The third-born of a shamed family, Tarkosi's lot in life is to spend his days as a worker, feeding temperamental lancewings under a harsh master. I think I got it in a Mantic fantasy sale box years ago and already used one for a Frostgrave project.

Trapped with no one to believe her, Kaleah is forced to confront the man who wants her dead, but as she gets to know him, the truth about Lilitha comes to light and secrets begin to unravel.The primary characters, both protagonal and antagonal, are fully fleshed out, complicated and fallible. Nothing felt rushed and from the time the book started to ended, I found myself fully invested in the characters and the plot. Pel and his band of believers, known as the Scions, also managed to escape and eventually meet up with Tarko again. There are 6 classes of demon but I only feel my minis tick the boxes for Armoured demons and Slaughter Fiends at the moment. Hundreds of miles of canopy highways connect the bloodwood cities, stretching all the way to The Scorch, a vast, smoldering, and desolate memorial to the last demon invasion.

Told primarily from Tarkosi’s point of view, Demon’s Reign is an incredible creation of new world and new magic. The protagonist is an unlikable whiner who has failed at so many jobs and yet takes no blame himself.You wouldn’t think a book of this length would feel like it took hardly any time to read, but the creative world building captured my attention from the start, and the combination of interesting characters and a perfectly paced plot held it throughout, so that the hours of reading melted away unnoticed. There is however one less solid thing about the story, and that is the thing that sets it into motion. It definitely proves you can have a fantasy that doesn’t need to be based on Western medieval gender roles to feel like fantasy. Also this connection doesn't give him a telepathic link to the demon, he still needs to talk to it out loud, which makes him appear a bit crazy at times. I especially liked the interactions between the main character and the demon in his body, very reminiscent of Venom.

I went with some colour for his under armour cloth with Orcflesh Green Contrast and a Deathguard Green highlight. This mini was given to me built incorrectly, but I think that’s forgivable because they were gifted to me and I think they had been assembled by the guy when he was a child. There are other cities of course, that don’t live in trees, but Shal Gara, where this takes place, does. While I personally enjoy these moments, they can be frustrating for others, so if you go in expecting fast pace actions, you might be a bit miffed.

This is a seriously fun book if you claim to enjoy fantasy that stretches boundaries and doesn't fit into the usual mold. It admittedly takes a long time for things to happen in this book, yet the world and characters that Galley and Estes have conjured had me hooked. As a result Tarko has to find any work that he can, except that Tarko kind of rubs everyone the wrong way and is always getting the heave - ho from anything he does. Now that I slogged my way through this book, I won't pick up the sequel, nor anything else the authors wrote. Kaleah is what one hopes for in a protagonist; she's intelligent, kind, and is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve her ultimate goal; the good of her people and most importantly her twin sister Cassie.

Demon’s Reign is an enthralling, sprawling fantasy with interesting world-building and very fun characters. At times it seemed to come closer to a more complex plots with complex/realistic characters that had more than one dimension to them - but it failed to deliver.

The magic is big scale, there are hoards of demons with magic wielders of their own and they have come to Tarkosi’s world to harvest their shit because their world is dying. I was genuinely invested in the story and Kaleah's convictions and her quest to find the assassin who tried to kill her. Pel tells Tarko that he suspects there’s more to the strange omens and events than simple marauders from the Scorch. His world is lived out in the tree canopy, but these trees house whole cities within their branches, roads are high up and link one great tree to its neighbour. Princess Kaleah and her twin sister Cassie are met with so many trials that they must overcome as they are ‘daughters’ to the empress.