqshy over a century ago, Nyssa Volari should have died. Instead, she forged a kingdom and claimed a throne. Now, she is a queen.
READ IT BECAUSE
Nyssa Volari, the star of The Last Volari, returns and is struggling to deal with the pressures of ruling a kingdom. This classic tale of intrigue features vampiric politics, diplomacy, and lashings of extreme violence. Can Nyssa hold on to the throne she has worked so hard to claim?
THE STORY
Amidst the triumphs of Nyssa Volari, an army of beasts rampages across the Broken Plains, seeking a totem of necromantic power. As this mysterious force corrupts her empire, threatening allegiances and exposing mortal enemies, Nyssa soon discovers that the Rose Throne is ever uncertain.
To prove her sovereignty once and for all, she must confront the long-lost ghosts of her past to acquire a new power, one that will enable her to claim dominion over both the living and the dead.
Nyssa Volari has become an unexpected favourite of mine: while I'm still somewhat ambivalent about the Age of Sigmar setting, the vampires of Warhammer remain favourites of mine, and since I never expected the previous book, The Last Volari, to get a sequel, this was a book I was desperate to read...
Picking up where the previous book left off, just as Nyssa Volari has secured her power and crushed her enemies, the Crimson Keep, the ancestral home of the Kastelai vampires, cursed to teleport from battle to battle whether or not all its warriors are within its walls, has returned. Torn between her desire to rule and the oaths to her ancestral home and bloodline, Nyssa must decide where her loyalties lie, even as an army of monsters seeking a cursed artefact threatens to lay waste to all Nyssa has strived to build for a century...
It was good to see the familiar faces like Nyssa, Shadas, Vasara, and the new characters like Leta were great additions as well: having Beastmen, one of my favourite Warhammer elements as the main threat was a nice touch, and the Nighthaunt were finally made interesting in the form of Culan (seeing him get even with his abusive mentor was a highlight): was tragic to lose Rend, but Nyssa definitely got an upgrade for undead animal companion... I definitely hope Gary Kloster has more planned for this series (and that Games Workshop gives us a model for Nyssa Volari soon)...
Mr. Kloster can write! This book is another example of how fun the Age of Sigmar novels are. The characters are really interesting, there is great action, the plot is easy to understand and moves very quickly; there are cinematic stand-up-and-cheer moments. I could easily read 500 pages of this. I sincerely hope that this series continues to run for as long as possible and that these characters meet other Age of Sigmar characters. I also hope that our Queen and her retinue get their own miniatures and rules.
I love a strong female lead. This is the second 40K book that I have read and it was so much better than the first. ( the first one was about ogres). This book had me hooked from the first page. It was a little repetitive with the “ I am Kastelai” but it was a fun read overall
Didn’t expect to like this as much as I did. I’d just finished a few of the Realm Gate Wars books which I’ve found to be solidly fine fun. But this was so appreciably beyond that. The POV characters (two of them) I found to be equally engaging and I kept wanting to know what happened next.