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The Shadow Throne
The Shadow Throne
Aug 14, 2025 5:25 AM

Author:Django Wexler

The Shadow Throne

"An immensely entertaining novel" (Tor.com) from the author of The Thousand Names...

The King of the Vordan is on his deathbed. Soon his daughter, Raesinia will be the first Queen Regnant in centuries-and a target for those who seek to control her. The most dangerous is Duke Orlanko, Minister of Information, and master of the secret police. He is the most feared man in the kingdom, and he knows an arcane secret that puts Raesinia completely at his mercy.

But Raesinia has found unlikely allies in the returning war hero Janus bet Vhalnich, and his loyal deputies, Captain Marcus d'Ivoire and Lieutenant Winter Ihernglass. As Marcus and Winter struggle to find their places in the home they never thought they would see again, they help Janus and Raesinia set in motion events that could shatter Orlanko's powers, but perhaps at the price of throwing the nation into chaos. But with the people suffering under the Duke's tyranny, they intend to protect the kingdom with every power they can command, earthly or otherwise.

Reviews

It is, in truth, a cracking read and I very much look forward to the next installment.

—— Mike Brooks, author of Dark Run and Dark Sky

The Shadow Throne is easily one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in years.

—— Publishers Weekly

I was full of praise for The Thousand Names and am so once again for The Shadow Throne, obligatory fantasy right here. Managing to create such strong start and building upon it requires skill. I can only imagine what Django Wexler will show next. MUST READ

—— Joshua S. Hill , fantasybookreview.co.uk

I can recommend it sincerely: The Shadow Throne is fun.

—— Jasper , thebookplank

The Coolest Fantasy Story You'll Read This Week

—— i09

I absolutely loved it. Wexler balances the actions of his very human characters with just the right amount of imaginative "magic" to keep me wanting more

—— Taylor Anderson, National Bestselling Author of the Destroyerman Series

Wexler has produced something unusual in the fantasy line, with a setting reminiscent of the early Victorian period, out on the bleeding edge of Empire, a world of dust and bayonets and muskets... and magic. The characters are fascinating and - all- of them have secrets ... I read it at a gulp and look forward to more

—— S.M. Stirling, New York Times bestselling author of LORD OF MOUNTAINS

Extremely strong debut, flintlock fantasy at its best ... there’s a new military fiction cowboy in town and his name is Django.

—— Nick Sharps , SF Signal

Sentence after sentence is laid down with the solidity of a line of bricks, transforming ordinary life into something beautiful and strangeEvery word feels right.

—— Robert Douglas-Fairhurst , The Times

Anne Enright's Actress remains vivid in my mind many months after reading. No one is better on mothers and daughters. Actress is absorbing, entertaining and beguiling and stole the show for me in 2020.

—— Helen Cullen , Irish Times *Books of the Year*

When you hit the last page of Anne Enright's Actress you take a breath and dive straight back in again. Showcasing her mastery of the sentence and her extraordinary emotional intelligence...it's moving but never sentimental, funny but never pastiche.

—— Estelle Birdy , Independent *Books of the Year*

Enright is quick, knowing, enjoyably sharp... There are leaps of joy in Actress... It sparkles with light, rapid, shrugging wit; cliches are skewered in seconds… The magic of pre-war touring players, holding audiences rapt in country halls, is richly done.

—— Alexandra Harris , Guardian, *Book of the Week*

This book could easily, and mistakenly, be lumped together with other #MeToo novels; work that seems to feed the patriarchy rather than challenge it. Enright, sensibly, doesn’t care if she has your sympathy – she’s too cold, too sharp…so effective. No one understands rage, or the lucid, bleached moments that follow it, better than Enright… If these stories took a physical form, I imagine they would be a well-dressed woman screaming into a silk pillowcase. Which is to say, I love them.

—— Nicole Flattery , London Review of Books

Actress by Anne Enright is a brilliant, lyrical, powerful novel... It's dazzlingly sharp and unnervingly intimate.

—— Danielle McLaughlin , Irish Times *Books of the Year*

Anne Enright's Actress is up there as one of my favourites this year.

—— Elaine Feeney , Irish Times *Books of the Year*

Enright focuses on the complexities of human connection… gradually the subtleties form into something profound and complexwitty and really rather brilliant.

—— Lucy Atkins , Sunday Times

Actress is yet another typically luminous story from Irish author Anne Enrighta raw, tender portrayal of a woman undone by her work, and the men who control it. Seamlessly wrought, it is quite bewitching.

