Reviews

Nightfall by M.A. Vice

tabatha_shipley's review

3.0

What I Didn’t Like:
-Some slow spots.
-Fight scenes didn’t have the intensity I was expecting.

What I Did Like:
-Characters. All the characters we loved in the first book are back and careful attention is paid to keep them true to their character even if they grew/changed. Some new characters even join the mix and they’re ones you’ll adore.
-Dark themes. I love a good dark fantasy book and this one definitely is that. War takes a toll on these characters in a realistic way.

Who Should Read This One:
-If you like dark epic fantasies with extensive world building and strong characters, you’ll love this series.

My Rating: 3 Stars. You have to like dark to like this one, but if you do you’ll LOVE it.

bookdrag0n's review

slow-paced

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

3.0

shcleveland's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional slow-paced

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

3.75

emreads2234's review

5.0

Birthright was a masterpiece, and Nightfall is a perfect successor. Once again, Vice has brought us into a fast paced, high stakes fantasy world full of characters that feel like family. The story is perfectly paced, flowing effortlessly between edge-of-your-seat action and soft moments of kindness, reflection, and love. The characters are so vibrant, you will celebrate their successes, cry with their losses, and feel as if you are fighting alongside them on every page. The ending is a perfect setup for book 3, and I will be eagerly awaiting its release.

mavaraei's review

dark medium-paced

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

5.0

 

A wonderfully written companion to Birthright, Nightfall is at once a worthy sequel, and a lovely deviation from its predecessor. Where Birthright builds to finding family in times of peace and general tranquility, the characters of Nightfall are holding on and clawing their way back to what they had in strife and hardship. And it’s the characters that truly stand out (again, as with Birthright as well), carrying and driving forward the story, while feeling distinctly real and human. Set a year after Birthright, all of the main characters are still struggling with grief, each in their own way, and each with their own coping mechanisms. Each and every depiction of grief in Nightfall felt raw, and real, and that sometimes feels rare to find in fiction. The characters don’t just move on and forget, and their experience of grief is non-linear, and not always logical. And, while hard to read at times, brought me great comfort in seeing a grief that looked and felt like grief that I have experienced represented in a book.

A rotating POV kept me on my toes and wanting more, making me read more chapters than I meant to in each sitting, wanting to see what came next for each set of characters. The pacing of each setting was distinct and purposeful: 

Albtraum’s struggle through the Dark World was paced just slow enough for the reader to feel his sense of creeping despair and fading hope, his grating and impossible hunger, and his seemingly impossible task, but not so slow that his POV ever felt like lagging.

  Mianna’s struggle with ruling, juggling politics, and trying to live with her grief felt at once overwhelming and like there was not enough to distract her. The time we spend with Ismaire feels at once wandering and pointed – doubled down on by Ismaire herself feeling like she doesn’t have a right to grief, yet feeling it anyway, and feeling like a disappointment but wanting to help anyway. 

While a deviation from the more tactful and diplomatic politics of Birthright, Nightfall has its own political intrigue all the same. With the addition of a new world and culture, the politics become even more intriguing and complicated. Albtraum has to balance his knowledge of diplomacy learned from Sylva’s way of ruling with the harsh nature and culture fostered by the Dark World. Add into that the betrayals and conspiracies that Mianna and those in Sylva have to face, we even get a taste of mystery with the ever unraveling layers of political deceit.

The action in Nightfall was paced just right for me, snappy and decisive where it needed to be, but not shying away from the pain and fragility that many real people would experience. There are no easy victories to be had, and no easy way out for any of the characters. The fights feel raw and real in a way that fantasy fights often don’t – 

Albtraum has a real fear for his life, and a desperate need to hang on to the chance he was given, and has to fight desperately for it, not always elegantly or fairly.

 

All in all Nightfall was an amazing read, answering just the right amount of questions I carried over from Birthright, and leaving me with even more questions I can’t wait to be answered in the next book. I am eagerly waiting to find out what comes next for these characters that I have come to love even more.