Courting Darkness

"Sybella has always been the darkest of Death’s daughters, trained at the convent of Saint Mortain to serve as his justice. But she has a new mission now. In a desperate bid to keep her two youngest sisters safe from the family that nearly destroyed them all, she agrees to accompany the duchess to France, where they quickly find themselves surrounded by enemies. Their one ray of hope is Sybella’s fellow novitiates, disguised and hidden deep in the French court years ago by the convent—provided Sybella can find them. Genevieve has been undercover for so many years, she struggles to remember who she is or what she’s supposed to be fighting for. Her only solace is a hidden prisoner who appears all but forgotten by his guards. When tragedy strikes, she has no choice but to take matters into her own hands—even if it means ignoring the long awaited orders from the convent. As Sybella and Gen’s paths draw ever closer, the fate of everything they hold sacred rests on a knife’s edge. Will they find each other in time, or will their worlds collide, destroying everything they care about?"

Courting Darkness by Robin LaFevers - release date February 5, 2019

We're back!!  In a few weeks I have my next TBR meeting and will be stocking up on more unreleased books.  I got this one early so I can review it at the next meeting.  Let me just start by saying the cover is SO GORGEOUS.  Everyone who says "I don't judge a book by its cover" is LYING because pretty covers are amazing.  SO Courting Darkness is the first book in a duology but it's set in the same universe as the His Fair Assassin trilogy and has many overlapping characters.  Technically, you don't need to read those three before this one to be able to understand it, but sometimes I really felt like I was lacking the whole backstory of many characters but overall I was still able to enjoy it without having read that other series first.  The book was told from two narrators, Sybella and Genevieve, but to be honest I feel like it would have been good from just Sybella's perspective.

Sybella is one of my favorite characters in here.  One thing I really like about her is that she is able to speak to the other people around her and clears up any misunderstandings immediately when they happen, which is not often seen.  Miscommunication as a plot device is one of my pet peeves since the problems that are created by it could be so easily avoided, so I really appreciated how Sybella was the opposite of that.  The other narrator was Genevieve, but she started getting on my nerves and by the end of the book I wished to just skip over her parts entirely.  Genevieve appears like she has good intentions but just ends up ruining everything in at least more than one time.  She is selfish and a manipulative liar and literally denied on three separate occasions events that have happened between her and the 'mysterious prisoner' even though they BOTH KNOW that it DID IN FACT HAPPEN and that she is LYING STRAIGHT TO HIS FACE.  The first time I was like wow I can't believe she did that but got over it.  The second time she did that I was like OK you're in denial just get over it you are making EVERYTHING more difficult for everybody.  And the THIRD time she did it I wanted to throw the book across the room!!!  It was extremely aggravating.  Two other characters I want to mention: I adore the duchess so much she is so pure and good and a very brave/strong woman and I literally am only going to read the next book of this series because of her.  The other one is the regent, the king of France's sister, and she is LITERALLY the worst person ever so props to the author for creating a great villain because boy do I hope the regent gets the bubonic plague (LOL).  There are some good ships in this book; Beast and Sybella are the definition of an amazing couple.  Their backstory I feel like is 100% in the other series, so we don't really see anything developing here, just them being together through the whole thing and supporting each other through different issues that present themselves.
There were a few times when I sat back and was like "Is there really a plot to this yet?"  Eventually I think I got what the plot was supposed to be but it took a little bit.  Another thing that was confusing was the families of some of these people?  Like who's related to who?  There is a list of characters at the beginning but I feel like a literal family tree would have been more helpful.  Also the daughters of Death/Mortain I couldn't tell if he was REALLY their dad or if they are just blessed by him.  Maybe it explains that better in the other series.  Also I think the plot was supposed to be historically accurate or at least historically based so that was pretty cool and I think it was done well.  

I think I covered all my likes and dislikes about this.  I could say repeatedly into infinity how much I loved the duchess and it still wouldn't be enough; I could also talk forever about how annoying Genevieve was.

Overall I gave this three stars.  My rating originally was going to be higher, but then the book kept feeling like it was dragging on and Genevieve got more and more annoying so that combo ended me with the rating I have now.  If it weren't for the duchess and the sort-of cliffhanger that it ended with, I don't even think I'd read the next book when it comes out because that would probably mean I would have to read more from Genevieve's perspective which I really don't want to do but will probably have to anyway.  I hope she is less annoying next time and maybe gets a grip on her own trust issues and etc.  Also in the next book I hope the regent gets banished or something, or maybe just punched in the face.  Either would be fine!  Took me 9 days to read.  Stay tuned in a few weeks for more reviews!!

-Taylor

Reviewed on January 4, 2019