Title: Book of Night

Author: Holly Black

In Charlie Hall’s world, shadows can be altered, for entertainment and cosmetic preferences—but also to increase power and influence. You can alter someone’s feelings—and memories—but manipulating shadows has a cost, with the potential to take hours or days from your life. Your shadow holds all the parts of you that you want to keep hidden—a second self, standing just to your left, walking behind you into lit rooms. And sometimes, it has a life of its own.

Charlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires. But when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie’s present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear—and at worst, non-existent. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgängers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister—all desperate to control the magic of the shadows.

‘Charlie Hall, Maker of Mistakes, Patron Saint of Disaster.’

I don’t really know what I was expecting with this story. It was slow going at first, it was odd and it was dark and gloomy. But after the initial 12 chapters it got going and held my interest. I was invested enough to see where all this was going. So I guess my advice would be to keep at it if you felt like me at first!!

I did applaud Charlie for trying to make a better life for her and her sister. Oh and she really has made a hash of her life….not that it’s all her fault!

Vince was actually the only character that I was invested in though (me, invested in a male character? Surely not!) I really felt for him and was really rooting for him and Charlie!

I’m confused whether this is a standalone or a series after that ending but I’d like to read more set in the world!