This was an audiobook for me and I think that was a key to liking this.  The language is very flowery and having a British narrator really let me get into the story.  But I don't think I would have been able to get through the book if I had read it because it wouldn't have hit the same.  It really lags in the middle and then the end is very rushed.  It's like the author forgot they set up at the very beginning this theme of him being evil and had to put something in there at the end to wrap it up. 

And I can only assume the author was bored with their own story because a random orgy is thrown in and some incest for absolutely no reason whatsoever.