The Empire of Gold by S.A. Chakraborty | ARC Review

The Empire of Gold
by S.A. Chakraborty
Series: The Daevabad Trilogy #3
Published on June 30, 2020 by Harper Voyager
ISBN: 9780062678164
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 784
Genres: Adult, Fantasy

The final chapter in the bestselling, critically acclaimed Daevabad Trilogy, in which a con-woman and an idealistic djinn prince join forces to save a magical kingdom from a devastating civil war.

Daevabad has fallen.

After a brutal conquest stripped the city of its magic, Nahid leader Banu Manizheh and her resurrected commander, Dara, must try to repair their fraying alliance and stabilize a fractious, warring people.

But the bloodletting and loss of his beloved Nahri have unleashed the worst demons of Dara’s dark past. To vanquish them, he must face some ugly truths about his history and put himself at the mercy of those he once considered enemies.

Having narrowly escaped their murderous families and Daevabad’s deadly politics, Nahri and Ali, now safe in Cairo, face difficult choices of their own. While Nahri finds peace in the old rhythms and familiar comforts of her human home, she is haunted by the knowledge that the loved ones she left behind and the people who considered her a savior are at the mercy of a new tyrant. Ali, too, cannot help but look back, and is determined to return to rescue his city and the family that remains. Seeking support in his mother’s homeland, he discovers that his connection to the marid goes far deeper than expected and threatens not only his relationship with Nahri, but his very faith.

As peace grows more elusive and old players return, Nahri, Ali, and Dara come to understand that in order to remake the world, they may need to fight those they once loved . . . and take a stand for those they once hurt.

The Perfect End to a Must-Read Series!

The end of a series is always a little bittersweet but when it came to The Empire of Gold, I was happy. Not that it ended because these books are fabulous, but that the characters finally found some peace.

Well, you know, most of them. It’s a fantasy filled with war and political intrigue, there’s going to be casualties and these books have a lot of characters.

It’s hard to avoid spoilers for the previous books this far in a series so if you haven’t read them, I recommend stopping here rather than reading further.

The Kingdom of Copper ended with me dying to know what happened next. It left all three point-of-view characters in precarious positions with the threat of a final conflict, one last battle, ever looming. And… I struggled with the first third of the book. If I’m being honest, it’s probably closer to the first half. Don’t get me wrong, the book is good but I wasn’t connecting with it like the first two books which I couldn’t put down from start to finish. The Empire of Gold is a bit slower. There’s a lot of character development which was great, but it slowed the pacing down a bit for me in the first half.

That said, there came a point in the story that everything exploded. This wasn’t just a final epic battle. And it all comes back to the characters. Each had a choice they had to make that would affect them for the rest of their lives and watching them struggle to reach that point was both beautiful and nerve-wracking.

I had so much respect for Nahri in this book. Here is a young woman who just wants to live her life, who has the responsibility of a kingdom on her shoulders that she never asked for. And she just takes it all in stride. She makes mistakes and they have consequences, and as a reader, I was right there alongside her and it was… powerful.

Also the romance was A+. Minimal in a way that felt natural to the characters and the events transpiring but also so sweet and the burn was on point. It felt earned.

Then there’s Alizayd. You know, while I didn’t dislike him in The City of Brass, I can’t say he was my favorite character either. I warmed up to him in The Kingdom of Copper but I was ALL in by the time I got to this book. He changed so much over the course of the series and seeing him finally accept parts of himself, accept his own desires, and realize his place in the world… perfect.

And finally, there’s Dara.

I… struggled with his chapters. He went from being my ship with Nahri in book 1 to a character with his own goals and motivations in book 2, but in The Empire of Gold he went dark. His chapters as he examines everything he was raised to believe, to be, everything he fought for and had to believe to mentally survive, it goes to a place of morality the books hadn’t quite hit on in this way until now. I didn’t enjoy his chapters as much as the other characters but they were needed. He needed it to grow as a character. And I think it ultimately made the ending that much more satisfying.

Because, really, that’s what I’m looking for in a final book of a series. A good ending. Sure, I want the story to build up even more, keep the tension high and the stakes higher than previous books, but it all comes down to the ending and it makes or breaks a series.

The Empire of Gold made it and then some. It was, by far, the best ending I could have hoped for based on how the books play out. There’s just enough of the unknown that you can imagine how things might be beyond the page, but it’s also satisfying as a reader to see this chapter close for these characters and this world.

If you had any doubts about this series, or were waiting on the reviews for the final book before starting, just stop reading now and go grab a copy of The City of Brass and GET READING! I haven’t had a series ending hit me like this since A Conjuring of Light finishing out the Shades of Magic books. 12/10 would recommend the Daevabad Trilogy and honestly all future works by S.A. Chakraborty because I have no doubt they’ll be amazing.

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About Austine

I'm a 20-something research proposal developer with a background in the life sciences and education. Reviewer of books since 2011, amateur photographer by day, and aspiring author by night. I believe animals (and books) are better than people.