Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft

  

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Category: Young Adult
Genre: Gothic, Fantasy, Mystery, Romance
Content: Strong Language; A sex scene (I've waited so long to write my review that I can't remember how much detail there was, but I do feel like overall this book is for older teens); The main character, who is bisexual, spends the night with her female superior in the past but no details are given.

 

Wren Southerland is the most talented healer in the Queen’s Guard, but her reckless actions have repeatedly put her on thin ice with her superiors. So when a letter arrives from a reclusive lord, asking Wren to come to his estate to cure his servant from a mysterious disease, she seizes the chance to prove herself.

When she arrives at Colwick Hall, Wren realizes that nothing is what it seems. Particularly when she discovers her patient is actually Hal Cavendish, the sworn enemy of her kingdom.

As the snowy mountains make it impossible to leave the estate, Wren and Hal grow closer as they uncover a sinister plot that could destroy everything they hold dear. But choosing love could doom both their kingdoms. 

  

This book was very intriguing to me. I love fantasies, Gothics, mysteries, and romances and it had all those elements. It was a unique mix of the genres and overall I very much enjoyed it. I would have given it 4 stars but there are a few odd descriptions in the book that I thought were unfortunate. Since I read an ARC of this book I don't want to directly quote from it, as things could change, but the words used to describe a few things made me think of Christopher Paolini's weird word choices for descriptions in his books. My favorite, and the one I've referenced in more than one of my reviews is when he describes a strawberry as having a beard, so you kind of get the idea of what I'm talking about in this book. It only happens 3 or 4 times and mostly early on in the story, but it bothered me. That being said, I loved the creepy atmospheric vibes I got from this book. I also loved the enemy to friends romance that was included. The villain was pretty obvious, it was just a matter of figuring out all the pieces and how they fit together. I thought the reasons got to be a little over the top, but other than that, this was a very good read and I would try another book by this author.

 

Thank to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an ARC of this book.