Not bad. Better than most D&D books I’ve read (although it’s been a long time…). I’m not overly familiar with the Ravenloft world, nor with other books in this series (I see the book sometimes listed as 11th in the Ravenloft series, but I’m not sure how much of a tie there is between books), so some things were confusing for me. I enjoyed the exploration of everyone’s attitude toward Elaine and her burgeoning powers, but found that the book was rushed on the whole. I’d’ve preferred to see the events played out over more than a few days, and in more than 300 pages. I do find myself left curious about why some of Elaine’s works turned out as they did though… enough so that if I were pointed at an obvious sequel for the book, I might pick it up.

About the book:
Death of a Darklord focuses on a young woman who finds that she has a talent for magic in a land and a family unforgiving of such abilities, and her tragic attempts to redeem herself in the eyes of her family by aiding them on their quest to end the dark magic that has destroyed a neighboring town.

It took me some time to get into the story, but then I was sucked in. It was a different style than what I’m used to from LKH, but if we assume she wrote this book before Anita Blake, she most likely developed her idea of Zombies and Anitas’ animation skills in this book… :-)
I agree that the ending was a bit rushed, but I did like it in a way. It reminded me of a B-Movie Horror flick.
I would have liked to learn more about the land itself. And why Elaines’ gift worked out the way it did.