Review: The Heir of Night
Opening Line: ‘The wind blew out of the northwest in dry, fierce gusts, sweeping across the face of the Gray Lands.’
A slow start, but worth the wait. It took me a little while to get into this one, as much as I loved the first chapter – but that may have been my state of mind more than the book, it’s a little hard to tell. Our main character is Malian, daughter of the Earl of Night, part of a community (the Derai) dedicated to defending the realm against dark forces. We’ve also got Kalan, stuck lower down the hierarchy. Both of these characters were well-created and enjoyable to read, which is always a good start. Once we got his point-of-view section, I rather liked the Earl too – I felt like Lowe got a good balance between making him a stickler for the rules and making him a sensible, sympathetic character despite his distance from Malian.
The setting is well-done, and there’s a nice twist in the Derai backstory that I liked. The magic system is a neat balance between straight-forward and murky – it’s clean enough that you more or less know what each person’s capabilities are, but mysterious enough to give Lowe room to add elements as the story develops. It will be interesting to see where she takes this in later books.
Plot-wise, I liked that Lowe didn’t try to do too much or too little – I felt the pacing worked well (gentle compared to some books but never boring). There were some moments where events seem to happen out of nowhere – characters suddenly appearing to change the course of a fight or similar. But that felt like the internal logic was still good, it was just that there was a scene missing perhaps (the functional kind where a character said “let’s go and do that”). It seemed just to be that Lowe is still getting a handle on when to show things happening and when not to, which should improve over time.
I’m not desperate to read the next book, but I do look forward to doing so at some point – I want to see what’s in store for Malian! Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable read with some rough edges. 4/5.
You might enjoy this book if you enjoyed: Green Rider (Kristen Britain), Sea (Sarah Driver), The Final Empire (Brandon Sanderson).
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