The Obelisk Gate

How it reads

The Obelisk Gate is fantasy (epic fantasy, specifically), and its dominant mood is dark. It goes to difficult places and doesn't look away. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in an invented world, in no single period, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are survival, power and politics and family. In weight it's heavy and literary — denser, more serious, and more demanding of you.

It's a later book in a series — you'll usually want to start earlier. It ends on a cliffhanger, so have the next book ready. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.