[Diane’s Review]: Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft

Wren Southerland’s reckless use of magic has cost her everything: she’s been dismissed from the Queen’s Guard and separated from her best friend—the girl she loves. So when a letter arrives from a reclusive lord, asking Wren to come to his estate, Colwick Hall, to cure his servant from a mysterious illness, she seizes her chance to redeem herself.

The mansion is crumbling, icy winds haunt the caved-in halls, and her eccentric host forbids her from leaving her room after dark. Worse, Wren’s patient isn’t a servant at all but Hal Cavendish, the infamous Reaper of Vesria and her kingdom’s sworn enemy. Hal also came to Colwick Hall for redemption, but the secrets in the estate may lead to both of their deaths.

With sinister forces at work, Wren and Hal realize they’ll have to join together if they have any hope of saving their kingdoms. But as Wren circles closer to the nefarious truth behind Hal’s illness, they realize they have no escape from the monsters within the mansion. All they have is each other, and a startling desire that could be their downfall.

Allison Saft’s Down Comes the Night is a snow-drenched romantic fantasy that keeps you racing through the pages long into the night.

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

While my expectations were high going into this book, I was rather disappointed.

I found a lot of myself in Wren, especially when it came to the empathy of others, but there was something about her character that lacked a compelling need to care about her outcome.

Also, a lot of medical terminology is used, so if you aren’t aware of certain terms you may need to look them up. As someone with a background in the medical field this wasn’t a problem for me, but I can see it posing some inconveniences for others.

The first half of the book was quite slow and I felt none of the characters were all that interesting, but I kept reading in hopes of it perking up. But once we were introduced to Alistair Lowry things got interesting. He was an eccentric character, flamboyant and fun, yet reserved and mysterious. He really was the character that made this book come alive!

The last quarter of the book is really where all of the action happens and things start to piece together. The stakes are raised and the ending takes a turn I didn’t quite expect.

Overall the prose of this book was beautiful and full of imagery, I just wish there was more drive with the characters and plot in the beginning. I will likely read the next book Allison Saft releases to see how she grows as a writer.

Diane

Hi there!

I’m Diane, I suffer from wanderlust and am from Toronto, Ontario.

Since I was a wee bairn I was obsessed with reading and the fantastical worlds books would sweep my away in. Flash forward 28 years, I can now be seen running through the trees in hopes of being carried to a world far far away, but mostly just tripping over tree roots.

When I’m not reading or watching What We Do In The Shadows on repeat, I can be found tracing my lineage to the ancient Vikings and Scots. Oh! And making organic dog treats for my high-maintenance pets.