Holly Black is the #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of speculative and fantasy novels, short stories, and comics. She has sold more than twenty-six million books worldwide and her work has been translated into more than thirty languages and adapted for film. She currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret library. Book of Night is her adult fiction debut. You can read more about her on BlackHolly.com. You can find more of my reviews of Holly's works here.
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, strange 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 bartending at a local 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, Vince, 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 doppelgängers, mercurial billionaires, gloamists, and the people she loves best in the world—all trying to steal a secret that will give them a vast and terrible power.
I really loved Leigh Bardugo's Ninth House, and when I saw that she blurbed Holly Black's debut fantasy, I just knew I had to pick it up. There are a few similarities between these two novels—especially having a plucky female main character making horrible, horrible decisions. Charlie ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and her infamous curiosity spins her closer and closer to uncovering the entire web of deceit at the center of a whole magical world. The novel itself is cleverly crafted—I could never write a mystery novel in a fantasy novel, and Black pulls it off seemingly effortlessly. I don't read a whole lot of adult fantasy, but from what I've seen of Ninth House and Book of Night, maybe I should, because both are clever, brilliant, and gritty in a haunted, magical way.
And speaking of magic, what I love about Book of Night is the lore. Firstly, the entire presentation of the novel itself is gorgeous—a book cover that looks like it's a secret book, the stamped cover, the tall and thin size of it. Secondly, how it lives up to that physical presentation. The novel itself is about finding a secret book, and the magic world hangs in the balance of that discovery. Thirdly, the magic system feels comprehensive, even if I myself don't know all the details of the magical world. As a reader, I had all the information needed in order to understand the plot, and in order to see how things twisted out of control the way they did. But that feeling of the magical system extending further than my reach is what tells me that the magic system is more advanced than I'll ever know. This provides a lot of potential for future books, or at least for the knowledge that the characters will be okay after the last page.
The story is told in a fascinating way—we alternate between Charlie's present and Charlie's past. In the past, we learn everything you'd expect: how Charlie came to enter this strange world, how her relationships with her sister and mom became strained, how she was given the necessary tools to survive in a magic world without magic. And in the present, we stay closely tied to the mystery at the heart of the novel, and learn about what's at stake for Charlie. This allows for readers to slow down from the main plot of the novel to learn about the world and Charlie as a character. So, when the mystery ramps up and there's more threads being unraveled before our eyes, we aren't being slowed down by ignorance—Black already did the world building groundwork by alternating between the present and the past until they catch up with one another.
What I also thought was worth noting was the sort of love story that also spins near the center. Charlie and Vince have this very unlikely companionship and romance, as described by Charlie herself. She doesn't feel like she deserves him, she isn't sure why he stuck around and how they stuck together. And, like it is with most romances, she doesn't realize just how much she loved him until he's gone. The twists and turns these two characters take in order to end up back together are jaw-dropping, certainly, but what was most compelling to me was the steadiness of it all. We believe that they are perfect for one another because Charlie fights tooth and nail for him, and we believe that they should end up together because of how fiercely they behave in order to make that a reality, and yet that never outshines the original plot of unraveling the mystery and exploring the fantasy. Which, I thought was incredibly well done, and made for a really compelling narrative overall.
This book has a rather open ending, making me enthusiastic for a second book (I'm not the only one who seems to hope so as well)! Until then, you can read more about Holly on BlackHolly.com. You can find more of my reviews of Holly's works here.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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