Down Comes the Night by Allison Saft

Down Comes the Night

by Allison Saft

He saw the darkness in her magic. She saw the magic in his darkness.

Wren Southerland’s reckless use of magic has cost her everything: she's been dismissed from the Queen’s Guard and separated from her best friend―the girl she loves. So when a letter arrives from a reclusive lord, asking Wren to come to his estate, Colwick Hall, to cure his servant from a mysterious illness, she seizes her chance to redeem herself.

The mansion is crumbling, icy winds haunt the caved-in halls, and her eccentric host forbids her from leaving her room after dark. Worse, Wren’s patient isn’t a servant at all but Hal Cavendish, the infamous Reaper of Vesria and her kingdom’s sworn enemy. Hal also came to Colwick Hall for redemption, but the secrets in the estate may lead to both of their deaths.

With sinister forces at work, Wren and Hal realize they’ll have to join together if they have any hope of saving their kingdoms. But as Wren circles closer to the nefarious truth behind Hal’s illness, they realize they have no escape from the monsters within the mansion. All they have is each other, and a startling desire that could be their downfall.

Allison Saft’s Down Comes the Night is a snow-drenched romantic fantasy that keeps you racing through the pages long into the night.

Love makes monsters of us all

Reviewed by riv @dearrivarie on

4 of 5 stars

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arc received from netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Down Comes the Night is a gothic fantasy that is aptly dedicated to "the girls who feel too much." Wren is the illegitimate daughter of the queen's sister and a skilled healer who finds herself on probation after choosing to heal an enemy soldier against orders. To avoid being reassigned, she takes the offer of a reclusive lord from the neighboring neutral country to heal his sick servant in hopes that she'll secure an alliance and win back favor. Everything about this book is addicting and atmospheric and brings back my fears of creaky old mansions. I honestly cannot pinpoint exactly what made this book so addicting but I genuinely became so invested with the characters and the plot that I could not stop reading.

Wren definitely had to grow on me because of how she allowed her emotions to control her actions so recklessly at first. Her relationships with Una and Isabel is rocky to say the least and leaving them behind seems incredibly irrational but I love how Allison Saft really took her emotions and taught her (and the reader as a result) how to use them to make her stronger. As she learns more about the other side through Hal and begins to question how wars are meant to solve the problem, her character development honestly blooms so beautifully. Speaking of Hal, I don't have much to comment on him per say but I absolutely adored seeing his relationship with Wren unfold, it's really one of those stories where the romantic subplot just works so well in highlighting the main character's arc without overpowering the storyline.

This is definitely a story that just evokes so much reading happiness because of the experience and makes me kind of sad that it's just a standalone. However, the story truly takes advantage of being a standalone to explore how religion and war are tied together and also throw in a soft romance that leaves all the room for yearning.

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Reading updates

  • 16 February, 2021: Started reading
  • 17 February, 2021: Finished reading
  • 26 July, 2021: Reviewed