A review by sammarillion
One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Ugh god this book is SUCH a great read. I read it in paperback and I went through three highlighters and a ton of tabs annotating it. It starts off a little slow plot-wise but the world, magic, and characters drew me in so completely that I hardly even noticed slow points.

Mild spoilers ahead, big spoilers will be tagged

What I really enjoyed about the world building was how the author sticks to her guns about the isolation of Blunder. They don't, can't, travel beyond it, so there's not a single mention of the rest of the world. It's so well done. We only ever see Blunder, but that means it's fully developed with it's own culture, traditions, superstitions, and history. The world is steeped in lore.

The magic system here is so incredibly unique and well thought out, I can't get over it. An infectious mist from a vengeful deity is such a badass way to give your characters magic, and having each person get magic unique to them after the infection just adds to the coolness of it all. Then to add the Cards on top of that? Consider me obsessed. The whole idea of balance, and the way the characters hold it in a place of reverence as much as they hold their deity in a place of fear, is so well done. If the deity hasn't exacted her spiteful balance yet, the people will, in whatever way they think is best. The creativity here is off the charts.

The characters feel so real. Being in Elspeth's head, watching her co-exisg with the Nightmare because she has no other choice, was such a great idea. Ravyn and his family have the same motivation but you can see how it affects each of them individually. The romance felt a bit fast but I didn't really mind it all that much 🤷🏻‍♀️

The foreshadowing and plot thickening is really well done. My only real gripe with that is that I felt like plot twists such as
the nightmare being the shepherd king, and Ravyn and his family being direct descendants from him
were pretty spelled out and elspeth still didn't catch on despite it revolving around the creature living inside her head who dropped every possible hint about what was to come. Like she just, didn't connect the dots, or didn't even really try a ton? And normally that would bother me more but that's usually when characters are preached as geniuses and still can't see what's going on right in front of them (sorrengail 🙄). Elspeth isn't touted as her generation's genius detective prodigy so I was more miffed than actually mad about it.

I like that the author left a lot of different loose threads for the second book to finish. I'm not super far into the next one but I can already see the loose ends from the first one being pulled into play and it feels really well done.

Overall, this book is just fuckin incredible. The plot, the people, the world building, the incredibly unique and mysterious magic system, and the (albeit kinda fast) romance. I ate this up and enjoyed every minute of it. I do wish there was more diversity in the characters, and that elspeth was a little less oblivious to what's going on around her (and in her head). But besides those and the quick romance, I have no complaints. None. No notes, no crumbs. Gillig knocked it out of the fuckin park here. Even when the foreshadowing felt kind of not super hard to solve at times, it was still so well executed that I really enjoyed each of the reveals. And there was still plenty of things that surprised me. The action was great, the consequences of people's choices were logical, there's just so much I loved here.

2024 is me getting back in my romantasy era and this is such a dope way to start it.
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