—— Ella Walker , Irish News *Book of the Week*

Anne Enright has an unmistakable diction and a genius for arresting detail. Her novel, a daughter’s account of her once-famous actress mother’s life, is a many-sided thing… Actress is especially good in its evocation of an Ireland and a Dublin that is vanished, highly developed in civility and language, voracious for gossip, sociable, religious, hypocritical, louche, drunken and with a sensitivity to the nuances of speech.

—— Melanie McDonagh , Evening Standard

The narrative dances through plays, boozing and parties… Enright dwells, intriguingly, on passivity, a state common in acting, womanhood and living in Ireland… a winning read.

—— Francesca Carington , Sunday Telegraph, *Novel of the Week*

Actress is a remarkably positive story of female creativity, courage, survival and love… a tour de force of half-concealed effects and slow-burning revelations that splutter suddenly into flame.

—— Clare Pettitt , Times Literary Supplement

Brilliantly and delightfully done… [Actress] is always interesting, and…very enjoyable.

—— Allan Massie , Scotsman

[A] literary force to be reckoned with... [Anne Enright] is one of Ireland's most significant authors - and Actress will be a must-read for many in 2020.

—— Nadine O'Regan , Sunday Business Post

A delicate, knotty reflection on familial relationshipsbrilliant.

—— Dazed Digital, *Books to Look Our For in 2020*

Another compelling effort filled with Enright’s trademark psychological insight.

—— Paul Nolan , HotPress

AbsorbingEnright’s prose is so beautiful that even the shadows are graced with flickers of light… Actress is an elegant novel.

—— Eithne Farry , Daily Express

A warm and generous portrait of a relationship between a daughter and her famous motherskilfully interwoven with Norah’s own story, and the twists and turns of her own life and marriage.

—— Hugh Linehan , Irish Times

Gripping drama and a pitch-perfect evocation of the stages of Seventies Dublin and London’s West End.

—— Stephanie Cross , Daily Mail, *Books to Look Our For in 2020*

A potent brew of fame, sexual power, hypocrisy and bad men.

—— Hephzibah Anderson , Mail on Sunday

A powerful novel.

—— Metro

Actress is a fabric of musings… The characters in Enright’s novels are absorbing because they seem recognisable in an unassuming way: they’re as lovely, boring and complex as the people outside the books.

—— Cal Revely-Calder , Daily Telegraph

Enright, herself a former actress, captures all the comedy and pathos that comes from living the strange, unreal life of an actor.

—— Charlotte Heathcote , Sunday Express

A raw, tender portrayal of a woman undone by her work, and the men who control it. Seamlessly wrought, it is quite bewitching.

—— UK Press Syndication

Actress is a poignant tale of the vicissitudes of fame and its effects on the loved ones of the famous.

—— Economist

Compelling.

—— James Moran , Tablet

The next stage in an illustrious writing careerstuffed full of dark wit, memorable lines and striking images.

—— Sarah Hughes , Scotsman

Enright is to Dublin as Didion is to California.

—— Ana Kinsella , AnOther

I've just started reading Anne Enright's Actress. I very much enjoyed her previous novel, The Green Road. This one has glorious lines even in the opening pages.

—— Tracey Thorn , i

I would definitely recommend Actress by Anne Enright, it is her at her very best.

—— Marjorie Brennan , Irish Examiner

Few reviews said how absolutely hilarious [Actress] is. Enright skewers beautifully those creepy provincial aesthetes of Dublin of the sixties and seventies.

—— Conor O'Callaghan , Irish Times

Enright is formidable in combining the concrete detail of lives – think of the extraordinary array of sibling portraits in her last novel, The Green Roadwith an acute understanding of the inchoate lives of families: the push and pull of loyalty; the projection of desires; the smothering of disappointment and unhappiness. Here she conjures [a] rollicking story.

—— Alex Clark , Oldie *Novel of the Month*

A rich, impressively imagined work about a stage and screen star who may never have existed but seems considerably more human than many real-life figures as seen through their own eyes or those of any but the finest biographers.

—— Philip Fisher , British Theatre Guide

This story is about mothers and daughters, but also secrets in families and women in Ireland. It's an easy read, with a quintessentially Irish tone... It's brilliant.

—— Jess Phillips , Observer

Anne Enright's brilliant novel is a darkly glittering account of the cost to both the mother and her daughter of Katherine's complicated fame.

—— Jane Shilling , Daily Mail

A gem from a former Booker winner.

—— Susie Mesure , i, *Summer Books of 2021*

Anne Enright['s]...writing is simply glorious. Comedy and tragedy in one.

—— Mary Lawson , Daily Mail, *Books of the Year*
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