A man wakes up with no memories and is horrified to find himself in a room that clearly belongs to a dark wizard given its decor. He's even more horrified to discover that he himself is the dark wizard who styles himself Dread Lord Gavrax. He's a middle aged mediocre dark wizard living in a tiny castle above a pathetic village served by goblins and a creepy majordomo who mostly talks about torturing people. Gav even has a princess locked away in the dungeon. Unfortunately, he can't just free the princess and sneak away to live anonymously because it seems she's a component in a ritual that he agreed to participate in with three other, far more impressive, dark wizards. If he fails to show up with the princess they will obviously hunt him down and kill him slowly, but the more he learns about this ritual the more wary he is about participating, let alone sacrificing an innocent woman.

The story gently mocks every trope it can. The beautiful princess isn't. The torture loving majordomo doesn't. The fearful villagers, okay, they actually fear him, but they don't bother moving away because he's rather tame as Dread Lords go. Heroes and adventurers abound and are apparently better acquainted with the secret tunnels than the castle's inhabitants. In general, this is a book about how people present themselves to meet the expectations of others. Gav's castle is lit by smoky torches, even though he could easily conjure everburning lights, because it adds to the expected atmosphere. There's also a slightly heavy handed theme about atonement and redemption. While it makes some good points on those subjects at times, it takes away from the farcical nature of the story.

I personally felt that the story line could have been a bit deeper, but it was a well written easy read with some good laughs. It's a New York Times Bestseller and the audiobook version is narrated by Keval Shah, who received over four stars on Audible for his performance.