Reviews with content warning for Child death - One Dark Window

Reviews tagging 'Child death'

One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig

43 reviews

mtorma13's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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not_another_ana's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense 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

3.25

"The girl, the King..." I breathed. The Nightmare's voice burned through my mind. And the monster they became.

The city of Blunder is cursed. Not only is it surrounded by a mist that drives people mad, but its inhabitants also have to contend with "the fever", an ailment that either kills the child that contracts it or bestows upon them magic. However, all magic has a price, and anyone who survives this is bound to "degenerate" in violent or fatal ways. For this reason, all magic is forbidden, except for the use of these magic cards (in possession of the nobles) that keep the user safe from degeneration, and any survivor of the fever must be executed.

Elspeth Spindle survived this illness and managed to hide this fact from the public. She now lives a mostly normal life and is seemingly powerless, except for the Nightmare, a shadowy monster that lives in her head and lends her his strength in times of need. One day she runs into the king's nephew and, when her secret partially gets out, is dragged into a mission that could potentially cure her as long as she manages to collect all the magic cards before the solstice. But magic always comes with a price and the degeneration might find her first.

Is this book good? Debatable. Did it keep me reading? Yes, I will give it that. The action in this is very compelling and something is always happening, forcing the reader to keep turning the pages. At the same time it's a plot that is both contained and empty. If I had to describe this book in one word, I would say it's serviceable, it knows exactly what it is and executes it in a sufficient way. The plot is a vehicle for the romance so a lot of world building and interesting ideas get sidelined in favor of the relationship between Elspeth and Ravyn. This brings me to my first point: everyone's names were soooo bad, I wrote "unmoanable" in my notes. Is this a petty grievance? Yes, but it did bother me.

Now to my biggest gripe: the world building. As I mentioned before, the author didn't put any care into weaving the setting of this book. I have no idea what Blunder looked like or its geography, somehow they were able to quickly travel from the King's castle to any other place on the map by riding a horse really fast. It seems like the setting is vaguely medieval, at least culturally, yet Elspeth (the oldest daughter of a noble) walks alone in the middle of the night, stays at her suitor's estate without any sort of maid or chaperone, and spends time alone with men who aren't related to her, with no damage to her honor. We see almost nothing of the average citizen's experience, it's all from the noble's point of view, and this makes the environment feel fake like a Hollywood set. I also find it odd that in a place with magic and superstition there doesn't seem to be any kind of organized religion around either the providence cards or the spirit of the woods.

The romance was fine, a bit instalove-y but not the worst thing I've come across. Ravyn is a bit of a generic dark haired love interest, but I did like their interactions and at least they had something in common.

Ngl I kinda thought the Nightmare and Elspeth had chemistry LMAO. I blame reading too many Venom fics for this ok, but I genuinely thought they had something going on and then Ravyn turned up and I was like ah. Curse my active imagination!

The other characters were there, the only one I felt got a bit more depth was Elm and it still was quite superficial.

Was the prose flat? Yes. Did the rhymes suck? Absolutely. Is the author quite heavy handed with what she's trying to say? Correct. And yet I read this whole thing in like a week, and I just started reading book two, so she won and I'm a fool.

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amy14's review

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adventurous fast-paced

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

4.0

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alba_1994's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

2.5

This had a great premise. I just felt the character design was very shallow which resulted in inconsistent actions and undeep relationships.

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notbambi's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

I liked a lot about this book - the atmosphere, the creepy nursery rhymes, the relationship between Elspeth and Nightmare, the magic system. It started slow, but after a few chapters, I was hooked. It wasn't quite a five star for me, in part because the plot and worldbuilding lacked depth and the romance didn't come together in a satisfying way for me.

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abbyweber's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

This was a great start to the duology. The world building was clear and the characters so well developed. I’m just glad I don’t have to wait for the second book to come out because that was quite the cliffhanger! I can tell the author took the time to develop this story. The care and attention she gave to the characters and their roles to the story is evident and I really appreciate that. This, my friends, is how you write a gothic fantasy romance.

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amanda_reads13's review against another edition

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fast-paced

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

4.0

After surviving the fever as a child, the magic she developed has lead to her living with a 500 year old monster, Nightmare, in her head. Something she has had to hide for the last 11 years as her magic is illegal magic. The fever has been a blight over Blunder and is only getting worse. Now she must work to help collect the Providence cards... The key to the cure.

I really enjoyed the magic system in this book, it is something completely different than any other book I have read. I appreciated that there were consequences to using magic, and it wasn't just a free for all. I wanted more world building. We know a few things about Blunder, but not much.

As always, I wish this had been dual POV. I really wanted to get into Ravyns head so that I could better understand him. He is not what you expect him to be. As the Captain, you expect him to be brutal and harsh, but he is quite the opposite. Elspeth a strong and intelligent woman who has had to fight to keep her secret and stay alive for the last 11 years. Yet, she is also kind of a boring character, her banter with Nightmare is the more interesting part of her.

I really want more background on Nightmare, I find him very intriguing and the most interesting character in the book. I hope that we get more of his story in the second book. Is it weird that I wanted Elspeth to fall in love with him...?

It was not a surprise that Nightmare is The Shepherd King. That was pretty expected from the beginning.

Tropes: fantasy, magic, slow burn, Found family, forced proximity

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meganpbell's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

4.0

This popular gothic fantasy has some killer cards to play, with a unique card-based magic system, a steamy enemies-to-lovers romance, and a fantastically sinister monster living inside our heroine’s head. While the YA/New Adult prose didn’t always work for me and the first half is very slow to start, the world-building and plot made up for it. That said, I think I’ll wait till October to read the sequel for all the spooky gothic vibes.

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tkatt20's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Sometimes I find that when I really like a book I don't have a lot to say review wise, this is exactly one of those cases. I finished this a couple of weeks ago and waited to do a review because I thought the words might come to me, but they never did. The writing was solid, I loved the characters, setting, magic system, everything. This is honesty all I want in a YA/New adult fantasy. For my Teen Wolf fans, this book reminds me of season 3 with the nogitsune, to try to give an idea of the vibes between the FMC and the "Nightmare", which was my all-time favorite season btw. This was def a vibe read for me and I loved it.

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kinskinn's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

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