Book Review – Dominion of Dust by Matthew Harffy @AriesFiction

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About the Book

AD 797, Cyprus. Warrior-monk Hunlaf and his crew are on a voyage to acquire an important Christian relic before it falls into the hands of Byzantium’s scheming Empress Eirene.

Hunlaf’s crew receive unexpected help as they seek their treasure, but soon find themselves betrayed. About to leave for home empty-handed, the adventurers instead sail further east: to Jerusalem, the Holy Land, abundant in relics. And dangerous intrigues.

Hunlaf and his friends will face a deadly race against time as they attempt to secure a holy treasure, outwit Byzantium’s zealous agents, and avoid grisly deaths at the hands of the local rulers.

Format: Hardback (432 pages) Publisher: Head of Zeus
Publication date: 9th October 2025 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Dominion of Dust is the fourth book in the author’s A Time For Swords series, the follow-up to A Time For Swords, A Night of Flames and A Day of Reckoning. (Links from each title will take you to my review.) A Day of Reckoning ended on a literal cliffhanger and Dominion of Dust takes up the story directly from that point.

Once again Hunlaf is both chief protagonist and narrator. Now advanced in age and becoming increasingly frail, he is setting down the details of his eventful life, one which saw him abandon his calling as a monk to become a warrior and adventurer. 

A Day of Reckoning, saw Hunlaf on a quest for a book known as ‘The Treasure of Life’ which took him and his comrades to the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsular. This time he’s on a search for sacred relics which King Carolus, ruler of the remnants of the Western Roman Empire, believes will imbue him with the divine power to defeat his rival Empress Eirene, ruler of the remnants of the Eastern Roman Empire. Unfortunately she has the same idea, and her own set of searchers. So it becomes a race against time to see who can piece together the clues and locate them first. If you’re thinking this all sounds a bit Indiana Jones, you’re not wrong.

Many characters make a return appearance including the fearsome Norse warrior and master shipbuilder, Runolf Ragnarsson and – much to Hunlaf’s delight – Runolf’s daughter Revna.  The wily Giso, who seems to have connections everywhere and often disappears into the shadows only to reappear at a crucial moment, is also back. Unfortunately, Hunlaf and his comrades are not short of fearsome and totally ruthless opponents.

As you might expect, Hunlaf and his comrades face many perils along the way and there are some terrific action scenes, described in bone-crunching, bloody and visceral detail. They include a fight to escape from an underground chamber and the boarding of a merchant ship. Ignoring the voice of his spiritual mentor Leofstan, now deceased, Hunlaf continues to experience moments of uncontrollable battle rage and ‘the wanton joy of killing’.

Although we know Hunlaf will live to fight another day, he doesn’t. There are plenty of moments where he fears his luck has run out (and who could blame him) and doesn’t know if – or how – he will escape from the perilous situation he finds himself in. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for all his comrades, some of whom will die in tragic circumstances. Even though many decades have passed, the loss of these comrades still weighs heavily on Hunlaf’s mind accompanied by intense feelings of guilt that he might have been, even unwittingly, the cause of their deaths. 

The ailing Hunlaf leaves the reader with a tantalising glimpse of events he has yet to tell us about, including those of a romantic nature. And there’s a brief hint that his story might involve the appearance of a character from another of the author’s series.

I thoroughly enjoyed Dominion of Dust. I loved the characters, the settings and the fast-paced plot. To my mind, this is a series that just keeps getting better and better.

I received a review copy courtesy of Head of Zeus.

In three words: Action-packed, authentic, immersive
Try something similar: The Blazing Sea by Tim Hodkinson

About the Author

Matthew Harffy grew up in Northumberland where the rugged terrain, ruined castles and rocky coastline had a huge impact on him. He now lives in Wiltshire, England with his wife and their two daughters. Matthew is the author of the critically acclaimed Bernicia Chronicles and A Time for Swords series, and he also co-hosts the popular podcast Rock, Paper, Swords!

