Spoiler Warning!
Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft is a paranormal fantasy about Wren Southerland, a girl in limbo.
Saft begins to weave a tale around Wren as the orphan niece to a cold, unfeeling Queen who rules with an iron fist. The Queen despises Wren and wants nothing to do with her, so she sends her to an abbey to let Nuns raise her for most of her childhood. Wren has magical abilities and can heal people, which makes her useful to the cause of the great war that the Queen is preparing for, but unfortunately for Wren, her heart is too big, and she cares too much. This kindness is her greatest downfall and gets her in trouble too many times.
The Queen becomes angry with Wren's weakness for their enemies' pain and banishes her back to the Abbey, exiled away from her friends that she holds dear. While in exile, an unexpected opportunity represents itself. It allows Wren to prove herself to the Queen and hopefully avoid the war to destroy her kingdom and the people she loves. Wren jumps feet first into this new adventure and finds that she may have found sinister layers that she is only starting to uncover. Can she uncover the malevolent plot before her world crashes down around her?
Overall, I enjoyed this novel once we got into the gothic adventure portion of the story. It was eerie and kept me guessing throughout, wondering what would happen next. It had the creep effect with the sounds and darkness that made me feel on edge, wondering if it was a haunting or if someone was tortured nearby. I understood why Wren was having trouble sleeping. I don't know anyone who could get a good night's sleep with that going on around them. I also appreciated Wren's inner conflict with the person she was trying to heal since he was not the most pleasant patient, and they both had their reasons for disliking each other. There were many hurdles for Wren to overcome to do her job and function daily in the environment Wren was put in all so she could get back in the good graces of the Queen.
Now I must be frank about what bothered me about this story--this novel felt like two separate books were slammed together. They don't fit completely to be a cohesive and fluid story. The first part of this novel is a paranormal fantasy with war and magic, blood and fighting. Then suddenly, we move to a gothic horror novel located in a dark, gloomy mansion without action, blood, or conflict. The magic is still there since Wren uses the magic to help her heal the injured man, but she ends up uses actual medicine from plants to help more than her magic in the end. It just doesn't flow from one genre to the other well; it feels disjointed and messy. However, the gothic horror portion of the book deserves praise. It wasn't easy to put down.
Down Comes the Night turns into a delicious dark gothic horror that makes you wonder what it is that is making those sounds that go bump in the night.
Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft is a paranormal fantasy about Wren Southerland, a girl in limbo.
Saft begins to weave a tale around Wren as the orphan niece to a cold, unfeeling Queen who rules with an iron fist. The Queen despises Wren and wants nothing to do with her, so she sends her to an abbey to let Nuns raise her for most of her childhood. Wren has magical abilities and can heal people, which makes her useful to the cause of the great war that the Queen is preparing for, but unfortunately for Wren, her heart is too big, and she cares too much. This kindness is her greatest downfall and gets her in trouble too many times.
The Queen becomes angry with Wren's weakness for their enemies' pain and banishes her back to the Abbey, exiled away from her friends that she holds dear. While in exile, an unexpected opportunity represents itself. It allows Wren to prove herself to the Queen and hopefully avoid the war to destroy her kingdom and the people she loves. Wren jumps feet first into this new adventure and finds that she may have found sinister layers that she is only starting to uncover. Can she uncover the malevolent plot before her world crashes down around her?
Overall, I enjoyed this novel once we got into the gothic adventure portion of the story. It was eerie and kept me guessing throughout, wondering what would happen next. It had the creep effect with the sounds and darkness that made me feel on edge, wondering if it was a haunting or if someone was tortured nearby. I understood why Wren was having trouble sleeping. I don't know anyone who could get a good night's sleep with that going on around them. I also appreciated Wren's inner conflict with the person she was trying to heal since he was not the most pleasant patient, and they both had their reasons for disliking each other. There were many hurdles for Wren to overcome to do her job and function daily in the environment Wren was put in all so she could get back in the good graces of the Queen.
Now I must be frank about what bothered me about this story--this novel felt like two separate books were slammed together. They don't fit completely to be a cohesive and fluid story. The first part of this novel is a paranormal fantasy with war and magic, blood and fighting. Then suddenly, we move to a gothic horror novel located in a dark, gloomy mansion without action, blood, or conflict. The magic is still there since Wren uses the magic to help her heal the injured man, but she ends up uses actual medicine from plants to help more than her magic in the end. It just doesn't flow from one genre to the other well; it feels disjointed and messy. However, the gothic horror portion of the book deserves praise. It wasn't easy to put down.
Down Comes the Night turns into a delicious dark gothic horror that makes you wonder what it is that is making those sounds that go bump in the night.
