Grave Empire by Richard Swan: Review, characters & triggers

Written By Esta Pinto

Synopsis of Grave Empire by Richard Swan.


From critically acclaimed author Richard Swan, Grave Empire begins the epic tale of an empire on the verge of industrial revolution, where sorcery and arcane practices are outlawed – and where an ancient prophecy threatens the coming end of days.

Blood once turned the wheels of empire. Now it is money.

A new age of exploration and innovation has dawned, and the Empire of the Wolf stands to take its place as the foremost power in the known world. Glory and riches await.

But dark days are coming. A mysterious plague has broken out in the pagan kingdoms to the north, while in the south, the Empire’s proxy war in the lands of the wolfmen is weeks away from total collapse. 

Worse still is the message brought to the Empress by two heretic monks, who claim to have lost contact with the spirits of the afterlife. The monks believe this is the start of an ancient prophecy heralding the end of days—the Great Silence. 

It falls to Renata Rainer, a low-ranking ambassador to an enigmatic and vicious race of mermen, to seek answers from those who still practice the arcane arts. But with the road south beset by war and the Empire on the brink of supernatural catastrophe, soon there may not be a world left to save... 

Get Grave Empire by Richard Swan here.

Grave Empire characters.

Grave Empire is in third person narration from three different points of view. Here are the three main characters in Grave Empire we alternate between in the plot.

Captain Peter Kleist.

A privileged, naive soldier boy who starts off as a poster child for colonial arrogance but gets some serious character growth. I started off rolling my eyes at him and ended up rooting for him.

Renata Rainer.

A humble secretary and diplomat to the mer-people, underestimated and bullied, who gets caught up in political intrigue and multiple assassination attempts. Love that for her.

Count Lamprecht Von Oldenburg.

The most unhinged man I’ve read about in a while. Think a mix of Count Dracula and a Victorian-era mad scientist. Bites his own hand when anxious. Just... vibes.

Here is the full list of characters in Grave Empire:

  • Captain Peter Kleist

  • Secretary Renata Rainer

  • Ambassador Didacus Maruska

  • Colonel Glaser

  • Count Lamprecht Von Oldenburg

  • Brother Viktor Herschel

  • Brother Guillot

  • Cathassach

  • Olwin

  • Zorica

  • Madam Azura Ozolinsh

  • Mark Furlan

  • Amara (Renata’s sister)

  • Captain Joseph Lyzander

  • Kysely

  • Yelena Tesarik

  • Zofia

  • Dwelkspreker

  • Ran-Juma

  • The Thrice Queen

  • Sina

  • Muirgen

  • Major Hanna

  • Beckert

  • Major Kulkani

  • Major Matovesian

  • The Knackerman

  • Ms Iniguez

  • Lydia Atanasov

  • Zenaide Gagnier

  • Emmanuel Bosko

  • Empress Zelenka Haugenate Imperatrix

  • Broz

  • Mister Lilic

  • Velimir

  • Musil

Shark characters.

Look, there are Great White shark familiars in Grave Empire and they have names. It’d be rude to leave them out of the character list.

  • Teulia

  • Kaipatu

Grave Empire map by Tim Paul, illustrator.

Trust me, the world of Sova and her “possessions, dominions, and allied nations” is sprawling. Fortunately, there's a map to help us navigate it all with ease. Credit to Tim Paul, illustrator and Richard Swan, author.

Grave Empire book review.

My rating: ★★★★★

5 stars.

 don't care for guns in real life. If you put a musket and a flintlock pistol in front of me, I’d probably just ask which one’s better for opening a bottle of wine. But in fantasy, load me up. I know this because Richard Swan dragged me into his world of flintlock-cosmic-horror-with-a-sprinkle-of-steampunk fantasy and I’m feral for it. And if you asked me ‘Esta is that a real genre?’ My answer to you would be ‘Probably not, but maybe it should be.’

Furthermore, if you’d told me last year that one of my favourite fantasies in 2025 would feature muskets, mermen with armoured sharks and morally grey colonialists screwing up everything in sight, I would’ve raised an eyebrow. And yet, here we are because Grave Empire is a dissection of humanity’s capacity for moral decay and a masterstroke in fantasy-horror.

Accordingly, this book is dense and I found that the story took some time to unfurl. If you’re the kind of reader who thrives on sprawling worlds with multiple POVs, foreign expeditions, political intrigue and battle scenes where you can smell the gunpowder, this one might be for you. Every chapter drops you somewhere new, from haunted forests to decaying fortresses to mermaid suffocation execution posts (yes, really).

Swan constructs cultures, religions, languages and histories with precision. The kind that would probably get a nod of approval from Tolkien, though in this case, swap elves and hobbits for necromancer monks, wolf-people, and diplomats suffering workplace harassment from their fish-frog-splicing colleagues.

However, what really stands out is how Swan builds a world that feels both lived in and lived through. His fantastical, multicultural, multi-racial, queer-normal world is a breath of fresh air. Each location feels textured, each plot twist makes sense within the world he’s built. I had no idea where this story was going and I loved that. Every time I thought I had a grip on the plot, it would veer into something so dark and unhinged I had to recalibrate everything I thought I knew about the characters and the world.

So yeah, if you’re looking for something light-hearted, whimsical, or cosy, just know this is not your book. This is a thick, dark stew of gruesome absurdity. Whales and sharks do not make it out unscathed. Limbs go flying. Blood flows like fine wine (except, you know, with more screaming). Colonialism and its grotesque consequences are front and centre. That’s just the tip of the iceberg too.

So if any of that makes you queasy, proceed with caution. But if you’re in the mood for a complex, morally ambiguous world with naive, gun-toting adventurers, magic-obsessed scientists and expansive underwater cities filled with sinister mermaids, welcome to Grave Empire.

Thank you to NetGalley & Little, Brown Book Group UK | Orbit for enthralling my brain in exchange for an honest review

 View my Grave Empire book review on GoodReads here!


Grave Empire by Richard Swan book FAQs.

Some answers may spoil Grave Empire if you haven’t read it already. Proceed with caution.

What are the content & trigger warnings for Grave Empire by Richard Swan?

  • Blood and gore

  • Bigotry, racism

  • Grief

  • Trauma

  • Body horror

  • Death

  • Animal cruelty, deaths and corpses

  • Supernatural horror

  • Slavery

  • Torture

  • Violence

  • Xenophobia

  • Blood

  • War

  • Sexism

  • Sexual content

  • Sexual violence

  • Excrement

  • Vomit

  • Cannibalism

What is Grave Empire’s age rating?

Grave Empire by Richard Swan is rated for readers aged 18+ containing adult themes, graphic blood, gore, violence and other content warnings.

Esta Pinto
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