Nevernight – The Nevernight Chronicle #1 – Jay Kristoff

In a land where three suns almost never set, a fledgling killer joins a school of assassins, seeking vengeance against the powers who destroyed her family.

Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father’s failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.

Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.

Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?

Review

If you are in any way involved in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi community on social media, Jay Kristoff’s name is one that will have popped up several times. He first caught my eye with his Lotus War trilogy, though I never got around to reading it. His Illuminae Files were an absolute hit and the Nevernight Chronicle, with its beautifully detailed covers could be seen everywhere on Instagram and Twitter. I finally succumbed and picked up Nevernight to see for myself what all the fuss was about. After hours of breathless reading I turned the last page and finally counted myself as another admirer. 

Mia Corvere is the daughter of a prominent family in Godsgrave. As a little girl her father got caught as one of the conspirators of a rebellion, trying to overthrow the men in power to put a King on the throne again. Her father is executed and her mother and baby brother taken captive. Mia is supposed to be silently executed as well, but with a little help from the shadows, she escapes. In Mia’s world, three suns adorn the sky and it only rarely ever really gets dark: the True Dark. Most ‘nights’ are called the Nevernight. Mia has a companion called Mr. Kindly. He is a cat, but not just any cat. He is made entirely out of shadows and consumes fear. The reason Mia has Mr. Kindly as a companion and the reason she can manipulate the shadows and the dark, is because she is Darkin. There are not a lot of people like Mia, she herself has never even met another Darkin. 

Mia grows up under the tutelage of Mercurio, an old man who was trained in the Church of the Black Mother to be an assassin. It is Mia’s dream to find the Church, get trained as an assassin and become a full Blade so she can take revenge on the men who killed her father and tore her family apart. 

Though for the most part Nevernight reads as a Fantasy assassin book that is borderline Young Adult, it suddenly takes a turn for the lustful and erotic. Kristoff doesn’t shy away from some detailed descriptions of Mia’s sexual escapades. Although unexpected, it brought a whole new flavour to the book. A bit more tense, a bit more adult and risky. Throughout the book I developed a massive girl crush on Mia and I can now count her among some of my favourite female characters, right next to Nona Grey from the Book of the Ancestor series by Mark Lawrence. I think those two would get along!

As might have been hinted at by my mention of the Book of the Ancestor series, I absolutely love the Assassin School type of stories. They usually combine the grittier kind of tale with some of my great childhood favourites like Harry Potter. Another aspect I liked in Nevernight was the Song-of-Ice-and-Fire-esque type “nobody-is-safe” feeling. Kristoff definitely doesn’t hold back and is not afraid to brutally end characters’ lives. This adds tension to the reading experience because you never know what might be lurking around the next corner, or in the shadows. 

I thoroughly enjoyed Nevernight. It has the right balance of adventure, tension, twists and exhilarating fights to keep you flipping the pages. Nevernight is only the start of a trilogy that has now been completed with Godsgrave and Darkdawn. I’m curious to read what these books bring next for Mia and if she will get her revenge in the end. 

Release Date: August 11th, 2016
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Age Group: (Young) Adult
Pages: 448
Format: Kindle edition
Source: Bought