CITY OF NIGHT
WRITTEN BY OCTOBER K SANTERELLI
REVIEW WRITTEN BY JOE COMPTON
SEQUEL TO CITY OF DAY, BOOK 2 IN NIGHTFALL SERIES
RELEASED: JULY 8TH, 2025
PUBLISHER: SELF
LENGTH: 349 PAGES
GENRE: DARK FANTASY/HORROR
SYNOPSIS: Thislen is seeing things. A month of torment at the hands of Lord Soren Bestant and his friends has Thislen haunted by the ghosts of his worst failures. Determined to outlast his captors and protect Aften, Tamsa, and the Nattfolk, Thislen must rely on the whispers of the dead.
Mila has changed. She's not afraid of the Night Council and she's not afraid to fight. Her goals are simple. One, rescue Thislen from Ship Artaith and get her best friend back. Two, work with him to break the curse once and for all. All they need to do is find the vial. If only everyone would listen!
Aften lost everything. His sister betrayed him, the man he loves died, and he's useless. What options are there for the son of a Councilman who can't do anything right? He's always wanted to be free, but after a month of captivity, he's realizing freedom might not look like what he thought.
Who they were and who they are clash with everyone around them, creating new alliances and new enemies. Everything is a mess, and it gets worse once they reunite. The pressures of family and friends threaten their plans, and the clash of wills might tear them all apart. One thing remains clear, however: they must break the curse. They're running out of time - and options.The Vaim are acting strange. The trio has a growing suspicion that someone has figured out the island's secret and is testing the nighttime defenses of Astera...but who?
So those who have been following this blog, Go Indie Now, or me know how much I loved CITY OF DAY, the first book in this series. I was very excited when I began reading because it picked up close to where it left off, and I love that. Even more so because I was happily surprised at how this entry in this series has an edge to it, and bites right from the get-go. The writing here is vivid and powerful. I mean to feel everything Thislen feels and to absorb those visuals not just in a visceral sense but in a shocking and emotional sense. There are very few torture scenes and its immediate aftermath that I have ever read that really enrapture you like the opening chapters on the Ship Artaith here.
What this also did for this reader was give me the sense that this book is going to be different from the first. Not just in tone but in characters, in stakes, and most certainly in motive. While that might be a somewhat natural progression, the level of maturity here is 'next level' in execution. It has a different nuance to even the deeper subtext and complex emotions that permeate these characters and their senses of situations and decisions.
Where I felt the first book seemed to be a journey to get to a pivot point, and it took some time to find its footing, there is no waiting here in the 2nd book, and the pivot is almost immediate, even for the antagonists. I'd loved and ate that all up with a big spoon.
There also becomes this interesting subconscious aspect that hit me, in how much what I might have deemed as fluff or a little too much at times in the 1st book really started to make sense, thanks to the smart way October chooses to write this book.
I love the characters' growth here; all of them seem to get a moment to show you the effects of what they experienced. I love that it had a profound effect and a fairly permanent one at that. There is a tendency, because there are so many books within a fantasy series, for the 2nd book to slow the progress, but October smartly alters it and accelerates it, and it works well. Thislen has some doubts within himself about his growth, and I think not only being able to see that acknowledged by the character but by those who are closest to him, is an incredibly clever device.
What this also did for this reader was give me the sense that this book is going to be different from the first. Not just in tone but in characters, in stakes, and most certainly in motive. While that might be a somewhat natural progression, the level of maturity here is 'next level' in execution. It has a different nuance to even the deeper subtext and complex emotions that permeate these characters and their senses of situations and decisions.
Where I felt the first book seemed to be a journey to get to a pivot point, and it took some time to find its footing, there is no waiting here in the 2nd book, and the pivot is almost immediate, even for the antagonists. I'd loved and ate that all up with a big spoon.
There also becomes this interesting subconscious aspect that hit me, in how much what I might have deemed as fluff or a little too much at times in the 1st book really started to make sense, thanks to the smart way October chooses to write this book.
I love the characters' growth here; all of them seem to get a moment to show you the effects of what they experienced. I love that it had a profound effect and a fairly permanent one at that. There is a tendency, because there are so many books within a fantasy series, for the 2nd book to slow the progress, but October smartly alters it and accelerates it, and it works well. Thislen has some doubts within himself about his growth, and I think not only being able to see that acknowledged by the character but by those who are closest to him, is an incredibly clever device.
Yet that being said, there is so much more to explore here, and leaving that for the next installments is equally as interesting, engaging, and clever. The fact that we, the reader, know that there is more to some stories here, lends to seeing more of how the characters approach the reveal than the reveal itself. I love that idea, but mind you, all this takes place in one of the more chaotic atmospheres you could be exploring feelings and internalized thoughts from. The amount of shit that is going on at one time is unbelievable. I love the compartmentalized side journeys of a few characters at a time here too. It gives off The Empire Stikes Back/Return of the Jedi feel.
The pacing here is very similar to the 1st book, but because the lore and the details don't need to be as prevalent, because we know them thanks to Book 1, it does have the optical illusion of moving a tad faster, especially since it starts right away, and because we are following many more characters at once or side by side I guess would be a more apt comparasion.
The battle scenes here are really done superbly; they bob and weave like a great boxing match or more like 3 boxing matches at once. I also love that you really get all perspectives and they work to our advantage as readers, so that one scene can jump to another and not leave us hanging on to something other than the climax for too long. This is super important too because there is so much going on and keeping it straight becomes difficult if you try to hard cut someone's 'moment'. October has a great sense of when to jump out of one scene in the battle and fall into the next.
Overall, as someone who loves the 1st book and loves these characters, big team Thislen by the way, for the record that is, I honestly think Book 2 kicks its ass. At least it hits harder and faster and really showcases how amazing a chess player October is when it comes to plots, subplots, and subtexts. All are rich and valuable here, and while this book ends on a cliffhanger. It ends on a cliffhanger, the way Evil Dead II ended on a cliffhanger, and if City of Death becomes the Army of Darkness of the Nightfall Series I won't be mad at that but I have a feeling the evolution continues and I am certainly ready for that too.
YOU CAN GET BOTH BOOKS AND START YOUR NIGHTFALL SERIES EXPERIENCE HERE
YOU CAN GET BOTH BOOKS AND START YOUR NIGHTFALL SERIES EXPERIENCE HERE
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