Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: January 14, 2025
Rating:
Goodreads Synopsis:
An epic fantasy of vampires, werewolves and sorcerers, Lightfall is the debut novel of Ed Crocker, for fans of Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire and Richard Swan’s The Justice of Kings.No humans here. Just immortals: their politics, their feuds—and their long buried secrets.For centuries, vampires freely roamed the land until the Grays came out of nowhere, wiping out half the population in a night. The survivors fled to the last vampire city of First Light, where the rules are simple. If you’re poor, you drink weak blood. If you’re nobility, you get the good stuff. And you can never, ever leave.Palace maid Sam has had enough of these rules, and she’s definitely had enough of cleaning the bedpans of the lords who enforce them. When the son of the city’s ruler is murdered and she finds the only clue to his death, she seizes the chance to blackmail her way into a better class and better blood. She falls in with the Leeches, a group of rebel maids who rein in the worst of the Lords. Soon she’s in league with a sorcerer whose deductive skills make up for his lack of magic, a deadly werewolf assassin and a countess who knows a city’s worth of secrets.There’s just one problem. What began as a murder investigation has uncovered a vast conspiracy by the ruling elite, and now Sam must find the truth before she becomes another victim. If she can avoid getting murdered, she might just live forever.
Review:
My partner and I are calling this book the nighty
bitey lumber yard…more on that shortly.
Lightfall by Ed Crocker is a multi-POV epic fantasy
that attempts to delve into the political machinations and secrets of an
immortal society. As a comparison to Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire,
this one sadly falls short for me. Where Empire is dark, edgy, and
pretty violent, Lightfall is slow and overly verbose.
The story follows many characters however, I would say that
Sam, a palace maid, is our MC. She stumbles upon a clue to how a young noble died
and leverages her wit and ambition to navigate a web of conspiracies, rebels,
and secrets throughout the city and the other nobles. All of the characters in
this book are immortal – a unique take on the normal vampire book. No humans as
prey. We follow vampires (nighty biteys), sorcerers, and werewolves and get a
POV from at least one of each. In total, I believe that there were at least 8 different
POV throughout this book.
The writing relies heavily on a journal-esq style description,
which often uses the “tell” versus “show” route. I was not a huge fan of that. These
entries attempt to provide world-building but come across as overly clinical
and detached, making it hard to connect with the setting organically. As an
example, a person walks into a room and immediately takes in the furniture but
also describes it all. It was so distracting and off-putting that it makes
it SO HARD to fully immerse yourself in the story. That brings us to the lumber yard….
PREPARE FOR A RANT: This author, for some asinine reason talks about fantasy wood FAR too often, an arboreal fascination of some type. It pulls you from the story so much that I has to stop and ask is crestwood real? Is gelmwood real? [starts Googling] No, no they are not – but the characters talk about the crestwood tables and the gelmwood chairs without really telling me what that means for them. Unlike if there were real wood types used i.e. then oak would tell me something was likely rough and maple would be softer/ smoother. In the first 20 or so pages there are like 8 references to woods… and it continues throughout the book. (I tabbed it, photo in my blog post). It is too much. I was HOPING that at the end there would be some weird revelation that the wood is important… so far NOPE. [This is in a ARC of the book, I am not sure if anything changed for final publication]
 |
| Wood type tabbing in Lightfall |
Anywho, the political intrigue and morally complex
characters are the novel's strongest elements, with an ensemble cast including
a clever but magicless sorcerer, a deadly werewolf assassin, and a countess
brimming with secrets.
Overall, Lightfall is a solid debut with a fascinating plot and an intricate political backdrop. Readers with patience for slower pacing and unconventional storytelling techniques may find this an enjoyable read, though others might struggle to engage fully.
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