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    A Dance of Cloaks
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    A Dance of Cloaks
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    A Dance of Cloaks
    Audiobook14 hours

    A Dance of Cloaks

    Written by David Dalglish

    Narrated by Elijah Alexander

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The Underworld rules the city of Veldaren. Thieves, smugglers, assassins... they fear only one man.

    Thren Felhorn is the greatest assassin of his time. All the thieves' guilds of the city are under his unflinching control. If he has his way, death will soon spill out from the shadows and into the streets.

    Aaron is Thren's son, trained to be heir to his father's criminal empire. He's cold, ruthless – everything an assassin should be. But when Aaron risks his life to protect a priest's daughter from his own guild, he glimpses a world beyond piston, daggers, and the iron rule of his father.

    Assassin or protector; every choice has its consequences.

    Fantasy author David Dalglish spins a tale of retribution and darkness, and an underworld reaching for ultimate power.

    A Hachette Audio production.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateOct 8, 2013
    ISBN9781478979081
    Unavailable
    A Dance of Cloaks
    Author

    David Dalglish

    David Dalglish currently lives in rural Missouri with his wife, Samantha, and daughters Morgan and Katherine. He graduated from Missouri Southern State University in 2006 with a degree in Mathematics and currently spends his free time playing not nearly enough Warhammer 40K.

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    Reviews for A Dance of Cloaks