Connect with Matthew
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A Time For Swords

#WWWWednesday – 8th October 2025

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Hosted by Taking on a World of Words, this meme is all about the three Ws:

  • What are you currently reading?
  • What did you recently finish reading?
  • What do you think you’ll read next?

Why not join in too?  Leave a comment with your link at Taking on a World of Words and then go blog hopping!

What I’m Currently Reading

I’m reading Our London Lives from my NetGalley shelf, a review copy of Andropov’s Cuckoo and I’m listening to the audiobook of Transcription.

Our London Lives by Christine Dwyer Hickey (Atlantic via NetGalley)

1979. In the vast and often unforgiving city of London, two Irish outsiders seeking refuge find one another: Milly, a teenage runaway, and Pip, a young boxer full of anger and potential who is beginning to drink it all away.

Over the decades their lives follow different paths, interweaving from time to time, often in one another’s sight, always on one another’s mind, yet rarely together.

Forty years on, Milly is clinging onto the only home she’s ever really known while Pip, haunted by T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, traipses the streets of London and wrestles with the life of the recovering alcoholic. And between them, perhaps uncrossable, lies the unspoken span of their lives.

Andropov’s Cuckoo by Owen Jones

Two girls, born thousands of miles apart in Kazakhstan and Japan just after World War II, meet and are like peas in a pod. They also get on like sisters and keep in touch for the rest of their lives.

However, one wants to help her battle-scarred country and the other wants to leave hers for the West. They dream up a daring, dangerous plan to achieve both goals, which Andropov, the chief of the Soviet KGB, is told about. He dubs it Operation Youriko and it is set in motion, but does it have even the remotest chance of success?

Transcription by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday)

In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathisers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past for ever.

Ten years later, now a producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat. A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realize that there is no action without consequence.

What I’ve Just Read

Dominion of Dust (A Time For Swords #4) by Matthew Harffy (Head of Zeus)

AD 797, Cyprus. Warrior-monk Hunlaf and his crew are on a voyage to acquire an important Christian relic before it falls into the hands of Byzantium’s scheming Empress Eirene.

Hunlaf’s crew receive unexpected help as they seek their treasure, but soon find themselves betrayed. About to leave for home empty-handed, the adventurers instead sail further east: to Jerusalem, the Holy Land, abundant in relics. And dangerous intrigues.

Hunlaf and his friends will face a deadly race against time as they attempt to secure a holy treasure, outwit Byzantium’s zealous agents, and avoid grisly deaths at the hands of the local rulers. (Review to follow)

Tombland by C. J. Sansom (Mantle)

Spring, 1549. Two years after the death of Henry VIII, England is sliding into chaos.

The nominal king, Edward VI, is 11 years old. His uncle, Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford, rules as Edward’s regent and Protector. In the kingdom, radical Protestants are driving the old religion into extinction, while the Protector’s prolonged war with Scotland has led to hyperinflation and economic collapse. Rebellion is stirring among the peasantry.

Matthew Shardlake has been working as a lawyer in the service of Henry’s younger daughter, the lady Elizabeth. The gruesome murder of one of Elizabeth’s distant relations, rumored to be politically murdered, draws Shardlake and his companion Nicholas to the lady’s summer estate, where a second murder is committed.

As the kingdom explodes into rebellion, Nicholas is imprisoned for his loyalty, and Shardlake must decide where his loyalties lie – with his kingdom, or with his lady? (Review to follow)

What I’ll Be Reading Next

The Secretary by Deborah Lawrenson (The Book Guild)

Moscow, 1958. At the height of the Cold War, secretary Lois Vale is on a deep-cover MI6 mission to identify a diplomatic traitor. She can trust only one man: Johann, a German journalist also working covertly for the British secret service.

As the trail leads to Vienna and the Black Sea, Lois and Johann begin an affair but as love grows, so does the danger to Lois.