Empire of Light | Book Review

*I was given an ARC for free by the author in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.*

Damian Nettoyer is the Empire’s go-to gun. He kills whoever they want him to kill. In exchange, he and his rag-tag gang of crooks get to live, and Damian’s psychokinetic partner and lover, Aris, isn’t issued a one-way ticket to an Empire-sanctioned lobotomy.

Then Damian’s latest mark, a suave revolutionary named Raeyn, kicks his ass and demands his help. The first item on the new agenda: take out Damian’s old boss—or Raeyn will take out Damian’s crew.

To protect his friends and save his own skin, Damian teams up with Raeyn to make his revolution work. As the revolution gains traction, Damian gets way too close to Raeyn, torn between the need to shoot him one moment and kiss him the next. But Aris slips further away from Damian, and as Aris’ control over his powers crumbles, the Watch catches on.

With the Empire, Damian had two policies: shoot first and don’t ask questions. But to save the guy he loves, he’ll set the world on fire.

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So… this review is coming out later than expected, but I’ll get into that.

This is a fast-paced action book taking place in a dystopian future focusing on Damian, who both works illegal jobs to get by, but also works for the government as a hitman for hire. He has his found family aboard the rundown spaceship, The Shadow, with his lover, Aris.

All of the characters were queer in some way. The main three characters were all gay, Damian was also demisexual. There were side characters who were nonbinary who used they/them pronouns, and characters visibly trans. This book is absolutely bursting with queer characters.

I, unfortunately, didn’t really love Damian. I felt he was too much “shoot first, ask questions later” for the entire book, when he should’ve learned later that that was a bad idea. He also was the only character who didn’t know things, so that got kind of tiring. The twists were interesting and the overall story did draw me in.

Heed the trigger warnings as there’s a lot of violence and action (and at least two sex scenes), and I think most quiet moments we had were off page. I think every chapter had a major fight scene where my suspension of disbelieve as to why the characters weren’t dead already. It did mean this book was fast to get through, I read this in like two days.

I love Raeyn, easily my fave character. He just hit so many of my “favorite character” buttons. His story was interesting, his interactions with Damian were very good.

Now, this isn’t the first time I tried reading this book. In March, I put this book down at 22%. There’s a sex scene that was very rough and didn’t feel 100% consensual (but it was supposed to be that way) and it triggered something in the main character, but it was just too much and I hadn’t picked it up in two weeks, so I decided to put it back on by TBR shelf and then it just stayed there.

My final rating for this book is 3.5 stars. I think I would’ve loved it more if this was from any other perspective besides Damian (especially Raeyn). The story was interesting and I enjoyed reading it. If there is a sequel, I don’t think I’ll pick it up, but I’m definitely interested in reading Harrow’s other future books.

If you love fast-paced, action packed stories with queer characters, this is definitely the book for you!

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Have you read this book? What did you think? Are you interested in picking it up? Let me know in the comments!