Reviews with content warning for Blood - Down Comes the Night

Who cares? like literally there is not enough world building or character development for me to give a crap about this story. All the secondary characters are barely mentioned let alone given any actual substance. The MC Wren is bi, ok, but we don't get enough detail of her prior relationship with Una (sp? idk audiobook) for it to actually mean much? I guess in the end it's more like enemies to lovers/close proximity once she arrives at the estate to take care of Hal. I wasn't even really into their romance either. The main mystery is like 'solved' almost too early, and then the end of the story drags on. It's just a lot of like gore and medical horror strung together into kind of a fantasy (really more court politics) lackluster romance.

The ending is super unbelievable, like all of a sudden at the last second Wren is able to convince the Queen to just stop siding with Lowry?? just like that? even though she tried before...

2.5/5 🌶️

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limabeans's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious 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 really liked this book. I will admit it was advertised as a fantasy romance but the romance kind of happened out of nowhere and didn’t take affect really until the end. Which is fine, just the cover and quotes presented are misleading.

Thinking back there were some flaws of the story, but it was well written with enjoyable characters. The story itself was so tense and interesting. I wish the whole ‘murder mystery’ concept with Lowry didn’t exist though; it felt like it threw the main plot idea (of Hal and Wren trying to stop the war) off.

The ending was sooo interesting but I don’t like the idea of Una AND Isabel being forgiven by Wren. Una did mess up her relationship with Wren greatly, but her motive was understandable, so maybe I wish Isabel wasn’t just ‘redeemed’ all of a sudden at the end of the book; after putting Wren through everything she did I didn’t like that the author gave a ‘pass’ to her.

- Wren was a pretty good mc. Not the best but she felt more relatable and realistic. Really liked following her journey.

- Hal was a good love interest too, but I wish the author went more in depth with him

- Una was the most well written character in the story. (Well maybe minus Lowry). All though she made me frustrated, that was the author’s intention which definitely worked.

One thing I want to add is that this felt like 2 stories combined; this is Alison Saft’s first work though and maybe I just expected a little more after reading her latest work, ‘A Far Wilder Magic’

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karelidz's review against another edition

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mysterious medium-paced

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

4.5

4.8⭐ just because i found the MC's best friend very annoying, but other than that, i absolutely LOVED IT. It had everything i was in the mood for: mystery with some romance and a bit of fantasy sprinkled in there.
I don't usually reread a lot of books, but I'd definitely reread this one. 100 percent.

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lyserature's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful mysterious medium-paced

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

3.5

[EDIT] : I think about the vibes of this book a lot,,

It was fine. I have to say though it felt unedited enough like there was more stuff to be done before publishing. It was entertaining but I also wanted to just be done with it.

It was hard to buy into Hal and Wren's relationship at first...

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