Why You'll Love This
The more Royce trusts Hadrian, the more he suspects everything — and Sullivan makes you dread the moment the truth arrives.
- Great if you want: a classic thief duo caught between empire, rebellion, and old secrets
- The experience: brisk and propulsive — the pages move faster than the stakes suggest
- The writing: Sullivan keeps the prose clean and unshowy, letting character dynamics carry the weight
- Skip if: you want worldbuilding complexity over character-driven plot
About This Book
The empire is rising, a puppet sits on the throne, and somewhere in the chaos two thieves are being played for fools — they just don't know it yet. Rise of Empire deepens the world Sullivan built in Theft of Swords, raising the political stakes while tightening the screws on Royce and Hadrian personally. War, hidden heirs, and a wizard with his own agenda force the pair into alliances they don't trust and revelations they can't ignore. At the heart of it all is a question about Hadrian's past that threatens the one thing both men value more than gold: each other.
Sullivan's particular gift is making a 786-page epic feel propulsive rather than padded. The dual-novel structure gives the story room to breathe without losing momentum, and his prose stays clean and purposeful — never showy, always serving the characters. What sets this book apart is the emotional precision underneath the adventure. Sullivan understands that readers follow plot for excitement but return for people, and Royce and Hadrian remain two of the most genuinely compelling partners in contemporary fantasy.
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