Katy Rose Pool Books In Order

Publication Order of Garden of the Cursed Books

Publication Order of The Age of Darkness Books

Katy Rose Pool

Katy Rose Pool is an award winning American author of young adult/fantasy books best known for her 2019 novel There Will Come to Darkness, the first book in The Age of Darkness series. Born and spent her childhood in Los Angeles, Katy attended UC Berkeley where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. She spent several years designing websites. Currently she lives in San Francisco where she spends her days writing, reading books, eating sandwiches, and connecting the Golden State Warriors.

There Will Come A Darkness

There Will Come A Darkness is the first book in The Age of Darkness Series by Katy Rose Pool. It’s one of the best and exciting fantasy novels of 2019. Clear your schedule before or as soon as you pick it up because it’s a book that’s impossible to put down once you read the first page.

There Will Come A Darkness is a dark, intricate tale of prophecy, faith, death, magic, war, and more. It’s the sort of fantasy tale that defies a natural explanation. But here’s how the story goes: for generations, Seven Prophets served as guide to humanity until hundred years ago when they vanished from the face of the world. However, the prophets left behind a prophecy that has since been under the fierce guard of Paladin Knights. The prophecy tells the coming of an Age of Darkness and the rise of a final prophet whose arrival could mean salvation or destruction of the world as we know it.

There Will Come A Darkness is narrated through the point of view of five characters, each with their histories, agendas, and connections to each other. One of the characters is Hassan, an exiled prince of an empire under the control of an attacking army. Then there’s Ephyra an assassin, aka Pale Hand. She is also a healer capable of siphoning life from other people. Her sister Beru is sick, dying and the reason why Ephyra gets up every morning. We are then introduced to Anton, a skilled gambler with the Grace of Sight. He’s on the run from his past as well as his family. Then there’s Jude a warrior dedicated to the belief that he and those he serves can help prevent the darkness even though his heart is always skeptical about his belief. Throw in some bubbling uprising by some cult members known as the Witnesses- who firmly believe that the Graced- people with bodily magic capable of improving their physical speed or make them have vision- need to be destroyed, and you have the perfect recipe for a layered epic fantasy story.

The five interconnected strangers never realize how they are all connected. They live in a world that was once led by the seven prophets, who gifted the humanity the gift of the Graces. There Will Comes Darkness is the first in a Katy Rose’s trilogy The Age of Trilogy. The author lets you enter a richly detailed and well-crafted world where faith and magic intertwine, where Grace can make you stronger and help you see the future or raise the dead. We are introduced to a power structure that’s skewed heavily in favor of the Graced and allows us to explore the power struggles between those with special abilities and those without. The story allows the readers to examine the idea of prophecy versus free will, and also examine how much of what happens is as the result of your choices and how much is because of things beyond your control.

There Will Come Darkness complies with all the protocols of the fantasy genre, featuring well-developed, beautifully flawed characters whose actions are unpredictable. Our main characters, Anton, Ephyra, Jude, Beru, and Hassan- all come from different cultures and backgrounds. Their respective cultures and backgrounds are well thought and evident through their behavior and perspectives. One of them is a gambler; one is a warrior, one is a prince, one is dying, and one is a killer, and each goes through their journey with some more frustrating than others. Be ready for plenty of inner turmoil and plenty of battling with personal demons.

This is a world where the central conflict is between those who are graced and those who aren’t- it’s a conflict between those with special abilities versus those without, but there’s no thought to things like sexuality or skin color. It’s a fantastic read melt between classic fantasy tropes and modern sensibilities. The action moves at a steady pace, and the story is told in shifting points of view between the five major characters, so you don’t know what to expect next, who you can trust or what will happen next. The short chapters are concise and bounce back and forth between the characters, moving the readers across the city/country and giving them glimpses of a fully-realized world.

The story flows naturally, building up the narrative the twists and turns in the second half in a more natural way. Apart from the significant conflict between the graced versus those who are not, There Will Come Darkness also allows examine how much our lives are our own. Do we live by free will or by prophecy? Or are we cursed to live a role that’s already predetermined for us long before we are ever allowed to make any choices in our lives? In most stories that feature multiple main characters like Katy Rose Pool’s book, there is something of a rush to get every person on the same team and same place. However that’s not the case in Katy Rose’s book. The different main characters interact and collaborate over the course of the story, and some never meet one another and never learn of the other’s existence until the final page. Given that each of these characters has a specific part to play in destroying or saving the world, we can always assume that they will change for good or bad in the coming books. It’s great to see an author trust her readers enough throughout the story.