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A review by misssusan
Nightspell by Leah Cypess
4.0
In the aptly named Ghostland murder victims return as ghosts to seek vengeance on their killers. Or theoretically they do. Many ghosts chose to defer vengeance awhile and hang around the royal court, imitating the living. Four years ago Darri's little sister was betrothed to the crown prince of Ghostland to seal an alliance between their father's kingdoms. Now Darri rides to Ghostland with her brother, determined to bring her sister home at any cost.
I really enjoyed this book. I meant to read the first chapter at breakfast and ended up glued to the same spot for three hours until I was finished. The worldbuilding is great and while I've seen some accusations of slow plot in reviews I thought it moved at an acceptable pace. My favourite aspect of it was the characters and their relationships. I appreciated the choice to emphasize the bonds between Darri, Callie, and Varis over any romantic possibilities. YA could use more of that I think. Nightspell is billed as a companion book to Mistwood but you don't need to have read the prior book to understand it. You probably should though, I think this is the stronger work and it's always nice to experience an upward keel with an author. 4 stars
I really enjoyed this book. I meant to read the first chapter at breakfast and ended up glued to the same spot for three hours until I was finished. The worldbuilding is great and while I've seen some accusations of slow plot in reviews I thought it moved at an acceptable pace. My favourite aspect of it was the characters and their relationships. I appreciated the choice to emphasize the bonds between Darri, Callie, and Varis over any romantic possibilities. YA could use more of that I think. Nightspell is billed as a companion book to Mistwood but you don't need to have read the prior book to understand it. You probably should though, I think this is the stronger work and it's always nice to experience an upward keel with an author. 4 stars