This book. This series. This author. Son of the Drowned Empire by Frankie Diane Mallis was such an emotional, character driven “novella” – I use quotes because, let’s be real, it’s a full-sized novel with the size of it – made perfectly for the Rhyan stans out there. Of which I am faithfully one of. What makes this book more than anything is the character development it provides for Rhyan, because it is immense and it is touching and brutal.