Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - A Day of Fallen Night

my god i fell in love with this book and these people and this world. i never wanted it to end and i'm so sad it did. every single one (not an exaggeration!) of its characters had significant depth and nuance, and felt authentic in a way i wasn't necessarily expecting. i'm not going to be able to forget about any of them any time soon, and i wouldn't want to. it's also seeped in the lore and complex politics that i was craving after its predecessor.

i also loved priory––i think it was fantastic––but for me, there's been a marked improvement in samantha shannon's writing between the two. a day of fallen night gives itself time to breathe, has pitch-perfect pacing, and doesn't fall prey to the same "and then all this happened btw and now we're here" telling-not-showing issue that priory does.

this book made me feel a way i haven't felt in 20 years at least. i truly cannot wait to read all 868 pages again

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beautifulpaxielreads's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

A Day of Fallen Night is not just epic in length - a whopping 868 pages to be exact - but epic in just about every other way.

The worldbuilding is intricate down to the tiniest detail, and the care that Samantha Shannon took is evident on every single page. I can't imagine what the research process was like for this, but, as with The Priory of the Orange Tree, I can say that it must have been exhaustive (and no doubt exhausting too). I am in awe of the scale of it. Belief, politics, geography, history - it's all here and all believable.

I would have liked a fuller map of Hróth, though!

The plotting is also immaculate. The way Shannon has created her POV characters and how she has crafted every twist and turn of the plot to bring them together and apart is masterful. I will say that at times the characters felt more like pieces in the elaborate chess match that was Shannon's plot, rather than fully fleshed-out human beings.

And the dragons and other magical creatures determined to be dangerous? Let's just say I didn't find their evil natures entirely convincing, given that they seem evil just for the sake of it.

There are four characters - dubbed "storytellers" in Shannon's extensive notes and glossaries - whose points of view we see. Tunuva, a middle-aged sister at the Priory of the Orange Tree, Glorian, the adolescent heir to a fabled queendom, Wulf, a young man sworn to a Northern King, and Dumai, a twenty-seven-year-old apostle at an ancient mountain temple.

Of all of them, the ones I liked best were probably Tunuva, Glorian and Wulf. Dumai I couldn't really warm to, although she was very interesting as a character.

Speaking of characters, this novel has a huge cast - I appreciated the index at the back, which I found an excellent way of keeping track of the characters and their relationships with one another and their worlds. I did feel that some of the smaller characters got lost in the bigness of it all. Of the secondary characters, I probably appreciated Nikeya most. And Canthe (

who I suspected from the start as having a hidden agenda, it was almost too simple when her big reveal happened, thrilling as it was to read

).

Aside from feminine agency and power (similarly dominant in Priory), the themes of environmentalism, religion, and belief also come through very strongly. The overarching plot point of the novel is analogous to world events of the last few years (

the threat of climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic, most evidently

). Overall this was effective, although I do feel it was hammered home just a bit too much at times.

LGBTQIA+ representation is done well throughout. There are trans and non-binary folk in the large cast of characters, and a range of different sexualities among minor and major characters also. Within the world Shannon has created, this gender and sexual diversity is normalised, which is refreshing to read about. Although this is an imagined world in terms of ethnicity there is still a range of skin tones from white to dark-skinned, which I know many will appreciate.

Although it has its flaws, this was overall a satisfying and highly enjoyable read.

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justgothenough's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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beckyyreadss's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I wanted to read this book because I enjoyed The Priory of the Orange Tree. This book is slow-paced and action packed.

This book has several points of view. The first is Tunuva Melim. She is a sister of the Priory. For fifty years, she has trained to slay wyrms – but none have appeared since the Nameless One, and the younger generation is starting to question the Priory’s purpose. In the north, in the Queendom of Inys, Sabran the Ambitious has married the new King of Hroth which has narrowly saving both realms from ruin. Their daughter, Glorian, trails in their shadows – exactly where she wants to be. The dragon of the East have slept for centuries. Dumai has spent her life in a Seiikinese mountain temple, trying to wake the gods from their long slumber. Now someone from her mother’s past is coming to upend her fate. When the Dreadmount erupts, bringing with it an age of terror and violence, these women must find the strength to protect humankind from a devastating threat.

The way I rate fantasy books is how easy it is for me to get into the world and these characters. I know I had some advantage from reading The Priory of the Orange Tree and we knew the world, but obviously with it being a prequel, there was a lot of new characters and a lot of things to learn before the events of The Priory of the Orange Tree. I haven’t struggled with this series; it was sinking into a comfy chair by the fire and being able to just relax. I know a lot of people would struggle with the size of this book but with the number of chapters and the fact that the chapters are quite small, it works, if it was over 900 pages, I think it would have dragged a bit. I liked the multiple chapters and that they are very distinct between the four of them and then the several characters within that region. I also enjoyed the love story within this book, and I wanted more of that.

Again, like with the first book, the thing that stopped it being a five-star read was the big reveals and big twists were just slotted in and then brushed over. I was just waiting for the reaction to be like holy mother of Jesus and it just didn’t happen.

This was an enjoyable read, but I was expected to be more of a big drop with the twists and turns.

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melodyseestrees's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

It is very easy to lose the plot while listening since there is so much going on. But each narrator did a good job. I wasn't fond of how the last hour or so was just an interview. It was nice but it was also something I would've rather searched for.
I did adore how one of the characters was in their 30's. We need more 30-80 year old characters in fiction.

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