I didn’t expect this to just be an extract when I applied for it so I found that a bit disappointing. I’m a big fan of Holly Black’s books so I’m looking forward to reading The Book of Night in full! There’s not much I can say from just three chapters but it certainly looks like it’s off to a good start.

"Charlie sighed, half sure she was fucking it up already, and entirely sure she'd fuck it up somewhere down the line. That was just her nature. Charlie Hall, Maker of Mistakes. Patron Saint of Disaster."

I have so many damn emotions over that ending, what exactly happened there!? What's with that sudden change!? Memory loss??? WHAT IS HAPPENING, WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME.

Okay, this is actually my first book by Holly Black and I loved it. The pacing was a tad slow, it didn't bother me as I'm a speed reader, but the plot was SOLID. I love Charlie, not because we share the same name, but she has many flaws and through them all she has triumphed. She owns her issues, she lives with them. Charlie forever.

"The universe belongs to the curious."

Thank you so much to Rachel at Del Ray for my sprayed edge proof.

Love the sardonic voice and deeply creepy world. Swift connection with the character of Charlie who seems like a fascinating "bad" girl with a big heart. A really strong start and I was thoroughly gripped and gutted that my Netgalley download only had the first couple of chapters, is this correct as I would love to read in its entirety.

The sample I received was too short for me to determine my thoughts about the story. But, I liked what I read. Charlie is a train wreck and I am here to see her story unfold. Plus, the urban fantasy elements and the shadow magic sounds super interesting. I will hopefully be picking up this book soon.

I approached Book of Night more out of curiosity than anticipation. The promise of a world almost but not quite like our own, where shadow magic can enhance – or remove – your emotions, shadows can steal your secrets (or your belongings), and where someone is willing to kill to get their hands on a very particular grimoire all sounds extremely promising. So too does protagonist Charlie Hall, former con artist and thief, now a bartender determined to put her (mis)adventures in the shadow world behind her. But Charlie has never made a bad decision she wasn’t willing to double down on, and she was extremely good at stealing from shadow magic practitioners.

Within two chapters, Charlie has been asked to track down an acquaintance’s lover and stumbled over the dead body of a punter she overhead foolishly trying to sell back an item belonging to a powerful gloamist. Combined with the dynamite prologue (in which a young boy catches his own shadow and feeds it blood to win its friendship), the opening chapters efficiently convey how this world is and is not our own, set up the shadowy underworld Charlie lives on the fringes of, and strikes exactly the right balance in telling me who Charlie is whilst failing to reassure me that she’s really going to (be allowed to) stay on the straight and narrow.

I admit I’m intrigued. This feels like magical noir, with a messed up family and a boyfriend who could feel wholesome if I hadn’t read the blurb; a bubbling pot of personalities and desperation just waiting to boil over.

On the other hand, three chapters really isn’t enough to judge a book; and these three chapters taken together don’t quite do enough to convince me to run out and buy it. It is off to a solid start, but not an irresistible one, and being sent only three chapters to consider have done it no favours.. Still, I’ll keep an eye out for it at the library when I’m next in need of a diversion.

5 Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you Netgalley and publisher for the e-arc for an honest opinion.

Please take in mind it’s my opinion, and everyone is allowed to have one.

Holy shit the first three chapters already have me hooked! I need the rest of this book! I want to and NEED to know more, what’s going to happen next?? PLEASE HURRY UP

Good taster, gives you just enough details to hook you. I'm interested and cannot wait for the rest!

An exciting taste of the book! Can't wait for my copy to arrive so I can continue! Thank you for the approval of an excerpt

This is too much. I need the full book in my hands now! I cannot wait to see what us to come. Holly black knows how to grip an audience

Utterly compelling right from the start, well written with well developed characters, a brilliant level of world building and a fantastic plot. I loved it and cannot wait to read more.

Thank you to the publishers for sending me an excerpt of Book of Night by Holly Black before the release date. This book had me hooked from the start and I will definitely be buying it! It’s spooky and dark and such an exciting and unique concept. I can’t wait to read more about Charlie’s story.

I received a full paperback ARC which is what my review is based on.

I will preface that my Holly Black fandom comes from her Curse breaker series and not from Cruel Prince or Tithe so this got me super excited as it sounded like a more adult version of of the Curse breaker series and hopefully push into darker and more exciting areas that she couldn’t in the YA series. It completely delivers on this for me. It really has similar vibes with a complex magic system and the heist/con artist feel about the plot. This really felt like a more mature and developed version.

The world building and magic system was so interesting the concept of Shadows being manipulated, the gloamists studying the magic of shadows and the different factions of shadow magic that people can master. I found the explorations of this magic really interesting and what drew me into the story. However, I do think it took a long time for the story to get going. There is a lot of extraneous description. While I enjoyed this when it was about the magic system, there were lots of moments were I felt we got a lot of description of characters and places that were then never revisited in the plot and this left me confused at points especially when characters of which we got detailed descriptions are only present for a scene and do not return. This made the book feel a little bulky at points it really slowed down the pace as you had to decided if the details you were given were important or just filler.

