[Book Review] Realm of Night by L.D. Goffigan

Realm of Night by L.D. Goffigan is a killer addition to the Mina Murray series!

After absolutely loving The Beast of London, but feeling lukewarm about Fortress of Blood, I was a little nervous going into this one. But of course I was absolutely thrilled to have received an ARC (thanks again to L.D. Goffigan!). So after cruising through the short story collection, I immediately jumped into this one.

Full disclosure: I was given a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. This did not affect my rating in any way. 

If you haven’t read my other reviews for the Mina Murray series, click the links below:

• The Beast of London (Mina Murray Book 1)
• Fortress of Blood (Mina Murray Book 2)
• Shadows of Night (A collection of short stories)

My Thoughts on Realm of Night by L.D. Goffigan

I enjoyed this read! Again, the first couple of chapters did a wonderful job summarizing all of the important things from the first two books in order to catch the reader up. 

The pacing was quick and the overall storyline was interesting. A few twists caught me off guard, while others were a bit predictable. I wasn’t totally hooked like the first book, but I was very intrigued to see what was going to happen.

I liked the characters and how they were protective of one another. Even though it has only been a few weeks since they had all been together, you could tell the situations they fought through really bound them.

I thought that the romance factor was a nice light touch that added some depth to the characters and the general storyline.

Beware, the negatives:
The repetition was a bit of a problem again. Example the double use of “wore” here: “She wore a gown of midnight blue, the golden mask she wore resembled the shape of two stars.“

I’m a big fan of when authors let the readers slowly piece things together on their own. In this book, I was indeed able to piece things together but soon after, one of the characters would give a full explanation. This is fine, as many readers may not have been able to piece the story together yet. However, I felt that there was too much explanation here in a handful of situations. A few times I caught myself thinking, “Yes, we’ve been over this already…”

One line totally confused me: “He reached down to grip my bruised arms, yanking me towards him so violently that the chains that could me to the wall disintegrated.” Immediately after that he bone cracked when she hit the floor. It seems like she also would have been severely injured by the yank as well if it was powerful enough to disintegrate chain.

My Favorite Passages from Realm of Night

The dark has never bothered me before, but after the events of the past few weeks, it now seemed foreboding.

I fear dark times are ahead. I would urge you to focus on the light in the darkness, on the one thing that makes humanity worth fighting for: love.

It is the sum of our actions which define us, Szabina. Not single ones.

My mouth twitched with amusement as he awkwardly shoved one of my waling suits into my bag.
“You have to fold it,” I prodded. For someone so brilliant, he was making a simple task needlessly complicated.
“Ah,” he muttered, his cheeks flaming as he folded the suit and placed in into my bag.

“You insult those of us who love you by insisting you’re a monster.”

Death was a cruel thing; instantaneous, impersonal, and permanent.

After I walked Jonathan to the door, I found Abe in the study. He was seated by the window, pretending to read a book on geography.
“That book is upside down,” I teasingly pointed out, as I entered the room.
“Ah,” he replied, embarrassed. He set the book down, not looking at me.

My Final Thoughts on Realm of Night

Overall, I enjoyed this read! It’s a quick and light vampire story that I would definitely recommend to anyone that likes books in the same vein as Twilight, but with a more adult twist of course! And no werewolves or god-awful sparkly vampires!

Though I had some issues with it, I thought that it was a good conclusion to the trilogy… If this is a trilogy? Everything seemed to be all wrapped up, but I suppose there could be more!

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