What do you think?
Rate this book
The Tyranny Cycle #1
Warden's Will
The are few forces more powerful than the Will of a fully trained Warden, but those who endeavor to become Wardens must first escape the crucible fires of Black Mark Academy. Very few who enter will leave as Wardens, and many will never leave at all.
Lillin ends up at Black Mark Academy not as a willing volunteer, but as forced penance for a past wrong. She soon discovers that the training involved in becoming a Warden is more nightmarish than she could have imagined. With her face marked permanently for her past crimes, she has to either survive the Warden's cruel training program or die in the process. She must discover the determination within herself to move forward and kindle the flames of the eternal fire, the Warden's Will.
Warden's Will is the first novel in a new series by Heath Pfaff, author of the Chaos Awakens trilogy, and The Hungering Saga.
Lillin ends up at Black Mark Academy not as a willing volunteer, but as forced penance for a past wrong. She soon discovers that the training involved in becoming a Warden is more nightmarish than she could have imagined. With her face marked permanently for her past crimes, she has to either survive the Warden's cruel training program or die in the process. She must discover the determination within herself to move forward and kindle the flames of the eternal fire, the Warden's Will.
Warden's Will is the first novel in a new series by Heath Pfaff, author of the Chaos Awakens trilogy, and The Hungering Saga.
330 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 6, 2017
8 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Heath Pfaff
14 books63 followersHeath Pfaff is an author who lives in rural, western New York. He was born in a small town, and spent a good potion of his life growing up all over the world as part of a military family. He is married, and has armloads of cats and a dog named Eris.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 11, 2019
You can read this and more on my website ChelzLor.com
***Thank you goes directly to Amy Landon, the narrator of the audio book, for an ARC to review the book and her performance***
WARNING: Book contains violent imagery and death.
I was honored and excited when Amy Landon agreed to have me review her audio book performance for Warden’s Will by Heath Pfaff. It was a first for me and I of course jumped at the chance. I’ll admit I was skeptical at first mainly due to my realization that I am not fond of audio books that are fiction. The ones I have listened to prove to me that it is hard for a narrator to know exactly what the author set out to do in terms of voice and making the characters sound a certain way, making most of my experiences disappointing. It probably didn’t help that the two fantasy novels I listened to before this was from the Mortal Instruments series and I doubt I would have liked those books in any format.
But I digress.
I’m just going to say it, this book was highly entertaining. Pfaff knows how to tell a detailed story that can seem on the surface to stretch longer than it should, but in the end you are so invested by what is happening you don’t realize you’ve finished a section until you are rounding the page onto the next one.
Lillin is sent to the Black Mark Academy to begin her Warden Training. There’s just one thing, she didn’t choose this. She is a deady, one who was condemned to die for a crime, but instead has been sent to train as a Warden. Where others who voluntarily join the academy can leave at any time, she is doomed to either complete the training or die trying. She is tattooed of half a skull on half of her face, eternally marked so the world knows what she did and why she is at the Academy. As you can imagine, this does not make things easy for her.
GOOD POINT: Lillin was a rather snobby annoying character in the beginning, but the character development in this book as you rooting for her in no time. I loved that. Pfaff makes you grow with his character and I wanted nothing more than to see her succeed.
While it is suggested to Lillin that making friends would not be beneficial to her survival she manages to make at least two Zark and Orey (audio book, so basing on what it sounded like). Both are also deadies and as the trials come and go they learn to rely on one another in order to survive. Of course this doesn’t last long as the Academy seems hell bent on destroying any semblance of happiness in the student’s lives, even those that chose to be there.
GOOD POINT: I personally think the author did a good job on being inclusive. Humans aren’t a paint by numbers species, they all have their own personalities and I think this book was great in depicting each one as their own person. Granted we see more of certain characters and there are a lot of sub-characters, but I was never confused. I appreciate that.
It’s hard to say much more with out giving away HUGE plot points, but needless to say I would very much enjoy continuing this series and would recommend to those who are fans of fantasy. Though there are some pretty violent and graphic moments, so if you are one who can’t handle detailed descriptions of injuries and blood maybe skip this for some lighter fare.
