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3.27 AVERAGE
3.27 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Nocturne is the tale of Grace Dragotta, a ballerina who grew up owing everything to the strict Mistress of the ballet. When a mysterious patron, Master La Rosa, selects Grace as his chosen one her entire life changes overnight. She is given a highly coveted position in the ballet and forced to move into the patron’s home. Grace is offered a dance with the master at midnight and she starts to question her grip on reality. When dangerous secrets are revealed, Grace must decide if she trusts Master La Rosa.
Nocturne is a lyrical and chilling story. It's a love letter to Phantom of the Opera, with elements from Hades & Persephone, and themes from Orpheus & Eurydice. The writing is very descriptive, sometimes to a fault. I think if readers do not enjoy overly intricate details, then they will likely struggle with this aspect. Overall, I enjoyed myself and was swept away to a glittering and ominous version of Chicago. Nocturne is a beautiful and tangled tale; the twist took me by surprise! I loved the friendship between Grace and Emilia, they were always there for each other no matter what. I would recommend Nocturne for readers who enjoy lyrical prose, vivid descriptions, and stories that stay in your mind long after the final page.
Thank you to Alyssa Wees, Del Rey, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Nocturne is a lyrical and chilling story. It's a love letter to Phantom of the Opera, with elements from Hades & Persephone, and themes from Orpheus & Eurydice. The writing is very descriptive, sometimes to a fault. I think if readers do not enjoy overly intricate details, then they will likely struggle with this aspect. Overall, I enjoyed myself and was swept away to a glittering and ominous version of Chicago. Nocturne is a beautiful and tangled tale; the twist took me by surprise! I loved the friendship between Grace and Emilia, they were always there for each other no matter what. I would recommend Nocturne for readers who enjoy lyrical prose, vivid descriptions, and stories that stay in your mind long after the final page.
Thank you to Alyssa Wees, Del Rey, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
—
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:
No
Wow, I thought this was such a beautifully written gothic fantasy.
Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Grace is an organ who has been promoted to prima ballerina of the Near North Ballet. Her performance was sponsored by a mysterious patron, Master La Rosa, who, come to find out, also orchestrated her ascent to prima. But it comes with a price.. she much come to live with him, and dance with him at midnight every Sunday. When she does, she finds the mansion cloaked in mystery and full of otherworldly secrets, and is caught between illusion and reality.
This was a lovely dark fantasy seemingly inspired by Hades and Persephone, Beauty and the Beast and Phantom of the Opera. The prose was beautiful and lyrical and the writing has a dark, dreamlike quality that I loved. I was enchanted by the story and characters. I liked Grace’s development, and loved her relationship with her dear friend Emilia. I haven’t read Alyssa Wees before, but I will be picking up her other books.
<i>Special thanks to Random House and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review </i>
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
received a copy from Netgalley and the publisher.
So Nocturne is a flowery story of Death, Sleep and Eternal Life. It follows Grace as she performs for the first time as a prima ballerina, after her best friend Emilia decides to retire from dance. As the prima, she does well enough to receive a patron that keeps the entire corp from going broke, but little does Grace know the mysterious patron as more nefarious intentions.
Overall, I think the prose is really well done, but the plot could have had a little more action into it. The beginning 40% is very ballet heavy and we lose it a lot in the middle part and I think it stall the story a bit. While I really enjoyed this story (especially the end because who doesn't love when the person who was the victim is the only winner in the end), but the story itself (this will be kind of niche) is so similar to Black Swan, The Star-Touched Queen, and Addie LaRue. Not in a plagiarism kind of way, but definitely in a "I read/watched all of these things and am pulling inspiration from them." If you liked any and all of those stories then this is definitely the book for you.
So Nocturne is a flowery story of Death, Sleep and Eternal Life. It follows Grace as she performs for the first time as a prima ballerina, after her best friend Emilia decides to retire from dance. As the prima, she does well enough to receive a patron that keeps the entire corp from going broke, but little does Grace know the mysterious patron as more nefarious intentions.
