Book of Night

January 17, 2022
Bestselling YA author Black (The Cruel Prince) conjures a dark world filled with crime, betrayal, and power in her atmospheric adult fantasy debut. Shadows are a valuable commodity to be manipulated, altered, traded, and experimented on—and there are many dangerous players looking to harvest them. Growing up in this treacherous world, Charlie Hall learned the arts of conning and thievery from a young age, and there’s no denying her skill. At 28, however, Charlie’s determined to stay on the straight and narrow, using a bartending job to distract herself from the thrill of her old lifestyle. But when she reluctantly agrees to an odd job, a horrifying encounter reveals the return of a sinister individual from her past, plunging her into the dark underworld of shadow trading. Investigating its secrets leads her to discover a magic even darker than the shadows themselves. As the narrative shifts between past and present and the skeletons in Charlie’s closet come to light, she must reckon with her dysfunctional childhood—and with just how powerful shadows can be. The many mysteries keep the suspense sizzling as Charlie guides readers through this slippery world. Black’s adult fans and readers looking for dark urban fantasy will be thrilled.

September 1, 2022

Black's ("Spiderwick Chronicles") adult fantasy debut features a system of magic based on shadows--people can detach from their shadows, augment or embellish them, and, in some cases, train them to act separately from their person. People who can manipulate shadows are called gloamists, or "glooms." Charlie Hall is a bartender and a mostly reformed con artist and thief of magical artifacts, stealing objects from and then selling them to various gloamists. She lives in the Berkshires with her boyfriend, Vince, and younger sister Posey. Charlie is trying to stay under the radar and on the straight and narrow, but when she finds the body of a murdered man who may have stolen a rare book of magic from evil billionaire Lionel Salt, she gets pulled back into the--literally--shadowy underworld. Black's world building is strong, and while the central plotline wraps up at the end, she leaves room for future books set in the world of the gloamists. Sara Amini's narration is exceptional, providing unique voices for the broad range of characters. VERDICT Listeners who enjoy real-world fantasy such as Leigh Bardugo's The House of Night will delight in Black's latest.--Stephanie Klose

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