The Midnight Kingdom

I love all the heirs so much!!
This was a great physical and emotional journey for each of the heirs.
And that the gods aren't done yet, and they still have so much they could lose.
Tara’s writing is amazing and I was really invested in the story and with all the characters!
I really can’t wait to read Book #3

Thanks to Netgalley and Hodder&Stoughton for providing me with this ARC!

The Midnight Kingdom has all the brutality, darkness and complexity of The City of Dusk while significantlly ramping up the supernatural element!

Taesia, Nikolas, Fin and Julian are captives of Phos (in the body of Nikolas' brother), the malicious god of light, in Noctus, the realm of Nyx - Taesia's god. Phos is cruel and ruthless and getting away from him will have a heacvy cost.

Risha is fighting her way through Mortri, the realm of death, determined to ressurect Jas.

Angelica is travelling to her stepmother's country, Azune (inspired by Shogun-era Japan) to gain the imperial family's support for her claim to the throne and also snoop around for Deia's fulcrum along the way.

Dante and Brailee go after their rogue aunt Camilla, determined to find a way to open a portal and bring their sister back from Noctus.

With the protagonists spread in different realma, the book at some points feels that it drags on (especially in Angelica's and Taesia's POVs for me) but everything will be connected in the end, the buildup is carefully leading there. There is a lot of focus to the heirs overcoming their personal demons and doubts. Angelica is even angrier, Taesia is even moodier, Nikolas is even sadder.

I have a small complain, Tara Sim seems to love Taesia and Angelica a bit more than the others, and unforunately my favourites are Dante and I live for Nikolas-Fin scenes (Tara Sim's Timekeeper vibe comes out there) thus they get less "screen time" and less developped plot lines character arcs than the girls.

Can't wat for The Dawn Throne!

Thank you NetGalley and Orbit for the ARC!

Brutal, dark and heart stopping - this sequel is everything it's predecessor was and then so much more. A phenomenal read in every way.

5/5

Thank you Hodder & Stoughton for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved this book! I loved returning to this world and falling in love with it all over again. The expansive and atmospheric worldbuilding, the flawed, impassioned, powerful cast of characters. It honestly feels like this trilogy was written just for me, I adored every single moment! I am on my hands and knees begging for book three to come sooner!

There are seven perspectives in this book, each one as riveting as the last. They're all so fascinating and all of their separate plotlines are filled with intrigue.
Where The City of Dusk was mainly set within the city of Nexus, The Midnight Kingdom explores a vast array of other lands and other worlds. I enjoyed every moment exploring the new depths of these worlds and was enraptured with every plot. I loved witnessing the plotlines grow and expand and become increasingly complex, I loved seeing them come to fruition as they intertwined and the characters imploded into each other's orbits once more.

Taesia is probably my favourite character (although it truly is so hard to choose as all the characters are fantastic), she's fierce and defiant and never gives up. She does not want to submit to the duty that is shackled to her like chains, she wants to fight, she wants to live. She sees nothing noble in the role of the martyr and she is desperate to prove that she is strong enough as she is. She wants to be strong enough to save the realms and the people that she loves most.
Taesia is born of the god Nyx and therefore wields shadow magic. In this book she is confronted with the origins of those powers to a further extent, she's shown a new world that she at once does and does not belong to. She struggles with her sense of identity as the god in her head incessantly whispers.

Risha, born of the god Thana, wields necromantic powers. She's thrust into the land of the dead, her human breaths coming shallower as the realm starts to claim her as its own. Hers is a struggle of grief as she reconciles with the things and the people that she has lost.
Risha is kind-hearted and gentle, all she wants is the peace of her realm and the peace of the dead. She only ever wanted to reopen the portal into Mortri for the dead to find their peace, but her god refused. Her journey is a desperate clawing of survival in a land that does not accept her presence in it. Grief weighs heavy on her as she discovers the secrets of her ancestors and the frailty of all their interconnected realms.

Angelica, born of the god Deia, wields elemental magic. Angelica has always had an affinity for fire, she harbours an addiction for the flames that is inextinguishable. She's headstrong and determined, like her magic, she's made up of incendiary elements. As practiced as she is at putting on a mask in the face of dangerous court politics, she feels more strongly than anyone. It is only in her nature, after all.
Through her perspective we discover the land of Azuna and the fascinating characters that come into play. Angelica has been cut off from her powers by her god, but she is determined to reclaim them as her own as she discovers the secret of a lost part of their world.

Nik, born of the god Phos, wields powers of light—the light to Taesia's darkness. Nik is the forgotten son turned heir of a blazing set of destructive events. He is broken and empty and battles with accepting the numbness of subjugation. He does not want to exist in the pain of the real world. He battles with the past as much as he does with the present. He fights against his god at every step, for himself and for the others that he cares about.

