Book of Night
Holly Black
Holly Black’s adult debut is a carefully plotted first-in-a-duology heist mystery following the recovering con artist Charlie Hall as she faces old enemies and delves into a world of magic, secrets, and living shadows. Despite its humble length of 304 pages, this book does not tolerate speed reading or lazy reading, I often found myself going back to reread passages because stuff. happens. fast.
And the kind of stuff Black has Charlie puzzling out requires just as much of the reader’s attention as it does Charlie’s.
Life has not been kind or easy to Charlie Hall, and while that makes it easy for her to have a chip on her shoulder she has done the harder things and remained kind and (somewhat) easy going to the people who matter to her. The list of who matters to her is decidedly short though, and Charlie’s self effacing opinions about her love life, magic, and being innately talented at the art of deception and thievery make her well-rounded and likable in a prickly way.
In Charlie Hall’s world, shadows can be altered, for entertainment and cosmetic preferences—but also to increase power and influence. You can alter someone’s feelings—and memories—but manipulating shadows has a cost, with the potential to take hours or days from your life. Your shadow holds all the parts of you that you want to keep hidden—a second self, standing just to your left, walking behind you into lit rooms. And sometimes, it has a life of its own.
Goodreads blurb
Charlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires. But when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie’s present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear—and at worst, non-existent. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgängers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister—all desperate to control the magic of the shadows.
In some ways, it’s a bit of a surprise that Holly Black, of all authors, has only just put out her adult debut. She is the bedrock for a lot of the contemporary urban fantasy genre — think Leigh Bardugo, Cassandra Clare, Sarah J Maas — all of that ran because Holly Black’s work walked. That isn’t to say there weren’t authors who did it before her, but she put the line first in the sand.
So what makes an “aged up” Holly Black different? Truly, not much. Charlie being in her late-twenties shifts the demographic bar, but as for content? There’s much hotter and heavier stuff in her teen work The Cruel Prince than in here. Maybe the gore factor? While not on par with Bardugo’s Ninth House (also, subsequently *her* adult debut), Black keeps herself firmly in the mystery side of things rather than the horror. But she’s not about to hide the gruesome details if there happens to be a murder. Or two… or three…
If you tried Ninth House and found it to be “too much” — Book of Night will likely feel just right to you in terms of leaning in to body horror. There are gruesome scenes described, but not gruesome acts, and that’s a big difference.
Often in traditional mystery, those “a-ha!” moments catapult the plot and pace forward, yet somehow they failed to do so in Book of Night. Other reveal moments I had suspected, though not outright predicted, a ways back in the book. Black does an excellent job of lending plausibility to a multitude of working theories Charlie has about her circumstances, enough to lead me somewhat off the scent, especially because there is magic at play.
While I didn’t fully grasp how the shadow magic works in this book, I know and trust Holly Black to have it figured out on my behalf, especially as so much of the plot revolves around it. I had just enough information to belay frustration and hope to have a better understanding granted in the next book.
I will not get in to spoilers, as is my usual stance here. The next book has been set up well, and I’m intrigued to see where the plot will go as well. Black hasn’t dug herself in too far to limit where she can take things, and has established a very thorough premise and fulfilling story in this first book.
Overall, if you’re looking for a solid urban fantasy mystery, Book of Night will satisfy the itch. I enjoyed reading it despite how long it took me. The audience for it is likely aware this book exists, and so it probably doesn’t need as much outreach and marketing as someone breaking in to the scene, but a little book review can’t hurt. Due to the intended audience and appeal levels, I think this squarely hits the mark as an adult book, but I don’t see anything within that hasn’t been included in YA novels so it is a good segue book as well into the adult genre.
The Little Book Witch 