Fantasy published by Tor Books 3 May 22
I wanted to love this book. Having recently fallen in love with Ms. Black’s The Folk of the Air series, I assumed I was going to enjoy this immediately.
It pains me to say I did not. It is very slowly paced, incredibly confusing, and none of the characters resonated with me in the slightest. The shadow magic has so much potential, but the explanations are lacking and timed weird. Charlie has very little in the way of personality and isn’t a very likable MC. Vince is so boring and JUST when he starts to get interesting, he disappears for the majority of the book.
This is short, barely 300 pages. Yet it feels much longer and not in a good way.
I always tell people when I don’t like a book to not take my opinion too seriously. I’m a strong supporter of not letting other people’s views influence yours and making your own judgements. Especially when it’s a book you were excited for. This wasn’t for me, but you may still totally love it. If you enjoyed this, I’d love to hear your thoughts and what resonated with you.
Grade: D-
Summary:
Charlie Hall has never found a lock she couldn’t pick, a book she couldn’t steal, or a bad decision she wouldn’t make.
She’s spent half her life working for gloamists, magicians who manipulate shadows to peer into locked rooms, strangle people in their beds, or worse. Gloamists guard their secrets greedily, creating an underground economy of grimoires. And to rob their fellow magicians, they need Charlie Hall.
Now, she’s trying to distance herself from past mistakes, but getting out isn’t easy. Bartending at a dive, she’s still entirely too close to the corrupt underbelly of the Berkshires. Not to mention that her sister Posey is desperate for magic, and that Charlie’s shadowless, and possibly soulless, boyfriend has been hiding things from her. When a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie descends into a maelstrom of murder and lies.
Determined to survive, she’s up against a cast of doppelgangers, mercurial billionaires, gloamists, and the people she loves best in the world—all trying to steal a secret that will give them vast and terrible power.
No excerpt available.