Julian was a mystery in the first book, a person we barely understood. In this book we see all his contradictions laid bare; we see him as man, we see him as monster; we see him as demon, we see him as protector. We, alongside him, grow to understand better who he is. He reconciles with all of the new knowledge he has gained about their vast universe, about a time before the portals were closed and there existed something that is now lost.

Dante, Taesia's older brother, also born of Nyx's blood, has himself an unlikely alliance in this book that we see him conjure up in the first. In the (literal) shadows of Vitae, he finds himself swept into the heart of a rescue mission. With new, disquieting powers under his control, he begins the search for the others that are missing, anxious to bring them back home.

The seventh perspective's identity is one that is elusive in the first book. We find out at the end of The City of Dusk, but I'll leave it a secret in this review too. This character battles—as all the characters do, in various different ways—with the struggle for autonomy.
This is what I perceive to be the main theme of the book and it is astoundingly interesting to me. I adore how it's explored so extensively in a multitude of different ways. Even when these struggles have the same cause, the focuses that are explored are all so unique.
I loved the question continuously posed to us: is it selfish to want to live? When blood defines who you are and your birth alone is a deciding factor in your duty, when all that power and pressure is put upon you, when your life—and even your death—are decided for you... is it selfish to want to live for yourself instead? Is it selfish to want to be in control of your own body and your own mind? Is it selfish to want agency?
It's an unfalteringly compelling theme that I loved to see explored in such depth.

This book truly has it all! Dark and manipulative gods, phenomenal worldbuilding, shadow magic, necromancy, elemental magic, demonic forces, literal demons, a large cast of queer characters being chaotic, court politics, beautiful writing, and so much more. It's the type of series that is impossible to put down, I never want it to end. I hope the brilliant Tara Sim decides it should be a ten book series instead! I could never get enough of this world or these characters.

I'm so happy that I got to read this early, thank you Hodder & Stoughton (the publisher love of my life)! This was so incredible, I never wanted it to be over.
I implore you to go read this masterful series.

Deia's tits, Nyx's piss, Thana's rotting grave and "Phos's hairy nutsack" I was not ready for this sequel. You're not ready for it. Children, generations down the line are not ready. Tara Sim held nothing back on this one and threw everything, including the kitchen sink, into this story.

The book is just 'More'. We get more of the world, seeing Seniza, Vaega, Azuna, Motri and Noctus. We get more from our house heirs. In particular I loved seeing Nik and Risha as so much more than they were in the first book, which were in my opinion, less interesting as characters in City of Dusk compared to Angelica and Taesia. I loved seeing "Bee" and Saya getting to shine, Eiko as well grew on me - which isn't hard since in the first book she's more of a family bullet point.

The only thing that had my head spinning was the chapter changing focuses. Because there is so much going on in the book and you're jumping from Nik, Tae/Dante and Brailee, Angelica, Risha and Julian, it took me a little second each time there were longer breaks between the realm stories. Particularly in Noctus when Nik and Fin were having everything going on while Julian and Taesia's POVs were more or less intertwined. I did love the brief interludes between Phos and Rian which had some glimpses into Phos's past with Nyx.

I have way too many thoughts on everything about this book, the characters, the events, the world. Like sit in a dark room and process this quantity of thoughts. The thing that makes me most mad is I have to wait for the next book after Angleica's mic drop moment. So thanks for that. (Also, if Tara does read this and looking for spin offs, can we have Lilia setting up her rule in Noctus? Please? Pretty please. I know Marcellus and Kalen have some relationship issues to work out and we deserve to know about them. - Maybe a prequel too about the gods?)

Oh, my goodness – where to start with reviewing this book? The Midnight Kingdom picked up where The City of Dusk ended and then ramped everything up. Instead of just a single city, we now have entire realms as the four heirs are scattered in the aftermath of Godsnight. It was a demanding read as the POVs changed rapidly as did the character’s situations but I loved every word of it.

The world has expanded hugely but Tara Sim does a brilliant job in giving each realm its own distinctive character from the night realm of Noctus where food is mostly made from mushrooms to the Japanese influenced realm of Azune where we meet a wyvern. I loved each of the different places and the roles that the heirs had to play in each one.

We see the heirs try to take control of events and their journeys are difficult. They make mistakes and pay the price for those. I loved the different POVs and the way that all of them were trying to fight off the influence of the gods and maintain their humanity. All of the characters suffer during this book, it’s very dark in places, but each of them grows over the course of the book. I loved the new characters too and can’t help having a soft spot for Ren’s skull.

This was a brilliantly plotted and complex second volume and I can’t wait to find out how everything works out in the next book.

Huge thanks to the publishers, Hodder and Stoughton, and Net Galley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.