Lord of Eternal Night (Darkmourn Universe, #1)

by Ben Alderson

[lessthelonely]

3/5 stars.

I've noticed that recently the way I choose the next book I'm going to read is very much on a whim. This is good since I haven't had time to do anything all that fun... Gotta love college! But I do still try to find some time to read - usually, it only happens once a week, though it was a little bit up as I was home for the holidays (still working... but with a bit more time without having to prepare meals and such).

The book I'm reviewing today is called Lord of Eternal Night and was written by Ben Alderson. I know I usually never do this "intro" paragraph since the title of the post is there for a reason but I haven't written a review in a while. I also am kinda sad that I started reading one of the books I got for Christmas and didn't do a reading diary for it, but I guess it's for the best since I also didn't review it here yet.

Lord of Eternal Night is an Achillean romance retelling of Beauty and The Beast, which seems to be a very big trend for the longest time. I think it started with A Court of Thorns and Roses, which I never read and am not particularly keen about reading. I might, but probably just to shit on it as Cindy does! From the information I get from browsing Goodreads from time to time, I feel like a lot of these retellings have the same basic elements: Beauty, Beast, Curse. That's it. The rest is usually added.

This book isn't an exception, as far as I'm aware. But then again, it felt fresh to me since I haven't read many retellings. Not that I don't like retellings! Just never happened that I got interested in reading retellings since I started this blog - I remember trying to read Peter Darling and being very disappointed in it at the time.

The thing about fantasy retellings is that you have to bring stuff to the table and you need to be able to write more than pretty words. I believe that this book has beautiful writing at moments, but I think it gets pretty lost in trying to sound eloquent and being as mystical and fantastical as it can. A lot of pretty terms seem as if they're a placeholder for what could've been a way more interesting plot for how short this book was. Because this book was short. But it read as long.

There isn't much plot in here. The worldbuilding is kept extremely barebones and dare I say sort of bland: there's a witch coven. There's a Monster that was created because of an ancestor of the coven. We don't learn much about magic, which could've been interesting. We learn some things, which were the greatest part of the book, but then again we don't even spend that much time building tension around what seems to be the big reveal of the book: how Marius (the Beast) ended up a vampire.

The magic system is elemental - which is already a very used thing -, but then it's also not expanded upon. Jak's training is also not expanded upon, he simply does what he can do, and that's fine... But then we're supposed to feel tense when it's time for the climax... I knew I was getting a happy ending, but it didn't feel nearly as nice as it did.

Still, though, even though I could also say that for a book where I can count the number of characters with the fingers of one hand (Jak's Mom, Marius, Katherine, Jak and a fifth one I don't remember the name of, unfortunately), Jak and Marius barely spend time together. There was a bit of banter but not nearly as enough when the main selling point of the book's marketing is the spice (which, by the way... fell flat for me) and the romance.

I did like Jak and I did like Marius. A lot of their relationship seemed like it happened off-page and then you're hit with Jak already having intense feelings for Marius. It didn't feel insta-lovey, just half-baked, like a lot of this book was for me, even if I don't think it was a bad experience.

Still, though, this was good to read as a way to finish off a lot of work-filled days.