Bartending at a dive, she’s still entirely too close to the corrupt underbelly of the Berkshires.

Now, she’s trying to distance herself from past mistakes, but going straight isn’t easy. And to rob their fellow magicians, they need Charlie. Gloamists guard their secrets greedily, creating an underground economy of grimoires. 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. Holly Black makes her stunning adult debut with Book of Night, a modern dark fantasy of shadowy thieves and secret societies.Ĭharlie Hall has never found a lock she couldn’t pick, a book she couldn’t steal, or a bad decision she wouldn’t make. Yet, I struggled my way through the narrative, confused by the magical world and bored by the lifeless storytelling that plagued the entire novel, but especially the first half. Although technically an adult fantasy book, Book of Night reads just like a young adult fantasy, with protagonists perfectly posed to develop their own fandom. When a figure from her past returns, Charlie is dragged back into the magical underground market for magic texts in this new modern dark fantasy series.īook of Night debuts a gritty version of Western Massachusetts, with complicated shadow magic that was often difficult to follow. Living on the margins of society, Charlie Hall is a bartender trying to escape her former life as a con artist, a past she desperately wants to hide from her boyfriend, Vince. For a cost, shadows can be altered for beauty or power, but the secrets of magic are closely guarded. Holly Black debuted her first adult fantasy book about a world of shadow magic. Audiobook Length: 12 hours and 30 minutes

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