Book Review - One Dark Window
One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig - 5/5 🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞
I genuinely loved this book. Described as a “Lush, gothic fantasy about a maiden who must unleash the monster within”, it certainly lives up to that.
Gillig did a fantastic job of creating a unique world with interesting characters and magic. In the mist-shrouded kingdom of Blunder, those who hold providence cards have power. Some of the lore in the book indicates that the kingdom of Blunder used to pay homage to and receive protection from a spirit of the forest. The oldest and most powerful families in Blunder take their names from trees. However, at some point, the King began to trade away pieces of himself to the forest spirit for power to save his kingdom from a plague. These powers came in the form of providence cards. Over time Blunder turned its back on the forest spirit who punished the kingdom with malevolent mists that are slowly enveloping the kingdom.
There are those who are trying to find a complete set of all twelve providence cards so that they can banish the mists and restore the kingdom. There are a certain number of each card: twelve Black Horse cards, eleven Golden Egg cards, and so on. Each possesses its own unique abilities. The cards grant their wielders great powers, but also at great risk. One card remains elusive for there is only one Twin Alders card and no one knows where it is.
This is the kind of stuff that gets me super curious and excited and I want to know way more about all those historical nitty-gritty details. I really like the providence cards and I want to draw them all at some point. I love the book of Alders, and the rhyming sing-song mystery of it. (if Gillig ever made one I would buy it in a heartbeat to keep on my shelf). I love the Nightmare and I’m really curious to learn more about him in the second book.
There is a bit of forbidden romance/forced proximity between our protagonist Elspeth and her love interest Ravyn, which is of course fantastic for us readers. Elspeth is a compelling protagonist who has had to live with a terrible secret most of her life and whose mind is slowly being consumed by the Nightmare. They have an interesting relationship and I really enjoyed their dynamic. It is nice to see Elspeth slowly breaking free of the restraint she’s had to endure for so many years and start to come into her own, even as the clock is ticking down for her. Gillig has some interesting insights regarding Elspeth and the maiden archetype in an article she wrote that is worth checking out.
I don’t want to go into too many more details because I want to keep things spoiler free, but if any of this sounds interesting to you, I highly recommend you grab her book and read it ASAP. The prose was beautiful, the pacing was great, and overall I can’t find anything to complain about. Fair warning: this book ends on the most ridiculous cliffhanger and as soon as I finished I promptly went to Amazon to buy the sequel, only to find that it’s not out yet, and nearly threw my Kindle across the room in a fit of rage. I pre-ordered the sequel instead. I believe as of this writing it’s scheduled for release sometime in October 2023.
Till next time dear reader, go read some books, but especially this one! <3 Tiff
Tiff’s Lobster Rating Scale:
Tiff’s Lobster Rating Scale:
🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞 - A GREAT book, couldn’t put it down, still thinking about it after I’ve finished it, would read again, hit a lot of my ‘book sweet spots’.
🦞🦞🦞🦞 - A REALLY GOOD book, I genuinely enjoyed it.
🦞🦞🦞 - A GOOD book, not bad, but it didn’t leave me wanting more either.
🦞🦞 - Meh, JUST OK. I had serious problems with this book and did not enjoy it. I maybe didn’t finish it.
🦞 - This book was deplorable, and probably contained some highly inappropriate or questionable content.
