These books were a pretty quick read and entertaining enough. They’re right in the middle – perfectly adequate and satisfactory but ultimately disposable. Basically, would I recommend these books? Maybe, after a long list of other books first. Would I dissuade you from reading them? Not at all. They are perfectly fine. In fact, even the flaws aren’t interesting enough to make me want to go discuss them in a thread. And you have seen me nitpick Onyx Storm.
While some of the plot points don’t hold together if you look at them too closely, the magic system and world building in this one were fairly interesting. There is both natural magic in this world but it isn’t trusted and associated with the mists and fevers, and card driven magic, based on the Providence deck created centuries before by the Shepherd King. Anyone that gets touched by the mists and finds themselves with magical gifts is supposed to be turned into the government. And while some of these powers can be incredible, they all have a cost. Of course, not everyone cursed has been executed or exiled – some have gifts that are valuable to the king. Others, like Elspeth, our main character (and only POV character of book 1) were hidden by their families. Elspeth’s family believe that she survived the fever without receiving a magical gift but that’s not the case. It’s simply that her ability is so specific, she has only had the chance to use it once, the first and only time she held a Providence card, a Nightmare card, and started hearing the voice of the beast drawn on the card in her head. This voice whom she simply calls Nightmare also shares its abilities with her when asked, allowing her to fight her way out of scraps and see Providence cards, even when hidden.
Throughout the first book, we get passages from their foundational text, The Old Book of Alder, which explains the creation of the 12 types of cards that make up the Providence deck, their strengths and weaknesses, and what the Shepherd King had to give up in bargain to make that card type (for example, the first type have the highest quantity and had the lowest cost; there are 12 Black Horses which make their carriers strong but only 8 Maidens, 2 Nightmares etc). No one has ever seen the final card, the only one of its kind.
Elspeth for the most part is one of those main characters that tends to hide and lay low, fearing any attention coming to her but when her father brings her to court, she ends up pulled into political intrigues. The legend is that someone that has one of each of the 12 cards can heal the kingdom, and the final card is of course the challenge. The king supposedly has been trying to find it and complete the set but under his nose, another group is also trying to assemble the deck and this is who Elspeth falls in with.
Elspeth is not the most engaging lead character – the voice in her head is far more intriguing than her. Quite a lot of One Dark Window involves her holding back information from the rebel group she has joined because she is afraid of how the others will react. She also misses a few things that seem pretty obvious – a generous read would be that it’s because she is in denial and hasn’t wanted to think about her situation. However it is pretty obvious to the reader, so one thing I did appreciate is that Gillig didn’t make this her end of book reveal and at least got us there around the two-thirds mark, setting something else to be the cliffhanger.
The second novel was a strong improvement on the first – the novel gives POV chapters to two additional chapters, Elm, the spare prince, and Ravyn, Elspeth’s love interest. It makes sense since Elm stays behind at the castle and deals with the court, and Ionne, Elspeth’s cousin, while Ravyn and Elspeth depart on a quest for the last card. The best part about Elspeth’s POV this time is that we get into more of the story the Nightmare who is sharing her head and body and that’s the part that was really interesting to me.
In this one, it is Ravyn that is in serious denial or ignoring the obvious- his brother Emory made the very convincing case that they were descended from the Shepherd King in the first novel, and yet Ravyn seems to be very much ignoring that while events in this book all keep making this more and more relevant. I think it’s mostly explained by avoidance and denial but it also makes Elspeth and Ravyn seem especially unable to connect the dots or intellectually challenged.
Elm pairs up with Ionne and I quite enjoyed this part of the story. It has already been mentioned previously in the series but the time at court shows how the Providence cards have become a corrupting influence on the kingdom with the royal family and their mastery of the cards that let them control others being especially bad. The Shepherd King created the cards to allow people to use magic without having to worry about the cost that came from the infection but it has created a different kind of rot.
The novel overall wraps everything up nicely, and the Nightmare’s story was a big part of that, even if it felt very allegorical with lessons about losing sight of what’s in front of you for consuming obsessions.