Overall, I think the prose is really well done, but the plot could have had a little more action into it. The beginning 40% is very ballet heavy and we lose it a lot in the middle part and I think it stall the story a bit. While I really enjoyed this story (especially the end because who doesn't love when the person who was the victim is the only winner in the end), but the story itself (this will be kind of niche) is so similar to Black Swan, The Star-Touched Queen, and Addie LaRue. Not in a plagiarism kind of way, but definitely in a "I read/watched all of these things and am pulling inspiration from them." If you liked any and all of those stories then this is definitely the book for you.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Grief, Death of parent
DNF. Posting to Goodreads. 1/14/23
Thank you NetGalley for this book in exchange for my honest review.
This is the first ARC I’ve ever gotten. And I was super excited to read it! But unfortunately, I was bored. There was way too much detail. It’s definitely slow paced, but it feels slower than a typical slow paced book. Nothing happens in the first 60 pages except she gets made prima ballerina. There was nothing that made me want to keep reading. And I’m not the type to push through a book I’m not enjoying, so I decided to DNF this one.
Thank you NetGalley for this book in exchange for my honest review.
This is the first ARC I’ve ever gotten. And I was super excited to read it! But unfortunately, I was bored. There was way too much detail. It’s definitely slow paced, but it feels slower than a typical slow paced book. Nothing happens in the first 60 pages except she gets made prima ballerina. There was nothing that made me want to keep reading. And I’m not the type to push through a book I’m not enjoying, so I decided to DNF this one.
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Thank you to Del Rey Books for an e-arc of Nocturne, by Alyssa Wees! I devoured this. I knew to expect dark fantasy with strong thematic elements drawn from fairy tale (Beauty and the Beast) and mythology (Hades and Persephone). I had not expected suspense, mystery and poetic horror. Reading this felt like always being in that liminal space between wakefulness and sleep, never quite sure what's real and what's a dream, prodding yourself to move or speak while always feeling pulled back into your own subconscious. Wees's writing is atmospheric, reflecting the 1930s Chicago winter, and shifts fluidly between the macabre and the transcendent. The turn of phrase that still feels most representative of her prose is her description of Grace's approach to the ballroom to see The Master - she describes the light shining beneath the door as a "slit throat" merely two lines before she describes Grace's heart as "clear water, like an ocean at rest."
This is a book for lovers of classic fairy tales, for those who enjoy the enchantment and the constant feeling of not-quite-right, who enjoy a cast of imperfect characters and anti-heroes, who know that true fairy tales are less a battle between good and evil and more a battle between being remembered or being forgotten, who know the ending is rarely happily after.
And the ENDING of this book. It is perfect and wholly unexpected and so thrilling. I could see it as though I were watching it on the stage, and the moment everything turns, I wanted to scream (with delight).
Know that this is not a romance, though there is romance. This is dark fantasy with touches of horror. If the very first puppet bow was your favorite moment in Thistlefoot, if you wondered about the fate of Luc in Addie LaRue, if you have ever felt, like Grace, the pull of music into another world, then I highly recommend Nocturne.
This is a book for lovers of classic fairy tales, for those who enjoy the enchantment and the constant feeling of not-quite-right, who enjoy a cast of imperfect characters and anti-heroes, who know that true fairy tales are less a battle between good and evil and more a battle between being remembered or being forgotten, who know the ending is rarely happily after.
And the ENDING of this book. It is perfect and wholly unexpected and so thrilling. I could see it as though I were watching it on the stage, and the moment everything turns, I wanted to scream (with delight).
Know that this is not a romance, though there is romance. This is dark fantasy with touches of horror. If the very first puppet bow was your favorite moment in Thistlefoot, if you wondered about the fate of Luc in Addie LaRue, if you have ever felt, like Grace, the pull of music into another world, then I highly recommend Nocturne.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Gun violence, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder
Minor: Body horror, Blood
Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey Books for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
CONTENT WARNING: death of a sibling, death of a parent, grief, blood, murder, violence
As a lifelong fan of ballet, this story immediately caught my attention. Historical fantasy can be gorgeous when it’s done well, and this one had some incredible elements that set it up to be a fabulous story, however, the execution fell short for me for a variety of reasons.
The first thing that I noticed was the writing. I love lyrical, beautiful, and descriptive writing, so the description was initially a selling point. Once I started reading, I quickly became frustrated with the exceptionally flowery and overly purple writing. At every possible opportunity, the author used long and drawn out descriptions of everything from emotions to colors to surroundings to sounds, often incorporating strange similes and metaphors. There were so many paragraphs devoted to these descriptions when a simple sentence would have done, and it was frustrating to slog through all these descriptions of something so mundane.