    4/5

    255 ratings26 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Action-packed, tugged on my heart strings, not a boring page in the book. And a few gross-out moments, which I really don't mind. Reads kind of like Brent Weeks'"Night Angel" trilogy, but shorter.Something else that I loved about "A Dance of Cloaks" was that there are several strong female characters. There's usually one or two in the typical sword and sorcorer fantasies I've read, but again, this is NOT a typical fantasy novel. Go get this book and dive in! You'll enjoy every minute.
    • 3/5
      Right away, I sensed that Dalglish was attempting for a "Song of Ice and Fire" feel for this book. The title format as well certain phrases and names dropped as homages hinted at this, but he also states as much in his afterword.This was both good and bad. On the one hand, I knew I was going to be in for some political intrigue; on the other, I also knew I was going to have to prepare myself for most of the characters I meet dying horribly and needlessly.Turns out I was right on both accounts, but I was never engaged the same way with "A Dance of Cloaks" as I was with George R.R. Martin's "A Game of Thrones" and I think I know why. While Dalglish does a good job with his character and world building, he doesn't do enough. For example, when key characters died, the book succeeded in shocking me but where it failed was making me actually care, which is what I think is more important. It's hard to be affected when you don't feel any connection to the characters, and I wish Dalglish would have developed some of the secondary characters a bit more especially if he was going to have so many of them.
    • 2/5
      A serviceable, if ultimately forgettable novel. I didn't hate it, but I have absolutely no desire to read the follow-up, and probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone.It was inexpensive, it at least has that going for it.
    • 2/5
      I read the Kindle preview for this book, consisting of the prologue and the first two chapters, and that was enough to warn me off.The prologue contains a promising twist, but the tension is not maintained as the author introduces character after character after character and they never really do anything. It's as if he was in a great hurry to make sure the reader knew all the names before imbuing them with personality and setting them in motion. Finally at the end of chapter two, a couple of characters meet and some tension is built, but by then the author had lost me.The drab descriptions of characters and scenes failed to draw me into the world of the book, and the occasional odd grammatical constructs and errors were distracting. The dialogue came in fits and starts and had little personality. Some quotes could not realistically come out of the mouths of the characters, and some descriptions strained credulity (a belt with over twenty daggers in it?).The nice thing about having a Kindle is being able to preview books like this so that I can purchase or not with my eyes open. I wish it was a convention that self-published books like this would advertise the names of their editors (or lack thereof, I believe in this case). That way readers might have an inkling beyond sales volume (unreliable for items priced for impulse purchase), or reader reviews (also unreliable in small numbers) as to whether a book is worth opening in the first place.
    • 4/5
      The opening of A Dance of Cloaks, immediately engaged me, and I thought wow! I'm in for a terrific story. I began to have doubts, however, after what to me was a confusing sequence of events shortly thereafter, but I pressed on, determined to at least get to the middle before deciding whether to quit reading or finish it. I'm glad I did. More and more I was re-captivated by the story and Aaron's plight as a boy wanting to be more than a lethal weapon of his ruthless father. One of my favorite parts was where Aaron meets Pelarak. That scene was so good, so beautifully done, I reread it just for the pleasure of it. In fact, the entire book is immensely readable, but it's not without flaws. There were a few instances where I was challenged to suspend disbelief (such as a scene where an elderly woman and 11-year-old girl snuck up on Aaron, a trained thief and killer who was trying to avoid being discovered, and another in which a guy was kicked from behind and tried to stab his attacker with a sword behind him). Fortunately, those sorts of issues were infrequent and didn't ruin my ability to enjoy the story, but I did feel they dragged what might have been a 5-star story down to 4 stars. Still, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend A Dance of Cloaks to any (non-squeamish) fantasy fan.
    • 2/5
      The world built in this story is interesting enough but nothing about this story really grabbed me or pulled me in. I chose this book because it was continued into a series, but with so many characters, much of the book was just set up, with little actual action or pay off. Not bad, just not for me
    • 5/5
      Excellent story! I was so unsure in the beginning where "Aaron" would go and then loved the development of Haern! I am listening to a Dance of Blades now!
    • 4/5
      over all good book, got kinda bored in the middle of it but the ending was worth it
    • 4/5
      Good read. These characters are great and easy to follow.
    • 5/5
      This is my first book by this author but will not be the last you have a new devoted reader thanks
    • 4/5
      The development of a character from the Half-Orcs is an incredible development and even at the end of the book you are invested in the possibilities of following Haern's story from the end of this book all the way to his joining of the Half-Orc series.
    • 5/5
      I loved this and all the books in this series!!!!
    • 3/5
      Nobody is likable enough to care about. The overall story leans to far to the evil and ugly.
    • 3/5
      I think the author bit off more than he could chew. But it was interesting.
    • 5/5
      Great story, can't wait to read the rest of the series!
    • 3/5
      I got this book to review many years ago (hangs head in shame). To be fair I have started it a few times and set it aside because I just couldn’t get into the story. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that this one was a DNF for me. I read the first 300 pages and just realized I didn’t care and wasn’t going to read any more of this series. The book was okay but it was one of those epic fantasies where, 300 pages in, they are still introducing boatloads of characters. There are a ton of politics, some action, and lots of infighting between clans and groups. I just didn't find it at all interesting; I am not a huge fan of politic heavy fantasy.The writing isn’t bad and is easy to read. It is harder to keep track of all the characters. The main storyline focuses on a ongoing struggle for power between Thren (who is in an assassin’s guild) and the Trinity (a powerful group of merchant leaders). The characters are pretty interesting but the story jumps around between many different people and felt disjointed to me. This isn’t one of those books that I absolutely fell into and got engaged in. I had to struggle to stay focused on this book.Overall, while this wasn’t a bad book, it just wasn’t for me. I used to read a lot more political epic fantasies when I was younger. I have found as I get older I like reading books that are more creative, fun, and engaging. I am just too busy to slog through a series about politics and people backstabbing each other and I don’t enjoy it. I would recommend to those who do enjoy politically motivated epic fantasy. I won’t be continuing on with the series...obviously.
    • 4/5
      I will be reading the next book in this series—which is probably the best indication of how I felt about the read. (No, this book did not end with a cliffhanger). It's fairly usual for fantasy genre gone a bit dark with thieves, assassins, corrupt folk in high places, religions, magics and a whiff of larger worldbuilding with snippets of other countries and races. Yet also orginal. Frantic almost in the pacing and everything that happens. Somehow managed to not be chaotic with all the new characters that show up. Great story arc — something many first-in-series books miss. Yet that "frantic" kept me from rating higher because it meant I was slower to get into specific characters and the worldbuilding stayed pretty light (for example, new magics show up with no explanation; kinda video game-ish because as soon as one character seemed too powerful *poof* here comes an opposing power). Even the main character did not really get a gre at deal of "on stage" time. I read the traditionally published (Orbit) reissue of the self-published book. Lo and behold, I had actually downloaded and shelved the self-published one when free (partly because the series had several books in it but mostly because liked the sample). I won't be curious to read the self-published version — but, the author added a note to the new edition about how the self-published one was even more frantic with even more stuff thrown in. I'm having trouble imagining ...
    • 4/5
      Aaron is Thren Felhorn's son, the son of the head of a Thieves' Guild, a guild determined to be the only one and to wield power like a sword, but Aaron may be following his dad's lead, he may also be about to change everything. Thren may not want Aaron to find any freedom...It wasn't a bad read, Aaron was an interesting kid, Thren was a little moustache twirling-esque.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      A coming-of-age book where a young boy tries to break away from the role his father has planned for him and for which he has been trained.
      Lots of interesting, strong characters come and go.
    • 3/5
      The book starts off with a great deal of promise and then just turns into complete mediocrity halfway through. It turns out that "Hearn" is a character from the Half Orc Series that the author felt had more stories to tell, thus this series was started. However, the whole book reads like a badly butchered Brent Weeks novel.