I’ve mentioned the character creation and development, which again in my opinion was top notch, but that’s not to say that everything was amazing. One thing that bothered me was instantly knowing this was written by a man, without even having to look at the name on the cover. How would I know that you may be asking yourself? Well it was because every female character, yes even his MC, was introduced or depicted based on the size and shape of their breasts.
Note to male writers, especially if your MC is female, WE DON’T THINK ABOUT OUR BREASTS AS MUCH AS YOU THINK WE DO!
It really got disappointing each time this came up. I swear I really liked this book, but these moments made me eye roll so hard and honestly had the book not been great in every other instance I probably wouldn’t have bothered finishing it simply because of this. There was also the constant putting down of the MC by herself. I don’t know what the point was to constantly having Lillin say to herself how ugly she was or unattractive. It didn’t bring anything to her character development and it provided no new information for the reader. We get that the tattoo is gruesome, but that should in no way diminish her being okay with how she looked prior to that.
As a female, it’s disappointing to read a female character who is in everything she does a bad-ass and then have her stop in the middle of all that awesomeness to talk about how ugly she is to herself in a mirror. Just based on this book, I know you can do better and you should strive to do so in the future.
GOOD POINT: The world building was detailed and visual. I felt like I was there most of the time and it was such a great experience. Of course there were many instances that this wasn’t great because anytime something was particularly gross I just screamed in my car, but this is a positive in the author set out to make his world real and it was to me.
Now for the audio book, Amy Landon did a great job in the narration and in doing the voice of Lillin. She also managed to do a few accents for other characters and that was impressive. The only thing that irked me was her voices for the male characters. Unless they had one of those accents, they all managed to sound the same. This isn’t anything major by any means, but if you are going to go through the trouble of giving each character a voice, you should try harder on separating them.
Other than that her narration was smooth and this made it an easy listen. Her voice was almost made for narration and it was a nice thing to listen to on my commute to and from work. Despite my remark above, I do hope that the second book gets an audio book and that Amy does that one as well. What can I say, I like consistency.
BAD POINT: A blow by blow detailed description of an eye gouging. AHHHHHH!
4.5 Out of 5 Stars
***Thank you goes directly to Amy Landon, the narrator of the audio book, for an ARC to review the book and her performance***
WARNING: Book contains violent imagery and death.
I was honored and excited when Amy Landon agreed to have me review her audio book performance for Warden’s Will by Heath Pfaff. It was a first for me and I of course jumped at the chance. I’ll admit I was skeptical at first mainly due to my realization that I am not fond of audio books that are fiction. The ones I have listened to prove to me that it is hard for a narrator to know exactly what the author set out to do in terms of voice and making the characters sound a certain way, making most of my experiences disappointing. It probably didn’t help that the two fantasy novels I listened to before this was from the Mortal Instruments series and I doubt I would have liked those books in any format.
But I digress.
I’m just going to say it, this book was highly entertaining. Pfaff knows how to tell a detailed story that can seem on the surface to stretch longer than it should, but in the end you are so invested by what is happening you don’t realize you’ve finished a section until you are rounding the page onto the next one.
Lillin is sent to the Black Mark Academy to begin her Warden Training. There’s just one thing, she didn’t choose this. She is a deady, one who was condemned to die for a crime, but instead has been sent to train as a Warden. Where others who voluntarily join the academy can leave at any time, she is doomed to either complete the training or die trying. She is tattooed of half a skull on half of her face, eternally marked so the world knows what she did and why she is at the Academy. As you can imagine, this does not make things easy for her.
GOOD POINT: Lillin was a rather snobby annoying character in the beginning, but the character development in this book as you rooting for her in no time. I loved that. Pfaff makes you grow with his character and I wanted nothing more than to see her succeed.
While it is suggested to Lillin that making friends would not be beneficial to her survival she manages to make at least two Zark and Orey (audio book, so basing on what it sounded like). Both are also deadies and as the trials come and go they learn to rely on one another in order to survive. Of course this doesn’t last long as the Academy seems hell bent on destroying any semblance of happiness in the student’s lives, even those that chose to be there.
