Genre: Fantasy
Reviewer: Ulysses
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About The Book
With his best friend in a magical coma and the clock ticking, Tyler and his companions set out on one last mission to save him from death’s clutches. However, they soon find their well-laid plans have gone awry, the fate of the world balancing on the edge of a knife.
After traveling through dangerous country, facing down dragons, and fighting their way across a volcano, Tyler and his friends arrived at the crystalline palace of the Sage, nestled in the valley of the Dravin Peaks. But now their time is running out as Tiragan’s life slowly slips away. They have precious little time to save him and only one option, a dragon.
Traveling to Candlelight Harbor, the trio finds the town in ruins, having just been attacked by one of the king’s dragons. However, the locals believe it is the green dragon Ryrris that haunts them and happily hire Tyler and his companions to slay the beast. Boarding a ship to the Island Bosque where the dragon resides, Tyler and his friends not only discover the dragon their searching for but also the heart of all magic in Bramoria. In a flash, the king’s true intentions are revealed and the clock ticks faster.
Can Tyler and his friends stop the king’s evil plans to destroy Bramoria, or will the man crowned in madness bring an end to the world they’ve grown to love?
Find out in the epic conclusion of the Tales of Bramoira Triology, The Crown of Madness.
The Review
The payoff is worth the reading! Tyler, Koto, and Ninsar must finally face Clay, the self-proclaimed King of Bramoria, whose addiction to the Grimoire of Kings has made him a danger to the whole world
They also need to find the final ingredient for a magical cure for Danny—Taragin—who lies entombed in stone to pause his leukemia. Even as they make their way to the lair of the last living green dragon, our trio understands that they can only hold off the inevitable so long. Tyler will be faced with killing the boy who used to be one of his two best friends.
Blake Wolfe keeps piling on the tension and the adventures—and the surprises. All of us have read enough fantasy (from Tolkien to Harry Potter and beyond) to have some sense of how things flow. A nice detail of this epic trilogy is that Tyler keeps us constantly aware of the pop culture references he notices—but which, of course, his traveling companions have no notion of, because this is their world, not a fantasy or a game.
All along we are aware that Clay has become so powerful as to be all but undefeatable (a motif that appears in the Crowns and Quills series by Casey Morales, too). It will be up to Tyler to use what he has learned, to embrace who he has become in Bramoria, to mediate between his love for his childhood friends and his loyalty to the new friends he has made in this new world.
Right to the end, the author keeps you guessing and your heart pounding. It’s more emotional than I expected, and there’s a final twist that had me slack-jawed. Tyler is more than a neurotic, anxious teenager. To say the least.
I read this trilogy straight through, so the continuity was there and the emotional rewards of Wolfe’s narrative stayed with me. I’d recommend you do this, too. Fantasy is best enjoyed by full immersion.
Four stars
The Reviewer
Ulysses Grant Dietz grew up in Syracuse, New York, where his Leave It to Beaver life was enlivened by his fascination with vampires, from Bela Lugosi to Barnabas Collins. He studied French at Yale, and was trained to be a museum curator at the University of Delaware. A curator since 1980, Ulysses has never stopped writing fiction for the sheer pleasure of it. He created the character of Desmond Beckwith in 1988 as his personal response to Anne Rice’s landmark novels. Alyson Books released his first novel, Desmond, in 1998. Vampire in Suburbia, the sequel to Desmond, is his second novel.
Ulysses lives in suburban New Jersey with his husband of over 41 years and their two almost-grown children.
By the way, the name Ulysses was not his parents’ idea of a joke: he is a great-great grandson of Ulysses S. Grant, and his mother was the President’s last living great-grandchild. Every year on April 27 he gives a speech at Grant’s Tomb in New York City.