I did like the historical descriptions of Depression-era Chicago, especially the differences between those who live in poverty and those who are wealthy. There are characters representative of both socioeconomic strata in society. And seeing how Grace came from the poor, immigrant area of Chicago, I was expecting to see more of her struggle in this story. As a young girl in a single parent home, her brother died as a result of his working with gangsters, her mother died from illness, and they often struggled with lack of heat and not enough food.
Instead of seeing her obstacles, as she’s forced to play violin on the street to earn money, she just kind of wanders into a ballet school and is immediately taken in and given not only a place at the school, but also room and board. It kind of felt like everything was handed to her, and we don’t see her struggle very much at all. Even once she’s at the school, despite the fact that she isn’t the best technical dancer or the most skilled, she’s rapidly promoted to not only prima ballerina, but is granted an elite title normally reserved for ballerinas who have demonstrated the most exceptional of skills in their generation of dancers.
Ultimately, these gifts come about as the result of her patron, Master La Rosa, and the relationship that develops between these two is incredibly imbalanced and unhealthy. For so much of Grace’s story, she doesn’t really make many of her own decisions, and just kind of lets life happen to her. She comes across as incredibly naïve and blind to what is going on right in front of her face, satisfied to live in her own fantasies, and hope for a better life without actually taking steps to make it happen. It isn’t until the end of the story that she starts showing some agency, and the character development was lacking for Grace, while the side characters were flat and underdeveloped.
This story brought to mind Belladonna by Adalyn Grace, with the relationship between the MC and Death, although I felt much more invested in that story than I did in this one. The plot in this book felt much more muddled, as if it was inspired by multiple stories but instead of simply drawing from them and turning it into something new, it attempted to mash them up and didn’t manage to do so successfully. There were elements of Beauty and the Beast, Phantom of the Opera, and Hades and Persephone, but ultimately not quite getting across a clear message of any of these or a unique one.
CONTENT WARNING: death of a sibling, death of a parent, grief, blood, murder, violence
As a lifelong fan of ballet, this story immediately caught my attention. Historical fantasy can be gorgeous when it’s done well, and this one had some incredible elements that set it up to be a fabulous story, however, the execution fell short for me for a variety of reasons.
The first thing that I noticed was the writing. I love lyrical, beautiful, and descriptive writing, so the description was initially a selling point. Once I started reading, I quickly became frustrated with the exceptionally flowery and overly purple writing. At every possible opportunity, the author used long and drawn out descriptions of everything from emotions to colors to surroundings to sounds, often incorporating strange similes and metaphors. There were so many paragraphs devoted to these descriptions when a simple sentence would have done, and it was frustrating to slog through all these descriptions of something so mundane.
I did like the historical descriptions of Depression-era Chicago, especially the differences between those who live in poverty and those who are wealthy. There are characters representative of both socioeconomic strata in society. And seeing how Grace came from the poor, immigrant area of Chicago, I was expecting to see more of her struggle in this story. As a young girl in a single parent home, her brother died as a result of his working with gangsters, her mother died from illness, and they often struggled with lack of heat and not enough food.
Instead of seeing her obstacles, as she’s forced to play violin on the street to earn money, she just kind of wanders into a ballet school and is immediately taken in and given not only a place at the school, but also room and board. It kind of felt like everything was handed to her, and we don’t see her struggle very much at all. Even once she’s at the school, despite the fact that she isn’t the best technical dancer or the most skilled, she’s rapidly promoted to not only prima ballerina, but is granted an elite title normally reserved for ballerinas who have demonstrated the most exceptional of skills in their generation of dancers.
Ultimately, these gifts come about as the result of her patron, Master La Rosa, and the relationship that develops between these two is incredibly imbalanced and unhealthy. For so much of Grace’s story, she doesn’t really make many of her own decisions, and just kind of lets life happen to her. She comes across as incredibly naïve and blind to what is going on right in front of her face, satisfied to live in her own fantasies, and hope for a better life without actually taking steps to make it happen. It isn’t until the end of the story that she starts showing some agency, and the character development was lacking for Grace, while the side characters were flat and underdeveloped.
