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A review by mackle13
Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan
3.0
2.5
This is the sort of book which should be right up my alley - a historical fantasy, with Elizabeth Tudor, no less, and fae.
The book has a slow build and stuff didn't really seem to be really interesting until the last, like, 25% of the book.
It's an historical fiction with only glimpses of history, and sometimes give in info-dumps. And a fae story with a different sort of faerie vibe - though that's sort of the point of the story, as it goes to some pains to point out that the Onyx Court is not typical for Faerie. (I also wished they had stuck with the bit of the lore where) In general the story uses different bits of faerie lore, but in its own way.
It's also an intrigue book, but one where we, the reader, seemed to know everything that was going on, and it was just a matter of watching the characters figure things out. This would be ok if the characters themselves were interesting enough to make the story interesting, though I'm not sure they were really strong enough, for me, to carry the story.
But towards the end we find that things aren't quite as they seemed, and there are hidden depths going on. I also grew to appreciate the romance aspect of the story.
It was the ending, really, which decided me to give this 3 stars. It was pretty much a 2 star book before then - and, as always, I reserve the right to change my rating at a future date.
One thing I am glad of is that this story, despite being part of a series, does seem to stand well enough on its own. I would've been very annoyed had I come to the end only to find it be one of those stories where book 1 is really on setup for what's yet to come - especially since I'm not sure even my enjoyment of the ending was enough to make me want to continue the series.
ETA: There was one aspect of the writing style which was a bit odd. We would have 'memories' sections where we saw bits that had happened prior to the story, which set up the events we saw unfolding.
This would all be well and good, but the memory bits often came after Deven and Lune had themselves discovered those bits of the story. So it's like we get the story of what happened, and then we see it again from a different perspective.
For a book where I felt pacing was a problem, these bits didn't really seem to offer much. Or, rather, they would've been better had they happened as Deven and Lune were learning of them - like movies sort of handle flashbacks - and not as ancillary pieces.
This is the sort of book which should be right up my alley - a historical fantasy, with Elizabeth Tudor, no less, and fae.
The book has a slow build and stuff didn't really seem to be really interesting until the last, like, 25% of the book.
It's an historical fiction with only glimpses of history, and sometimes give in info-dumps. And a fae story with a different sort of faerie vibe - though that's sort of the point of the story, as it goes to some pains to point out that the Onyx Court is not typical for Faerie. (I also wished they had stuck with the bit of the lore where
Spoiler
faeries can't outright lie. Would've added an interesting dimension to this story, but instead we have them lying all over the place.It's also an intrigue book, but one where we, the reader, seemed to know everything that was going on, and it was just a matter of watching the characters figure things out. This would be ok if the characters themselves were interesting enough to make the story interesting, though I'm not sure they were really strong enough, for me, to carry the story.
But towards the end we find that things aren't quite as they seemed, and there are hidden depths going on. I also grew to appreciate the romance aspect of the story.
It was the ending, really, which decided me to give this 3 stars. It was pretty much a 2 star book before then - and, as always, I reserve the right to change my rating at a future date.
One thing I am glad of is that this story, despite being part of a series, does seem to stand well enough on its own. I would've been very annoyed had I come to the end only to find it be one of those stories where book 1 is really on setup for what's yet to come - especially since I'm not sure even my enjoyment of the ending was enough to make me want to continue the series.
ETA: There was one aspect of the writing style which was a bit odd. We would have 'memories' sections where we saw bits that had happened prior to the story, which set up the events we saw unfolding.
This would all be well and good, but the memory bits often came after Deven and Lune had themselves discovered those bits of the story. So it's like we get the story of what happened, and then we see it again from a different perspective.
For a book where I felt pacing was a problem, these bits didn't really seem to offer much. Or, rather, they would've been better had they happened as Deven and Lune were learning of them - like movies sort of handle flashbacks - and not as ancillary pieces.