GOOD POINT: I personally think the author did a good job on being inclusive. Humans aren’t a paint by numbers species, they all have their own personalities and I think this book was great in depicting each one as their own person. Granted we see more of certain characters and there are a lot of sub-characters, but I was never confused. I appreciate that.
It’s hard to say much more with out giving away HUGE plot points, but needless to say I would very much enjoy continuing this series and would recommend to those who are fans of fantasy. Though there are some pretty violent and graphic moments, so if you are one who can’t handle detailed descriptions of injuries and blood maybe skip this for some lighter fare.
I’ve mentioned the character creation and development, which again in my opinion was top notch, but that’s not to say that everything was amazing. One thing that bothered me was instantly knowing this was written by a man, without even having to look at the name on the cover. How would I know that you may be asking yourself? Well it was because every female character, yes even his MC, was introduced or depicted based on the size and shape of their breasts.
Note to male writers, especially if your MC is female, WE DON’T THINK ABOUT OUR BREASTS AS MUCH AS YOU THINK WE DO!
It really got disappointing each time this came up. I swear I really liked this book, but these moments made me eye roll so hard and honestly had the book not been great in every other instance I probably wouldn’t have bothered finishing it simply because of this. There was also the constant putting down of the MC by herself. I don’t know what the point was to constantly having Lillin say to herself how ugly she was or unattractive. It didn’t bring anything to her character development and it provided no new information for the reader. We get that the tattoo is gruesome, but that should in no way diminish her being okay with how she looked prior to that.
As a female, it’s disappointing to read a female character who is in everything she does a bad-ass and then have her stop in the middle of all that awesomeness to talk about how ugly she is to herself in a mirror. Just based on this book, I know you can do better and you should strive to do so in the future.
GOOD POINT: The world building was detailed and visual. I felt like I was there most of the time and it was such a great experience. Of course there were many instances that this wasn’t great because anytime something was particularly gross I just screamed in my car, but this is a positive in the author set out to make his world real and it was to me.
Now for the audio book, Amy Landon did a great job in the narration and in doing the voice of Lillin. She also managed to do a few accents for other characters and that was impressive. The only thing that irked me was her voices for the male characters. Unless they had one of those accents, they all managed to sound the same. This isn’t anything major by any means, but if you are going to go through the trouble of giving each character a voice, you should try harder on separating them.
Other than that her narration was smooth and this made it an easy listen. Her voice was almost made for narration and it was a nice thing to listen to on my commute to and from work. Despite my remark above, I do hope that the second book gets an audio book and that Amy does that one as well. What can I say, I like consistency.
BAD POINT: A blow by blow detailed description of an eye gouging. AHHHHHH!
4.5 Out of 5 Stars
April 11, 2019
Let me first apologize to Heath Pfaff because when the book started I thought this was going to be a Hunger Games knockoff. Oh, how wrong I was. This was really, really good... and disturbing and anger-inducing and wicked. I am not sure how one comes up with something like this, but I am happy the story has been started. I need to read the second book, from the reviews I have read it seems like it is even better. There is a healthy balance of sci-fi and horror here. At different points, the genre swung to each end of the spectrum. The "doors" to the training grounds and the way the worlds were interactive and "bubbled" moments in time was very science fictiony, but the hodge-podge collection of robotic parts on the "spider" creatures that attached corpses to their frames and used the dead to replicate was something straight out of a nightmare. I could go on, this book was awesome. I am not sure I liked the way it ended, but knowing that it will continue in another book makes me happy. The writing was great and the narration was good. Pick this up if you like bloody, dystopian, subtly sciencey, maddeningly unfair stories of redemption... kind of.
This story was given to me for free at my request for my voluntary and unbiased review.
This story was given to me for free at my request for my voluntary and unbiased review.
April 22, 2019
Many books have focused on a protagonist's journey through a unique school or academy, this one tends more towards the cruel end of the spectrum with it's portrayal of an order that employs a harsh training regime on their potential recruits with a rate of attrition that includes a large numbers of deaths and not simply people leaving the training.
