Holly Black is a bestselling author of juvenile and young adult fiction, including The Spiderwick Chronicles, The Curse Workers trilogy, and her Fey Series. This is her first book aimed at adults. She got the idea for the book from Hans Christian Andersen's story "The Shadow," which is about a scholar who gives his shadow more and more power until it leaves him and leads to a more successful life than his own. In Holly Black's new magical world, alterests sew shadows on and fit them properly, gloamists who let loose their shadows to do things for them, and puppeteers who control other people's shadows. In this world, we meet Charlie Hall, a young woman who was a thief who sold antique books on shadow work to interested buyers. She lives with her younger sister, Posey, who does tarot card readings, and her boyfriend, Vince, who does crime scene clean-up. Charlie works as a bartender. Vince didn't have a shadow, but Charlie felt it wasn't something she could ask about. After all, she was lying about her past as a thief.
Charlie got started early on pulling scams. The family slogan was "Hole in the head. Hole in the heart. Hole in the pocket." Her mother has attached herself to a real bad guy, so Charlie pretends she can take on the spirit of a long-dead entity named Alonso, who offers her advice. When she tries this on her mother's next boyfriend, Rand, he sees through it and begins taking Charlie to gigs that he has set up to scam money from well-off clients. But everything goes pear-shaped when Rand sets them up for an evening with Lionel Salt, a puppeteer who is very wealthy and powerful. Charlie barely gets out alive. She vows vengeance upon Salt, and that time seems to be here when she's working at the bar. Paul Ecco comes in looking to sell The Premium Nocture, also known as the Book of Blights. A blight is a shadow that can act independently and is no longer connected to its host. The book belonged to Salt, and he said that his grandson stole it. He is willing to pay a lot of money to get it back.
On her way back home from the bar that night, she finds Ecco's shredded body, and someone has stolen the pages he had from the book. Because of this, Vince insists on taking her to and from work to the bar. Not long after that, a gloamist enters the bar looking for the book and for the person who found Ecco. He tries to shred Charlie, but Vince arrives just then and kills the gloamist. He has killed for Charlie and is cleaning up the evidence. Now Charlie is wondering about Vince and how he has no shadow, and how easy it is to kill the gloamist. She has no idea who she has been with all this time. The two wind up getting into an argument and breaking up, which she regrets, but can't find him to try to fix. On top of that, while trying to help a friend with her boyfriend, who has disappeared, possibly with another woman, she finds herself in even more trouble.
This is a helluva first adult-level book for Black. The world she has created is amazing, interesting, and fairly unique. To me, Charlie is a very relatable woman who has bad luck with men and with money. She tries to do right by her sister and get her into college so she can do something with her life, but she fails. Her sister has no interest in college and wants to become a gloamist. She spends all her spare time chasing rumors and stories on how to become one. She can't believe her luck with Vince, who seems like a nice guy, but as usual, she is disappointed. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It does end on a cliffhanger; however, the sequel was just released and is entitled Thief of Night.
Quotes
The
past is the only thing that matters.
Holly Black (Book of Night
p82)
It was hard to fault Vince, though whatever his secrets were, she could still count on him. He was currently getting rid of a body for her. You couldn’t get more dependable than that.
Holly Black (Book of Night p80)
Curious
as a cat on crack.
Holly Black (Book of Night p50)
A small smile lifted one corner of his mouth, and she felt a swell of strange, bittersweet longing for someone who was already hers.
Holly Black (Book of Night p43)
If she was going to get murdered, she’d like to do it in Paris. Or Tokyo.
Holly Black (Book of Night p39)
Maybe she needed something different. A nicotine patch of a man. Something to draw off her worst impulses at least for one night.
Holly Black (Book of Night p36)
Charlie Hall, imp of the perverse. Appreciated a relationship for being simple and still tempted to see if she could make a complicated mess of it.
Holly Black (Book of Night p30)
No one remembers the language they took in high school.
Holly Black (Book of Night p29)
A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth, and she felt a swell of strange, bittersweet longing for someone who was already hers.
Holly Black (Thief of Night p3)
The rich believed they were lucky, and that any good fortune they didn't already have could be bought. They had so much already, disappointment became inevitable.
Holly Black (Book of Night p95)
Charlie swore that one day she was going to go back to Salt's mansion and get revenge on those f***ers. But she only swore it to herself, so there would be no one else to let down when she didn't..
Holly Black (Book of Night p103)
There are lots of different kinds of lies. Fibs to lubricate society. Deceptions to avoid consequences. Misrepresentation to hide behind, because what you've done is bad and you're ashamed of it. And then there are the lies you tell because everything about you is a lie.
Holly Black (The Book of Night p103)
You could steal breath from a body, hate from a heart, the moon from the sky,
Holly Black (The Book of Night p107)
The truth was often complicated and very hard to explain.
Holly Black (The Book of Night p110
It was a childish desire, a wish for the world not to be as it was, for people to act in ways they just didn't.
Holly Black (The Book of Night P136)
Hole in the head, hole in the heart, hole in the pocket. The Hall Family curse.
Holly Black (The Book of Night P136)
Not only was there something so deeply wrong with her that the guy she'd been sure was a good person turned out to be a murderer who faked his own death and also the grandson of a person she hated, but even that guy left her.
Holly Black (The Book of Night p139)
Charlie wanted everyone to think of her as hardheaded and hardhearted. Hard as old petrified wood, as rocks, as candy that cracks your teeth. But she wasn't.
Holly Black (The Book of Night p146)
Oh, and this time she really would make him pay, for the past, for the gun he had on her, but most of all for sending Hermes and wrecking a perfectly good relationship built on perfectly good lies.
Holly Black (The Book of Night P163)
I wish I could say that I was sorry. That I wanted to be honest the whole time, but I didn't; I never wanted what I told you to be true.
Holly Black (The Book of Night P212)
It made her a little giddy to think of having another fight with him. It made her want to put on lipstick.
Holly Black (The Book of Night P235)
Love was a family religion, passed done to her when she'd been to young to protect herself from belief.
Holly Black (The Book of Night p265)
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