They Mostly Come Out At Night
Written by Benedict Patrick Book Review by Miranda Fraser (Moses) ISBN: 9781530640102 My Ghouls and Ghosties, let's continue this Halloween Book Review Series of 2022 with another fiction novel. This is considered a dark fantasy that is heavy on folklore. This is not going to be my usual happy book review. I wanted to love this story so badly! But I just couldn't. I still want to compliment Mr. Patrick because writing a novel is hard work. And I can tell from his own notes and comments that this, his first novel, means so much to him. I will also say that it has a very mixed audience of people who loved it and people who hated it. Just look at Goodreads and you'll see it for yourself. With that in mind, I do these with the encouragement that you never know what book will get you into reading. And just because it wasn't my cup of tea, doesn't mean it won't be yours! This novel has a bit of a dual storyline and we're definitely going to get into it. We immediately meet Lonan a simple villager- who is hated by basically everyone around him. You see in this world, it is not safe at night. When the sun starts to set the villagers all lock up their houses and hole themselves up in their cellars until daybreak. Monsters roam at night and will feed on anyone they get their hands on. But never fear, there is a Magpie King out there combing the forest for danger and doing his best to keep his people safe. But one man, even powerful and swift as he is, cannot possibly cover all territories of his forest at once. And so the villagers hide and wait... but sometimes these monsters breach the doors and get inside. When Lonan was a child- yes, a literal child- he was making so much noise inside their cellar that a monster broke through and killed his father. Another cellar was also breached that night mauling a girl and killing her mother. And from that night on not a soul could stand Lonan's existence. His own mother even tossed him out. However, the village healer took him in. Knowing he was a child who did not purposefully hurt these people. And besides, she already had a man in a vegetative state staying with her. What was one more mouth to feed? Furthermore, in this world, all humans develop a Knack. A special talent that they get by repeating a task over and over. It's essentially the phrase practice makes perfect. The more they practice a skill the better they will become at it. Lonan's father was a blacksmith and because he was an outcast from the village he never got to practice his father's skill and get a blacksmithing Knack of his own. But as Lonan becomes a man he develops these dreams where he is seeing the Magpie King and his heir's journeys. Now, because he can see their journeys, we can see their journeys. And it becomes an almost separate storyline happening throughout the book. PLUS every so many chapters there is an entire chapter that is just folklore that exists within the world in this book. These dreams however bring nothing but trouble to the village as Lonan discovers terrible secrets about the Magpie King's reign, his source of power, and more. That's what I'll give you about the story itself. Now, let's discuss the book. I found it to be too slow. Personally, if I'm 60 pages in and wondering when it's going to pick up... well... It's kind of boring to me. I was over 100 pages in before I was like, "Okay, tell me more." Then there's a whole part in the center of the book where it appears that both Lonan and the Magpie King have their happy endings. If you had just put a sappy little "the end" paragraph in there, I would have fully believed that that was the end of the book. Instead of a climax where you expect the story to continue, it was just so neatly done that it felt like the resolution, thus making the "falling action" feel forced. There's a major plot twist that also felt shoehorned into the story in a very small amount of time. It was a lot to process. And the ending just left me sad and almost lonely feeling. And I know I said before that "Halloween" stories with a happy ending are a little weird... but this still just felt off. I was so excited about this story but it was a dark fantasy that was just not made for me. BUT plenty of others have enjoyed his original ideas and his plot twists. And while some of us didn't care about the folklore thrown throughout the book, others have praised it for its Brothers Grimm style and worldbuilding. This is one of those stories that you truly have to take a risk on. And if you do, I'd LOVE to hear your thoughts on this story! Read on my fellow bookworms. May we one day have Belle's library! And as always links to the author's pages can be found down below.
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