A Dance of Cloaks

Today’s post is on A Dance of Cloaks by David Dalglish. It is the first in his Shadowdance series. The cover has the main character jumping down form a roof with his gray cloak billowing behind him and looking cool. The intended reader is adult and likes gritty sword and sorcery fantasy books. There is strong language, talk of sex, rape, and sexuality, and lots of very graphic violence. The story is told from third person close of the many characters that make up this story. There Be Spoilers Ahead.

From the back of the book- The Underworld rules the city of Veldaren. Thieves, smugglers, assassins... they fear only one man. Thren Felhorn is the greatest assassin of his time. All the thieves’ guilds of the city are under his unflinching control. If he has his way death will soon spill out from the shadows and into the streets.
Aaron is Thren’s son, trained to be heir to his father’s criminal empire. He’s cold, ruthless- everything an assassin should be. But when Aaron risks his life to protect a priest’s daughter from his own guild, he glimpses something beyond poison, daggers, and the iron rule of his father.
Assassin or protector; every choice has its consequences.

Review- I did enjoy this book and one thing kept me from disliking it. All the sex/rape happens off camera. That is a personal thing with me. I do not care for sex on page unless it is in a romance. Otherwise I just do not care for it and I really do not like to read about rape. Yes rape happens in this book but it is all off camera. So I have no problems with it. My only problem is with the cover. Aaron is thirteen. He is not a man, he is not described as a man, and he does not think of himself like a man. He is going to be a man very soon but he is only thirteen for this entire book. That said I like Aaron or Hearn as he calls himself. He is fighting a brave and very hard fight against his father, his training, and a dark god. The gods in this book are not just figures but beings with real power and their priests have some of that power. I like the magic but Dalglish does not bog the reader down with details and whys; magic just is and it works. I will be reading the second and more in this series and I am interested where Dalglish is going with this character.

I give this book a Four of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.