On a mission to find his sister, Arkan finds himself at the center of a dangerous conspiracy—orchestrated by a terrifying foe from his past. He must band together with a vampire hunter and an illusionist on the run to save a city from the undead. But an even greater darkness casts its shadows over the reforged world of Ashandri.
Fighting against his ruthless brother as well as monsters, aristocrats, spirit beings and undead, the three misfit heroes face powerful enemies as much as their own past.
I found this one through BookMatch, a new service for authors, allowing reviewers to browse a catalogue and download the books that sound like their kind of thing. This sounded like my kind of thing.
Dawn of Silence is dark epic fantasy set in Ashandri, a world that has already survived an apocalypse. That detail alone hooked me. The story follows three misfits: a thief, a vampire hunter, and an illusionist on the run. Found family, high magic, undead, and some genuinely inventive ideas about what this world looks like after the fire went out.
One of those inventive ideas involves a gnome:
The door opened, and in front of them was a gnome. His left arm and both legs were metallic. […] About where his heart was, a dim purple light shone through the shirt. What in the dragon spirit’s name is he?
This is de Wendt at his best. The worldbuilding is consistently the strongest element here, and moments like this make you want to know more about everything.
Somethings I want to specifically celebrate: the main characters are mixed genders, they fight together, they trust each other, and there is zero romantic tension between them. They are just people doing a job. That sounds like a low bar and somehow it still feels rare. There is a relationship elsewhere in the book, but even that is handled without tropes. The conflict comes from darkness and circumstance, not from manufactured drama. The focus stays where it belongs: on the world and what it does to people.
The heroes are good-hearted, sometimes perhaps a little too much so for my taste. I like protagonists with rough edges. But this is a dark book that doesn’t mistake grimness for depth, and the villains get reasons rather than just menace.
De Wendt stumbles in places you might expect from a debut. There is a mirror scene:
He looked at the gray skin, burned to ash by apocalyptic fire. The dark patterns on his face, vaguely resembling a bare skull. […] I survived…but what have I become?
Familiar move. But what Arkan is actually looking at is interesting. A man transformed by apocalyptic fire into something unrecognisable. The concept earns its place even if the delivery is well-worn.
The cast is large and POVs shift frequently. If you need a tight focus, adjust your expectations. If you can handle a sprawling ensemble in a world that clearly has a lot more to say, this is worth your time.
Dark, inventive, and genuinely warm beneath all the ash and undead. A post-apocalyptic world full of strange corners, a found family that actually works, and enough ideas to fuel a whole series. Come for the mystery, stay for the worldbuilding.
