A Day of Fallen Night

Prequels aren't usually my jam. More often than not I find them to over eager to remind you of the stories that came before, and neglecting to forge a personality of their own. Needless to say, I was thrilled when not only did A Day of Fallen Night manage to be an amazing book in it's own right, but eclipse Priory entirely.

This book answered every single issue that I had with Priory, and then elevated itself even further in my eyes. The plot is stellar, which is really impressive, considering anyone who read Priory, knew how this was going to go, almost beat for beat, yet Shannon manages to weave the story in such a way that you're kept guessing on the finer details all the way up until to the end.

Every single character jumps off the page, and if I was to sit here and gush about each of them, I'd probably end up hitting the character limit on Goodreads. So, I'll just gush about each of the PoVs for a bit, because they all slap. One takes a little bit to get going, but when it got going, it was one of the first to become a consistent page turner for me.
First, you have Gloria. Gloria is the Berethnet heir, and is reluctant to do the duty that her line has, to bear an heir, and keep the Nameless One at bay. The daughter of the first good Berethnet in living memory, and a heathen king, Gloria is an extremely strong willed character, who goes on an extremely emotional journey throughout this book, being forced to come into her own by the grief of ages. While she is in my opinion, the weakest of the 4 PoVs, that's by no means a dishonor to her, as she is phenomenally well written, and in my opinion eclipses all of the PoVs from the previous book.

Secondly there's Dumai. Dumai is the answer to my dislike of Tane's PoV from the previous book, that the East didn't have good representation in that book, whereas here, the East shines, and allows us to finally get a good idea of the culture of the Seiikinese, something I felt was lacking from Priory. On top of that is her romance plot, which is my favourite in the series, not to mention just outright being one of my favourite romances in fantasy overall. Dumai is a temple keeper, who is the daughter of the emperor, kept in hiding in a mountain shrine.

Thirdly, there's Wulf. We stan Wulf in this household. Wulf is an orphan who was adopted by a lord, but has to contend with the whispers that he's the spawn of a witch, due to him being found in the Witchwood as a child. He brings this fascinating perspective on the Six Virtues, as he always feels like he has one foot in and one foot out. Couple that with the mystery surrounding him, and you have the recipe for a genuinely amazing character to follow.

And lastly, we have Tuva. Tuva has my entire heart. This, this right here, is the best character between the two books. Tuva is an older member of the Priory, and the keeper of the tomb. She acts as a mother to her lover's daughter, who bears her name. This is because of the loss of her own child years before the story. Something awesome about this character is that she's older lesbian rep, something that I don't think I've ever seen before, so that's a pretty big feather in her cap. But on top of that, she's just an amazingly well written character. It was like this book was made explicitly so that Shannon could tell her story, and I'm delighted about that, because I adore her so so much. One of my favourite characters in literature, by a country mile.

As I said before, I could gush for ages about the characters in this book, but we'd be here for far too long, because there's just that many great characters throughout. I would recommend this book to people just for the character's alone, so everything else being just as good is just a bonus.

The story itself is amazing. Shannon used the structure of this novel to create this really slow burn plot that explodes all of a sudden, that's only enhanced by having read Priory first, and knowing the battles that are to come. The way she interwove the personal struggles of the characters into the overall throughline of the book was genuinely marvelous. The fact that she was able to convincingly interweave all of the PoVs as well was stellar. Fyredel as a villain is fantastic, and this book really allows us to see why dragons are so feared, much more so than Priory did, in my opinion.
And then there's the worldbuilding. This book not only has really solid explicit worldbuilding, but if you've read Priory, it also has amazing subtle worldbuilding, as you can spy really small cultural changes, such as the fact that the twelve virtues is only six virtues here, implying that over the next 500 years another 6 get added, only enhancing the fact that the religion Virtudom is built on is kind of wishy washy and bullshit. There's also the major cultural differences that the East has, due to the water dragons falling into a slumber years before the story.

And the romance is so good. I thought Ead and Sab were good, but both romances in this book were so well written, one being a really solid slow burn romance that's just burgeoning, and the other being a romance that's been a reality for the two characters for decades at this point, but is still really strong throughout. On top of both of these, whenever there's characters in a relationship, they're written in such a way that you can tell they love each other, and it doesn't feel like them being together is a contrivance for the sake of the story, which is such a breath of fresh air, since a lot of fantasy will write characters that seemingly hate being in their relationship, but will swear up and down that they're happy together.

On top of that, Shannon writes spice really well, though it isn't ACOTAR levels of spice, it's there, and it's fantastic. It doesn't dominate the chapters it's in, but it's portrayed in a realistic manner, and used to show the personalities of the characters, with the way they approach sex reflecting the way they approach everything in life

Then there's the battle scenes. Iw alked away from Priory really disappointed, because the final battle of the book sucked. But that's not the case here. Everytime there's a major battle, it has awesome moments, where every major character involved is given a moment to shine, and I couldn't have been happier about that. This book is host to one of my favourite fight scenes I think I've ever read, that being Fyredel making a delivery of some bones.

Overall, I fucking adored this book, please read it. Even if you didn't enjoy Priory, I think there's something here for you, since this one answered every single issue I had with it, and then some. 5/5 stars, this was a journey I was loathe to see the end of. I can't wait to see what the future holds for Roots of Chaos, but if this is any indication, it's a very bright one.