The idea of “quickened” or magical shadows sounded cool but even now I couldn’t tell you how they came to be or really what they could do? It just didn’t seem very well thought out, structured or maybe it just wasn’t explained well. The magic system in this book made absolutely no sense to me. She can’t just walk away from her old life and it didn’t want to let her go. I liked her don’t give a fu** attitude and the struggle she faced throughout the book of wanting to get away from her life of crime but it being a fundamental part of who she was. She’d made a name for herself in the magical community as one of the best criminals while simultaneously keeping her identity a secret and supporting herself and her sister. Never met a bad decision she wasn’t willing to double down on.” I actually really liked Charlie. “There’d always been something wrong with Charlie Hall. After that ending though I’m wishing I had just not bothered picking it up again.

Well it’s done so yay? I read the first few chapters and decided to DNF this one, but then a few weeks later my audiobook loan came in and I decided to give it a second chance. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgängers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister-all desperate to control the magic of the shadows. But when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie’s present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear-and at worst, non-existent. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires. And sometimes, it has a life of its own.Ĭharlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. Your shadow holds all the parts of you that you want to keep hidden-a second self, standing just to your left, walking behind you into lit rooms. You can alter someone’s feelings-and memories-but manipulating shadows has a cost, with the potential to take hours or days from your life. In Charlie Hall’s world, shadows can be altered, for entertainment and cosmetic preferences-but also to increase power and influence.

Holly black book of night series