I really liked how the main plot built in conjunction with the flashbacks into Charlie’s life, how we got to know her history and how she found herself in her current situation and developed her skillset and then how she is driven to apply those skills as the plot progresses. I wish there was a little more depth in reasoning for why Charlie finds herself pulled back into her days as a con artist. She really didn’t have a lot of pizazz and there was no real conviction or even a sense of danger dragging her back. It felt she could have just walked away from it all really easily. This all felt a little thin to me and this was the same fault I had within the Curse Breakers series. But Black’s writing is so engaging that this is eventually forgotten as I got swept away with the story.

I also enjoyed the way the multiple threads of the flashbacks combined in with the present to flesh out the story, throwing in twists and turns. Most of this was in the later half of the book where I felt the pace really increased and we started to dig into the more action, heist, con-artistry of the story. The ending was satisfying but slightly open-ended leaving a possibility for a sequel. I was happy where it left off personally.

Overall, this is a hard one to rate as I really enjoyed it, I devoured it in two days and had a lot of fun while doing so. But it was also quite slow and a little monotonous in the beginning. I didn’t find Charlie to be very interesting a character. Usually I either want to love characters or hate them to keep me interested in their story but she was just somewhat bland, yet I still read on. So I would conclude that this was a great read in my opinion but I could see it being somewhat disappointing to those that are fans of Black’s more fantastical works.

Very disappointed that this was not the full book but a 3 chapter sample. This should have been made clear in the description.

That said, this books sounds amazing, I did really enjoy the first 3 chapters and I can't wait to read the rest. I have this coming later in the month from Illumicrate and had hoped for the ebook then I wouldn't spoil the limited edition!

HOLY HELL, this book sounds amazing! I may have only read the first three chapters but I was HOOKED. The magic system was unique and creepy as hell, shadows creep me out ok! And I loved the MC, she was brutal and strong and I can just tell she's going to become a favourite character of mine. Now I just have the torturous wait for my pre-order to come in so I can carry on with the story.

I didn't realize this was just a sampler, I thought it was the full thing. Need to read the rest of the book now!

A fantastic first three chapters! Cant wait for the rest of the book. Its interesting to see how the writing style of holly black has translated from her ya to adult series.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t aware the Book of Night was a sampler when I first got my copy with NetGalley and it’s not the easiest to review on 3 chapters. BUT I will say that the sampler is promising. The concept is intriguing, with shadows having their own magical quality where they can be stolen, transformed and used, and I’m looking forward to reading more on this. You can instantly tell this is adult as opposed to YA with a darker tone to the writing and to the protagonist Charlie herself, there’s a gritty defiance and edge to her that I can’t wait to explore.

Thank you NetGalley for the early tease of this book while I was waiting for my copy to arrive

OK, so the entry for this book needs a big, fat "Extract" headlining it because that is all this is: just three chapters plus a prologue, which is a tad disappointing, so I can't review this on my blog, Goodreads or Amazon. I've read books in the past that started great and then fizzled out before they even got midway.

So this review is for the extract, not the whole book, but I did manage to sneak an extra chunk by downloading a sample directly from Amazon - and gained half of Chapter Four.

Holly Black is brilliant at world-building and Book of Night is no exception. This does mean that the reader is plonked in the middle of the action and it takes a chapter or two to work out what is happening.

I loved the prologue, which created a spooky atmosphere and introduced the concept of sentient shadows.

In the next chapter we meet Charlie, the Queen of Bad Decisions, an ex-hustler who is trying to go straight. In this alternative reality, magic has recently become real and everyone wants some. Modified shadows are considered the Coolest Thing Ever, to the extent where they're being manipulated by 'gloamists' and even stolen by gangs. But what for?

I love Holly's writing style, which is very much in evident here, despite the short sample. There are lots of dubious characters that I can't wait to find out more about, a mystery, and a hint of Dark Things to Come, However, although Holly's Folk of the Air series is one of my most favourite reads ever, fans might be disappointed. Book of Night not YA, it's for adults, and it does have a strong dash of Raymond Chandler-esque noir.

However, Book of Night is going to the top of my wish-list - I can't wait to read this rest!

Absolutely stunning and captivating writing as usual! I can’t wait to read the rest of the book. I already have it on preorder! Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and author, for a chance to read this sample. It’s only made me more excited!

I thought this was the whole book but it turned out only to be the first few chapters of the book. Despite that, I enjoyed the chapters that were provided. I was planning on buying this book anyway so reading these chapters did not encourage me to buy it or put me off buying it. But I do plan on buying this book now that is available and I cannot wait to read it.