One Dark Window: A Book Review

I really wanted to enjoy this book more than I did. It was atmospheric, and the opening hooked me immediately; I was drawn to Elspeth, a quiet, quietly resentful (with very good reason), and frightened survivor of a woman. I was intrigued by the awful Physicians and by the Nightmare. I was drawn to her friendship with Ione (at first, anyway). I enjoyed the entire concept of the Shepherd King and all the associated reveals. But...

Spoilers below!

...then it got very YA tropey. Elspeth became feisty beyond what I thought was reasonable or rational for a woman afraid of being caught and gruesomely killed, who'd spent more than a decade masking her expressions and keeping such momentous secrets. She kept bloody talking out loud to the Nightmare! She's a terrible liar! Surely she should be better at it, considering her life depends on her ability to lie and blend in!

The rhyming got a little awkward and juvenile at times. The language - the actual dialogue between the characters - veered towards idiosyncratically modern, which annoyed me. The mythos/culture of the trees and the Spirit of the Wood, while full of potential, felt shallowly developed.  And the dissolution of Elspeth and Ione's friendship unfolded so swiftly that it gave me whiplash. Their relationship was more told than shown, and I wish it was more shown.

I liked the fairytale vibe, but it was occasionally clumsily executed: in the chapter headings, in the names - it's really hard to take a kingdom named Blunder seriously. And 'Ravyn' - yes, with a y - read like an attempt to make him cool. Honestly, just name him Raven and be done with it. He's cool enough!

I enjoyed Elspeth and Ravyn's romance, though the progression of it felt a little quick. But then, I'm reminded that I married my husband pretty quickly and now I'm not sure I have room to judge. Also, I liked the implication that part of Elspeth's attraction to Ravyn was sheer hunger for intimacy and connection as well as like-recognizing-like. Also, to both their credit, they're a fittingly dark fairytale couple. They suit the genre and the story without being painful or cringey and while still having that appealing passion. They communicate pretty well. All miscommunication is perfectly understandable rather than shoehorned in, and fairly swiftly resolved. 

I also really liked all the side-characters, except Hauth, who felt a little one-dimensional. What made him a brute? Power? The Scythe card? A horrible father? Yes...and yet, I felt like his suspicions of Ravyn et al. could have been better founded... Also, honestly, for people committing treason, they were pretty clumsy about it, walking around with bruises from their altercation in front of the people who caused them. The very next day, no less! But yes, Elspeth's father, aunt, and uncle were interesting characters with some depth, and so were Jespyr and Renelm and my darling Emory.

My main issue with this story, though, and the reason it's not 3 stars for me, is that the reveal about the Nightmare and the Rowans was obvious almost immediately, and even in-universe, I felt like Elspeth should have been able to put two and two together. That she didn't, for eleven years, felt like a real stretch. It felt like she got dumbed down for the sake of the 'shock twist' which was neither shocking nor a twist at all. And I also feel like this should have been a standalone, not a duology.

I'm going to read the sequel to find out what happens, but I'm skeptical that there can possibly be a whole book's worth of plot to be found. The ending was fantastic...I just wished it wasn't the ending.

We shall see how the sequel holds up, but my expectations are low.