We were shopping for children’s books for The Smallest Niece when Darkly caught my eye across the bookstore. A riot of magenta (images aren’t doing it justice), it begged to come home for *someone* this Christmas. A cursory glance at the tag line – “You don’t own the game, it owns you” – revealed it as a perfect top up gift for The Best Nephew in Australia.
The Best Nephew In Australia loved The Inheritance Games – hat tip to my sister for raising a boy who thinks nothing of reading female protagonists, btw – and this seemed in the same vein. Intricate games, high stakes, an out of nowhere protagonist who disrupts the status quo.
It both was and wasn’t what I expected. Where The Inheritance Games revolved around puzzles, tricks and traps set by the family for the family, Darkly revolves around what are more akin to TableTop RPGs, like the old school Vampire: The Masquerade, or Magic: The Gathering. I’m not a player, though I have friends who are, so I can’t speak with any authority on existing games. I DO feel, however, that the Darkly games are probably played a little more IRL than these classics.
We meet our protagonist, Dia, in the antique shop she and her family (biological and adopted) run in the American Mid West (I’m Aussie, free pass on my lack of mental map here). She is straight out of Central Casting for a plucky, quirky, old-before-her-time protag: old school name (Dia is short for Arcadia), her mum is flighty, so she’s taken on the lion’s share of the responsibility at the shop, and she’s a high school outcast most at home with the elderly shop assistants (older than most of the antiques they sell).
Pessl wastes no time getting us to and from the inciting incident. Dia applies for an internship with the eponymous Darkly gaming company. Formerly run by Louisiana Veda, a rags-to-riches artist and game creator who died under mysterious circumstances in the 70s, Darkly no longer produces new games. The games that Louisiana did create are collector’s items, intricate and mysterious, which are almost impossible to win, and now sell for millions. Dia has run across one in the antiques store in the past, but was unable to complete it (see: flighty mother).
When Dia is one of seven selected for the internship, she’s whisked away to London, and the remote island where the Darkly factory devised, tested and manufactured the games. It doesn’t take long for the team to get embroiled in the last, stolen Louisiana/Darkly game. I don’t know if it’s because I’m Officially Old & Parental now, but I found the game play (from the entry mechanic to the actual play itself) chilling. Safe to say, Monopoly these games are NOT.
Did I have quibbles and nits to pick? Of COURSE I did! All the interns are 17, but were still all good to drink in the UK with no ID? There were multiple mentions of a “bowl of pound notes,” and I needed that to be clarified – pounds are coins, were these multi-denomination notes, or just an error?
Are these silly things to raise? Possibly, but I was so compelled by the narrative, and these little things took me out of it. I consume fiction ravenously, but for YA audiences, who can get turned off and wander away more easily, I’d consider that little stuff important to fix.
But, let’s get right down to it. The honest answer is that if MP decided to write one book covering each game mentioned in (what appears to be) a standalone novel, I would read them all. I was by turns terrified, enthralled, and delighted by Dia’s progress through the game and her interpersonal relationships. It’s a perfect YA palate cleanser heading into the New Year, and I highly recommend it.
And the Best Nephew in Aus? His mum had to confiscate the book because he was reading it instead of sleeping.