This review will contain spoilers for the previous books in this series, Theft of Swords and Rise of Empire. There may also be minor spoilers for Heir of Novron as I discuss the plot. 

“Life isn’t a fairy tale. Heroes don’t ride white horses, and the good don’t always win.”

The Nyphron Church thinks they’ve won, they believe victory is at hand and the world of Elan will be ruled by their tyrannical design. At the approach of Wintertide, Empress Modina will marry King Elthelred, the Church’s puppet, and afterwards meet her tragic end. Degan Gaunt, leader of the Nationalist’s rebels will be executed, alongside the Witch of Melengar. The opposition have been defeated, kingdoms have fallen and hope is dwindling. Yet there are those who live in the shadows who still fight, there are two thieves who refuse to give up. There is Hadrian and Royce. 

Heir of Novron by Michael J Sullivan is a heart pounding conclusion to the Riyria Revelations. The two final stories featured are, Wintertide and Percepliquis and this volume is where all the threads are skilfully brought together, where twists appear at every turn, where our characters truly discover what they are capable of.

After following Hadrian, Royce, Arista, Alric, Myron and Empress Modina through many trials and tribulations in the previous instalments our heart strings are truly pulled as Sullivan now tests these characters to their absolute limit. In Wintertide Princess Arista, having faced such losses and defeats, loses all hope. Empress Modina and Amilia, both deeply trapped in the Regent Saldur’s deceitful plots, secretly make plans of their own but are always on the brink of discovery. Hadrian, desperate to fill his father’s legacy and be worthy of heroic deeds, fights with every strength he has left, and our dear Royce faces the biggest tragedy yet, one which determines the man he will become. The leaders of the Nyphron Church need to be brought down and as power shifts and plans unfold come with its consequences, and the consequences in this book are mighty high. Our key players are all chess pieces on a board and now is the time for everyone to make their move. As you may tell, Sullivan truly raises his readers’ blood pressure throughout! 

“Life is like a bully that gets laughs by seeing how much humiliation you’ll put up with. It threatens to kill you if you don’t eat mud. It takes everything you care about–not because it wants what you have, or needs it. It does it just to see if you’ll take it. I let it push me around ever since I was a kid. I did everything it demanded just to survive. But as I’ve gotten older, I realize there are limits. You showed me that. There’s only so far I can go, only so much I can put up with. I’m not going to take it anymore. I won’t eat mud just to survive.”

However in Percepliquis a much bigger threat rears its ugly head, which in turn shapes all of these characters in different, surprising ways as they work together to save Elan from the invasion of elves who threaten to annihilate the entire human race. The elves have always served as a backdrop within the worldbuilding as we’ve been told of their existence, their history and have seen their oppression but they’ve never played an active role in the narrative. In all honesty this was an aspect which disappointed me as I’m a huge fan of elves, dwarves and other fantasy races and therefore wanted them to be more prominent. Well my wish was certainly fulfilled as Sullivan shows us that the elves are far from the subservient creatures they were once believed to be, we finally see their race in their full strength and their fighting methods are far more advanced than humans could ever have imagined. During one of my absolute favourite scenes, the council of war, we are shown just how ignorant the nobles are to the power of the elves, how quickly they dismiss their threat thinking humans are superior to all and their ignorance costs dearly. To my utter delight we take one final adventure through the empire on the search for The Horn of Gylindora, an artefact we have been anticipating finding for so long and it is nothing like what we expected.

In keeping inline with the series title Riyria Revelations, Sullivan delivers on his promise and exposes some monumental truths throughout. Though this series has primarily been an exciting fantasy adventure, that doesn’t mean it has lacked in depth or themes. Sullivan once more twists the prophecy and chosen one trope as he illustrates how they can be misinterpreted or twisted to suit certain agendas. History is often written to shine a glorious light on the winners after all. In this case, the Nyphron Church, as they kept hidden the true lineage and identity of the Emperor Novron. The history of the emperors, their knights and the races who once ruled Elan finally surface with jaw-dropping clarity.

I read the last few chapters of Heir of Novron through a haze of tears as saying goodbye to these characters was so hard. Yet Sullivan leaves the ending on a satisfactory note, we see our characters embarking upon new journeys and rebuilding the world that had been shattered. It’s a wholesome ending, an ending that made me ache for more but also happy that everyone had found some light from all the darkness.

“We may indeed die here, that’s true. But we will all die anyway – is there any denying that? When you think of all the possible ways you might go, this is as fine a place as any, isn’t it? I mean, to end one’s life surrounded by friends, in a comfortable, dry room with plenty to read… that doesn’t sound too awful, does it?”