A Day of Fallen Night

First and foremost, I want to thank Bloomsburry and NetGalley for approving me for an ARC of this book. A Day of Fallen Night was my most anticipated release of 2023, and to read it months before its release was such a surreal experience and I´ll forever be grateful for it.

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬 & 𝐒𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐬: High fantasy, standalone prequel, incredibly diverse characters, LGBTG+ representation, established sapphic relationships, sapphic enemies to lovers, bisexual friends to lovers, wyrms & dragons, giant mongooses, two kinds of magic

𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬:
My first initial thought after finishing this ARC was that Samantha Shannon is truly a blessing to the fantasy genre and we should be in awe of her work.
For me, A Day of Fallen Night was carried by three fundamental pillars: The Worldbuilding, The Inweaving of the plotlines and The Women & Diversity.
Samamtha Shannon has such an incredible talent when it comes to creating a world with so much depth, detail and variety in landscapes, culture, aesthetic, and history, that made reading A Day of Fallen Night as well as The Priory of the Orange Tree like spending night after night in an ancient library, studying old, dusty texts of the world we get to enter in these books.
And to see even more of this world in A Day of Fallen Night was a treasure to be granted. Once again, whenever I opened this book, I just got swept away into this incredibly vivid world. No matter if it was by the smells and sounds of the different places or kingdoms, the burning heat of the deserts in the South or unbearable cold of the different cities in the North or on top of Mount Ipyeda, the texture and style of the garments worn by Glorian, Wulf, Tunuva, Esbar, Dumai and Nikeya or the feel of the dragon scales or the fur of the ichneumons.
The intricacy and beauty of how Samantha Shannon, wove together the multiple plotlines and point of views of this book once again just left me in awe and at a loss for words. Not only do Glorian, Wulf, Tunuva and Dumai have their own individual story arches full of emotions, suspense as well as rich and vivid details, but they all eventually meet at one defining point which simply makes this book impossible to put down, because with every page you turn you are desperately wanting to know how the story continues.
Lastly, this book in particular illustrated so beautifully, that women are simply be the most fearless and forceful beings in this world and our world. In addition to that, A Day of Fallen Night is one of the most inclusive and diverse books I´ve read in a long time and it made me realise how desperately I needed a sapphic enemies to lover’s arch in my life right now.

𝐏𝐥𝐨𝐭:
Tunuva Melim is a sister of the Priory. For fifty years, she has trained to slay wyrms – but none have appeared since the Nameless One, and the younger generation is starting to question the Priory's purpose.
To the north, in the Queendom of Inys, Sabran the Ambitious has married the new King of Hróth, narrowly saving both realms from ruin. Their daughter, Glorian, trails in their shadow – exactly where she wants to be.
The dragons of the East have slept for centuries. Dumai has spent her life in a Seiikinese mountain temple, trying to wake the gods from their long slumber. Now someone from her mother's past is coming to upend her fate.
When the Dreadmount erupts, bringing with it an age of terror and violence, these women must find the strength to protect humankind from a devastating threat.