Synopsis
In a land where three suns almost never set, a fledgling killer joins a school of assassins, seeking vengeance against the powers who destroyed her family.
Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father’s failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.
Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.
Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?
Review
I recently read a 600+ fantasy novel which, through tons of exposition and slow burn, tried to deliver a world filled with action and magic. It somehow succeeded in maintaining some of my interest until the end, where the author, fully knowing he’d have to split the story in two books, left the conclusion of the first one with an episodic cliffhanger. The worst you can do as an author is to leave your readers with unresolved plot points nor providing a climax on the first book.
Nevernight by Jay Kristoff is none of that. The novel raised the bar at every level and delivered a truly amazing reading experience.
Opposite to the aforementioned book, and without spilling the beans of the story so you enjoy it as much as I did; Nevernight is, in my opinion, a perfect combination of delightful prose, well-crafted pace and three-dimensional characters you care for page one until the end. It introduces us to Mia, the daughter of a slaughtered family, who goes to an assassin’s school to avenge her family. Her journey at the Red Church is, needless to say, filled with conflict, twists and turns, parsed with surprises along the way. Think Hogwarts pushed to extremes with a completely different objective (train assassins VS. wizards).
My first introduction to Jay Kristoff was with Empire of the Vampire two years ago. And now that I have read Nevernight, he’s officially become one of my favorite authors and those two books are amongst my top 10 of all time. I have an upcoming ARC from the author, Empire of the Damned, and am more than excited to get started on it. So, Nevernight, the first book in the Nevernight Chronicle is getting me truly enthusiastic about reading the next two tomes, especially after this perfect first foray into the story.
If you enjoy a steampunk dark fantasy story, filled with amazing characters, tons of suspense and action, written by a master of poetic prose, Nevernight will never cease to amaze and deliver on all the points of the genres. I strongly recommend this book and the series, or, in my opinion, anything written by Jay Kristoff at this point if you enjoy this category.
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