The book does a good job of showing the development of the main character from a fairly selfish and unlikable person into a competent and determined young woman who faces the horrors she faces and comes through them all the stronger.
The narrator does a generally good job of enhancing the book with her performance with a distinctive range of tones for the various characters, but at normal speed the pace of the narration felt a little bit slow for my liking.
Overall, an interesting first book in the series that potentially set a good foundation for the rest of the series.
[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]
The book does a good job of showing the development of the main character from a fairly selfish and unlikable person into a competent and determined young woman who faces the horrors she faces and comes through them all the stronger.
The narrator does a generally good job of enhancing the book with her performance with a distinctive range of tones for the various characters, but at normal speed the pace of the narration felt a little bit slow for my liking.
Overall, an interesting first book in the series that potentially set a good foundation for the rest of the series.
[Note - I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.]
March 7, 2018
OMG🙌 This guy can write!!!
I compared his writing to David Eddings when I first happened lacrosse The Hungering Saga and anxiously would scan new releases in the hopes that he would embark on another series in that vein. This series is certainly different but still exciting and captivating! Now I just have to wait on the next adventure, ARRRGH! If Lillin can persevere, then I can too😄 Buy this book! It's amazing and you will thank me for sending you Mr. Pfaff's way!
I compared his writing to David Eddings when I first happened lacrosse The Hungering Saga and anxiously would scan new releases in the hopes that he would embark on another series in that vein. This series is certainly different but still exciting and captivating! Now I just have to wait on the next adventure, ARRRGH! If Lillin can persevere, then I can too😄 Buy this book! It's amazing and you will thank me for sending you Mr. Pfaff's way!
August 9, 2018
Warden's Will (Book 1)
This is an AMAZING book of what happens when you you have no morals and commit a crime and are caught. Not like our jails! Punishment is never ending. I can say no more without giving away the story. You DON'T want to to miss this one.I TOTALLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK. Enjoy!!!
This is an AMAZING book of what happens when you you have no morals and commit a crime and are caught. Not like our jails! Punishment is never ending. I can say no more without giving away the story. You DON'T want to to miss this one.I TOTALLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK. Enjoy!!!
January 29, 2018
Fantastic!
Awesome book! Great character development, and story pacing. I can't wait to read more about Lillin. Hopefully another book is coming soon.
Awesome book! Great character development, and story pacing. I can't wait to read more about Lillin. Hopefully another book is coming soon.
July 8, 2020
Solid YA story with an interesting plot.
December 15, 2019
I read a lot of YA books in this genre and I really liked this book because it took the aspects that I liked from The Hunger Games and Divergent and intensified them! However, I thought the premise and story were unique. Initially, I went back and forth if I should take a chance on this book, and I am so glad I did.
Lillian ends up at Black Mark Academy for killing someone, and she does not want to be there. She finds out the training is extremely brutal and very few survive. Her only other option, beside passing the academy, is to die/be killed. This story was non stop action from start to finish and I completed it in one sitting. I enjoyed it that much. I cannot wait to see what Pfaff will have next for the series, and I cannot wait to find out. I am new to his writing, but I am already scouting a few of his other books I might enjoy. I have already recommended this first book to a few friends.
This book does get very graphic and points which I do not mind. I just wanted to worn others just in case.
Lastly, I think Amy Landon does a great job with distinct voices and really brings the emotions of the characters through. I really hope she will continue with the series.
I received this audiobook at my request, and I have left a voluntary and honest review.
Lillian ends up at Black Mark Academy for killing someone, and she does not want to be there. She finds out the training is extremely brutal and very few survive. Her only other option, beside passing the academy, is to die/be killed. This story was non stop action from start to finish and I completed it in one sitting. I enjoyed it that much. I cannot wait to see what Pfaff will have next for the series, and I cannot wait to find out. I am new to his writing, but I am already scouting a few of his other books I might enjoy. I have already recommended this first book to a few friends.
This book does get very graphic and points which I do not mind. I just wanted to worn others just in case.
Lastly, I think Amy Landon does a great job with distinct voices and really brings the emotions of the characters through. I really hope she will continue with the series.
I received this audiobook at my request, and I have left a voluntary and honest review.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews