August Reading Wrapup: What to Read Next

Genre: Adult Epic Fantasy
Publisher: Grim Oak Press

Nolyn is the first book of ‘The Rise and Fall’ series by Michael J. Sullivan.

I’d never read a book by Sullivan before, but after reading Nolyn, I’m definitely going to change that!

I received an arc of the book from Netgalley and Grim Oak Press in exchange for an honest book review.

What’s it about?

After more than five hundred years of exile, Nolyn, the heir to the empyre, is weary about his reassignment to duty on the Goblin War’s front lines. He needs to rescue an outpost, leading to a dead-end canyon deep inside enemy territory. Someone went to a great deal of trouble planning his death to look like a casualty of war. Lucky for Nolyn, he got assigned with the Seventh Sikaria Auxiliary Squadron, real legendary soldiers. They might just make it out alive.

Characters & storylines

We mostly see the story from the perspective of Nolyn, who’s the above-mentioned heir, and Sephryn. Both are children of legendary people (whose story took place in the First Empire series if I’m not mistaken).

While Nolyn has to fight off the ghazel and get out alive with his squadron, Sephryn remains in the capital trying to bring more equality between the Instarya and humans.

But things take a dark turn when she comes home one day to find her nursemaid murdered, her baby stolen, and a voice in her head commanding her to steal a certain artifact if she ever wants to see her son again.

I loved both their storylines a lot. Nolyn’s story gave some great action scenes. And the bonding between Nolyn and the squadron was a delight to read. I especially enjoyed the growing bond between the skeptical Amicus and Nolyn.

Sullivan also did a great job with the characterization. This all comes down to some nice details. For instance, Nolyn is terrible with names, so when we first meet the squadron, a lot of them have nicknames given by Nolyn before he can remember their actual names. I just really loved that little detail.

On the other hand, Sephryn’s story made the racial issues in the empyre clearer and gave me a thrilling mystery to solve. Who is that voice? What is their endgame?

I loved reading along and finding the clues and trying to figure out what it all meant. I wasn’t great at it, but perhaps if I’d read some of the other books (and would’ve known a bit more about the history of the world) I’d have gotten the answer sooner.

I also really loved Sephryn’s character—she lives to help other people. We can see this from the very beginning, where she’s basically the only one who’s nice to a woman who’s clearly somewhat crazy. And she would do anything for her son.

Some highlights on what I loved

While there were a lot of things I loved about this book, I especially loved the ending. Everything came together so well, and I just couldn’t put the story down anymore. I had to know how everything would conclude. And that conclusion didn’t disappoint.

There were certainly some devastating parts of that conclusion, and it might be that not everyone will like how it ends. But I think it made sense, and it really gave that nice bittersweet feeling.

I could also easily go on about the worldbuilding, which was fantastic. All the cities, jungles, different races were detailed and wonderful to imagine. But there were also details on the magic and history of the world, without it being too much. That’s a great balance to achieve.

A final note: while Nolyn is part of a series, all the books in this series will tell the story of a legendary person that was mentioned in some of the other series from Sullivan. So these stories do read as if they were a standalone.

The verdict?

To conclude: if you love epic fantasy with great writing, a rich world, and compelling characters, read Nolyn.