      The version of this book I read was a reworked version of the self-published one. If this is the rework, then the self-published work was a pile of garbage.
    • 3/5
      The prologue held so much promise of bloodshed and dark fantasy....but that's where it ended till about page 300. The character of Aaron is deceivingly portrayed as a strong killer, yet when you encounter him later on he is well versed in combat, but a weak rebelling teenager. I found more interest in Kayla than I did with Aaron and wished she were the main character instead.I will give Dalglish a pass though as he tried to pull off a highly complex novel, just simply fell short. Aaron has potential and I hope to see it rise in the next novel.
    • 2/5
      Ok read, didn’t really capture my attention.
    • 3/5
      This book was suggested as a read alike for George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series. A Dance of Cloaks is not as expertly plotted or executed but, in some ways, is a more enjoyable read. Dalglish's world is very young so he does not have to spend much time explaining its history. Valdaren is on the brink of war between the ruling merchant class and a variety of thief guilds. Thren, head of one of the strongest thief guilds is plotting against the Trifect of merchant leaders and also preparing his 13-year-old son Aaron to become his rightful heir - cold, heartless, invulnerable, and feared. Aaron wants to please his father and is very skilled, both mentally and physically, but as his conscience matures, he starts to rebel against Thren's plans for him. Incorporating sword-and-dagger play, political and religious scheming, and a fair dose of magic and sorcery, A Dance of Cloaks is a fast-paced read with a few minor stumbling blocks. Aaron is an appealing character who has a lot of room to grow in the rest of the trilogy. Contains a fair amount of graphic violence, some profanity, and sexual content but not nearly as prevalent as in the Game of Thrones books.
    • 4/5
      A Dance of Cloaks was a fast paced, thrilling adventure that grabs the reader's attention with its shocking beginning and never lets go. Dalglish does an amazing job at creating his world and its many players. Alliances shift as the Guilds wants to destroy the Trifect, the Trifect want to destroy the Guilds, the King wants to destroy the Guilds, and the Guilds have no trust between them. Full of many different intrigues, Dalglish delivers a suspenseful tale that keeps the reader guessing and keeps the action coming making for a book that proves to be hard to put down. However it is the characters that remain at the heart of the book and at the center is a father/son relationship like no other. Dalglish has successfully created some memorable characters and develops each of the main characters very well especially considering the number of characters important to the story. Aaron is the best developed character, and I look forward to seeing where this journey takes him in the next book in the series. Overall A Dance of Cloaks was a fabulous read that I would most definitely recommend.Received a copy of A Dance of Cloaks through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      Thren Felhorn is the head of the Spider Guild and the most powerful and most dangerous man in the city of Valderen. For years, he has been attempting to unite the thief guilds to bring down the Trifect, a group of very wealthy merchants who rule the city. His son, Aaron is being raised to be Thren’s heir. Aaron made his first kill at eight, his own brother. Now he is almost as skilled as his father. However, Aaron is not just a loyal soldier in his father’s army. He has learned love from Kayla, another thief and he has learned religion from Robert Haern, his mentor. Unfortunately, these are the two things Thren has forbidden him and now Aaron is chafing at his father’s control.Along with these two, there are dozens of other characters and the story switches POV at the drop of a cloak. As well, there are two religions representing dark and light and which seem to represent the main magic users in the novel. There is a group of women who are masked and hire themselves out as assassins. There are the members of the Trifect and their families. And there is a good priest and his young daughter who become targets of Thren’s guild and who will have a profound effect on Aaron. In other words, there are some fairly stock characters in a rather generic tale. Even the title seems an homage to GRR Martin. Yet, somehow it all works and rather well I might add. There is no hidden agenda here; it is just a tale meant to pay homage to the best of grimdark fantasy and to entertain the reader and it does both with great gusto and without letup. And there, I think, lies the success of A Dance of Cloaks, in its pacing. It opens with a bang and never lets up until the heart-pounding, bloodsoaked battle at the end. For fans of the more gritty realist fantasy, this is definitely one for you. And best of all, you don’t have to wait years for the next in the series.
    • 4/5
      I didn’t know what to expect when I picked up this book, other than it was getting a lot of attention on a few discussion boards I’m a part of. I’m SO glad I purchased this novel, my first of what will be a large collection by David Dalglish. David captured my attention from the first page and held it to the very last. The characters were enthralling, the action fast and furious (and a bit bloody) and the plot a fascinating conflict between father and son, father and the Trifect, father and most other people in the book. The book is well constructed and brilliantly written. If this one isn’t as well written as the Half-Orc series, then sign me up now. I LOVED this book and can’t wait to sink my teeth and claws into additional works. Thanks David!