This story brought to mind Belladonna by Adalyn Grace, with the relationship between the MC and Death, although I felt much more invested in that story than I did in this one. The plot in this book felt much more muddled, as if it was inspired by multiple stories but instead of simply drawing from them and turning it into something new, it attempted to mash them up and didn’t manage to do so successfully. There were elements of Beauty and the Beast, Phantom of the Opera, and Hades and Persephone, but ultimately not quite getting across a clear message of any of these or a unique one.
48% and I just CAN’T. I don’t know if it’s the ostentatious writing or the lack of prose. Or both to be honest. The more I read the worse it seems to get. This one just isn’t for me, and I HATE to DNF a book after I’ve gotten 20% or more in.
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
SPOILERS
This book was a rollarcoster. When I read the description of this book, I thought it would almost be a period-piece type of fictional story between a ballerina who wanted more form life and a mysterious patron who fell in love with her (Phantom of the Opera). However, at the 60% mark of the story, it turned into a Hades and Persephone thing, and because the magic was not really alluded to in the beginning, it just felt like that part of the story came out of nowhere.
There were bits and pieces of the story I liked such as the Ballet, Chicago during the Great Depression, and the struggle of families and artisans during that time. I also loved the friendship between Grace and Emilie. They truly were great friends and I liked seeing how Emilie’s marriage affected their friendship dynamic. That part felt very realistic.
However, I think I would have enjoyed this book more if the idea of magic would’ve been hinted at earlier instead of being thrown in at the 60% mark of the story. Also the plot and characters felt very flushed out in the beginning but once the magic, the manor, and Master LaRosa’s true identity was introduced, the plot began to feel more rushed.
As for the ending, I know it’s suppose to be bittersweet and there’s no true end for Death, but I would’ve liked him to have come back fully and present with his Queen, so that she could finally say “yes” to him, but perhaps that is just my personal opinion.
This book was a rollarcoster. When I read the description of this book, I thought it would almost be a period-piece type of fictional story between a ballerina who wanted more form life and a mysterious patron who fell in love with her (Phantom of the Opera). However, at the 60% mark of the story, it turned into a Hades and Persephone thing, and because the magic was not really alluded to in the beginning, it just felt like that part of the story came out of nowhere.
There were bits and pieces of the story I liked such as the Ballet, Chicago during the Great Depression, and the struggle of families and artisans during that time. I also loved the friendship between Grace and Emilie. They truly were great friends and I liked seeing how Emilie’s marriage affected their friendship dynamic. That part felt very realistic.
However, I think I would have enjoyed this book more if the idea of magic would’ve been hinted at earlier instead of being thrown in at the 60% mark of the story. Also the plot and characters felt very flushed out in the beginning but once the magic, the manor, and Master LaRosa’s true identity was introduced, the plot began to feel more rushed.
As for the ending, I know it’s suppose to be bittersweet and there’s no true end for Death, but I would’ve liked him to have come back fully and present with his Queen, so that she could finally say “yes” to him, but perhaps that is just my personal opinion.
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
While I received a copy of this ebook in exchange for my review, all opinions remain my own.
This was a difficult read for me. It was dark and a little confusing. What I was expecting to be a historical novel, was something much more. I loved how the author weaved this tale about the Master and who he really is. How Grace finds herself in the ballet but also loses herself in it. This book is just a complex story and really you need to read it. I loved the writing and the world that Wees build for these characters.
I loved watching Grace's relationships grow with her. She learns to see people as more than what they allow her to see, more than just the surface level of friendship.
Oh, and the ending. JUST LOVE!
This book is to be published 2/21 - get yourself a copy (plus, isn't the cover just BEAUTIFUL!) you won't regret reading this one <3
This was a difficult read for me. It was dark and a little confusing. What I was expecting to be a historical novel, was something much more. I loved how the author weaved this tale about the Master and who he really is. How Grace finds herself in the ballet but also loses herself in it. This book is just a complex story and really you need to read it. I loved the writing and the world that Wees build for these characters.
I loved watching Grace's relationships grow with her. She learns to see people as more than what they allow her to see, more than just the surface level of friendship.
Oh, and the ending. JUST LOVE!
This book is to be published 2/21 - get yourself a copy (plus, isn't the cover just BEAUTIFUL!) you won't regret reading this one <3