A Shadow off the Wall
Novel review: "Book of Night" by Holly Black
Holly Black’s adult fiction debut is engrossing, surprising, and dark. Pun intended. Book of Night introduces readers to the world of shadow magic, where society has split into people with normal shadows, people with magic shadows, and people without shadows at all.
The story kicks off with Charlie Hall, a reformed reforming con artist and infamous thief called the Charlatan. She’s enjoying her boring life of bartending, living with her quiet boyfriend Vince and wanna-be-magician/sister Posey.
Within the last 30 years, a new form of magic user has risen to prominence: shadow magicians or “gloamists.” For no clear reason, some people’s shadows can “quicken,” meaning they become controllable by their owners. By giving a quickened shadow a consistent supply of blood, gloamists can use their shadows for almost anything. And given too much blood, shadows become independent lifeforms called Blights.
And if your shadow doesn’t quicken on its own, you can always take someone else’s. If you can afford it.
Charlie’s attempt at a normal life quickly goes haywire, in spite of her new philosophy: “keeping busy mean[s] keeping out of trouble.” A not-so-friendly favor leads Charlie down a rabbit hole of gloamist power, mysteries, and secrets.
The search for a missing, troublesome boyfriend puts Charlie on the trail of an infamous tome, the Liber Noctem — Book of Night. As Charlie unravels the threads leading to the Book, she finds herself on a crash course with the man who changed her life for the worse: Lionel Salt.
Salt is a wealthy gloamist, whose grandson could be the most powerful shadow magician of the century. Except his grandson is dead.
Right?
Sure.
Charlie must fight to hold her tattered life together, keep her family safe, and prevent shadow magic’s greatest secret from falling to its greatest villain.
Book of Night is a wild ride. You’ll never know whom to trust until you turn the last page. And then you’ll wonder if you were wrong.
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