Rating
Details
AUTHOR: Lyndall Clipstone
GENRE: Fantasy
AGE: Young Adult
BLURB:
Everline Blackthorn has devoted her life to the wardens—a sect of holy warriors who guard against monsters known as the vespertine.
When a series of strange omens occur, Everline disobeys orders to investigate, and uncovers a startling truth in the form of Ravel Severin: a rogue vespertine who reveals the monsters have secrets of their own.
Ravel promises the help she needs— for a price. Vespertine magic requires blood, and if Everline wants Ravel to guide across the dangerous moorland, she will have to allow him to feed from her.
It’s a sin for a warden to feed a vespertine— let alone love one— and as Everline and Ravel travel further across the moorland, she realizes the question isn’t whether she will survive the journey, but if she will return unchanged. Or if she wants to.
Review
Thank you to PRH and NetGalley for an e-arc of this book.
Not only is the cover amazing, the story is just as amazing.
I am absolutely blown away by this book. This is everything in a YA dark fantasy I could want and then some. It’s vampires…but not. It’s delicious, dark and exciting. This book is beyond addictive. I didn’t want to stop reading it. It definitely verges on being more towards the upper YA/NA side, but it isn’t terribly explicit.
It also has tropes I love
⭐ enemies to lovers
⭐ “vampires”
⭐ sisterly relationships
⭐ very gothic/dark fantasy
Everline, I really liked her, I mean, I knew in a way what was going to happen, but I still very much enjoyed reading her story. I was spellbound by her. I would definitely love to see more of her, because I feel like she did have a very powerful type of self discovery journey, and that this book was very prominent on healing, learning to love oneself etc, and I thought it was well done.
Another thing I liked was Everyline’s and Ravel’s relationship. There was a lot of fraught tension between them, and it was a slow burn (for a standalone at least) which is one of my favorite things to read. Loved every minute of it.
I also like how family came into play in this book, again, I thought it was woven well within the plot, and didn’t feel awkward. The pacing too, really worked for me. I didn’t get bored, and I didn’t feel like it was going too fast.
There was lovely prose and imagery in this book, I was addicted to it, I felt like I could feel and taste this world…
I cannot say anymore without spoiling the book, but it was so very good. I already want to reread it.
This book is definitely going to be one of my top books of 2023.
