A Sorrow Fierce And Falling is a Dark Fantasy novel by Jessica Cluess. It's the third and final installment in the Kingdom on Fire series.
In the months that have followed since the Ancients brought down London, and the remaining Magic Order, including Henrietta Howell and the Order's new leader, George Blackwood, are laying low in Blackwood's mansion in Sorrow-Fell to train Maria, and come up with a plan to end the Ancients once and for all.
One day, after training Maria, Henrietta makes an interesting discovery on the Sorrow-Fell grounds. It's the circle of stones where magic was born. They ultimately decide that the best way to bring the war to an end is to lure R'hlem, the other Ancients, and all of their familiars into the circle and send them all back to the Ancients' dimension for good. Sounds simple enough, right?
Well, unfortunately, Lambe has revealed that a danger lurks within Sorrow-Fell. And Henrietta thinks she knows what that danger is.
The book was published on October 16th, 2018.
A Sorrow Fierce And Falling contains examples of:
- Blob Monster: Molochoron. He makes his first appearance in the book as an illusion for Maria to fight. He makes a real appearance during the fall of Sorrow-Fell.
- Circle of Standing Stones: Henrietta finds a circle of twelve stones on Sorrow-Fell property. They find out that the circle if where magic was born, and decide to use it to send the Ancients back to their dimension.
- Dead Guy Junior: Henrietta decides to name her and George's baby Stephen, since that was Rook's name before he became Unclean.
- Eldritch Location: The Fae world half of Sorrow-Fell Manor is easily this. Henrietta describes it as not built for humans, having hallways that spiral like dreams, ceilings so low she can scrape her head against them, and unevenly placed stones on the floor.
- Facial Horror: Molochoron's Familiars, which are reproduced in a training illusion for Maria, are described as having melted faces.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: R'hlem, by The Kindly Emperor.
- Keystone Army: Henrietta notes in the final chapters that, once the Ancients returned to their dimension, all their Familiars died.
- Memorial for the Antagonist: Zigzagged. After the Ancients and the Kindly Emperor are sent back through the portal to their native realm, thus ending the war, the people of the country celebrate by parading R'hlem's corpse through the country, allowing people to hurl insults and debris at it and, in general, Desecrating the Dead. Afterwards, however, the body is delivered to Henrietta, who decides to bury the body and hold a small funeral for William Howell, her father, and the man that R'hlem used to be.
- No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: When Henrietta is kidnapped by R'hlem's army, she's brought to him, and one thing he does is treat her to a meal.
- Shapeshifting: Alice Chen. It comes in handy when Henrietta needs to spirit the queen out of Sorrow-Fell.
- Wedding Smashers: At one point, George and Henrietta's wedding is interrupted by attacking Familiars.
