Crystal Collier approached me about reviewing her most recent novel, Timeless, a few months ago when she was first organizing her blog tour, and I agreed to read the whole series. Now, since I picked up all three in ebook format, I had no idea how long any of the books were when I agreed to this, and I was hoping I could read all three of them in time to get the review of Timeless up during the blog tour.
Well, it turns out Moonless is a pretty long book, so the blog tour is long over(although I still participated and you can see Crystal’s guest post), but I’m still going to review Timeless, and I’ve decided to review the other books as well. After all, new reviews are good for older books too. Every review counts, regardless of when you get it.
Anyway, without further ado, here’s the blurb for Moonless:
In the English society of 1768 where women are bred to marry, unattractive Alexia, just sixteen, believes she will end up alone. But on the county doorstep of a neighbor’s estate, she meets a man straight out of her nightmares, one whose blue eyes threaten to consume her whole world—especially later when she discovers him standing over her murdered host in the middle of the night.
Among the many things to change for her that evening are: her physical appearance—from ghastly to breathtaking, an epidemic of night terrors predicting the future, and the blue-eyed man’s unexpected infusion into her life. Not only do his appearances precede tragedies, but they’re echoed by the arrival of ravenous, black-robed wraiths on moonless nights.
Unable to decide whether he is one of these monsters or protecting her from them, she uncovers what her father has been concealing: truths about her own identity, about the blue-eyed man, and about love. After an attack close to home, Alexia realizes she cannot keep one foot in her old life and one in this new world. To protect her family she must either be sold into a loveless marriage, or escape with the man of her dreams and risk becoming one of the Soulless.
And here’s my review:
The story in this book is immediately interesting, and while I have to say it took me a while to warm up to the main character, the questions raised in the first couple chapters are big enough that it didn’t matter.
One really interesting thing about this book is the use of dreams. I can’t go into it much because I don’t want to take you to Spoiler Land, but there are several different dream sequences throughout the book, and the vast majority of them are done really well. As someone who always struggles with writing dream scenes and deciding how many to include/how long to make the dreams, I’m always impressed when a writer pulls this off well, and Collier definitely has.
Another interesting thing about this book–one that makes me really excited to continue reading the series–is that it presents unique twists on common myths. The magical species in this book are, as far as I can tell, original creations, but they have characteristics reminiscent of many myths. And although a lot of questions were answered at the end of Moonless, I have a feeling I’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg.
Really, my only complaint is the amount of time Alexia spends obsessing over the blue eyed stranger’s eyes. There are interesting reasons why she is immediately obsessed, and it’s worked into the world, but man, I don’t think I’ve ever read another book that spent so much time on a character’s eyes. It’s kind of insane.
Still, I really enjoyed this book and I’m definitely going to read the next one. Overall I would give Moonless a 3.5 star rating. You can buy Moonless here.