Nevernight by Jay Kristoff – An Audio Book Review

Blurb:

Mia Corvere is only 10 years old when she is given her first lesson in death.

Destined to destroy empires, the child raised in shadows made a promise on the day she lost everything: to avenge herself on those that shattered her world.

But the chance to strike against such powerful enemies will be fleeting, and Mia must become a weapon without equal. Before she seeks vengeance, she must seek training among the infamous assassins of the Red Church of Itreya.

Inside the Church’s halls, Mia must prove herself against the deadliest of opponents and survive the tutelage of murderers, liars and daemons at the heart of a murder cult.

The Church is no ordinary school. But Mia is no ordinary student.

 

Author: Jay Kristoff

Narrator: Holter Graham

Running Time: 20 hrs 10 mins

Publisher: Harper Collins

Audio Release Date: 11/09/2017

My Rating of ‘Nevernight’: 5 out of 5

Purchase: Audible UK, Audible US, Amazon UK, Amazon US

 

Review:

Nevernight is one of those books that I deleted off my TBR a good while back as I didn’t want another ‘kid goes to school and ends up being the best at whatever he or she trained at’. Essentially, the Harry Potter of assassins wasn’t something I felt too enthusiastic about. As it was, so many people told me I was making a mistake. Far too many for me to ignore, so I decided I’d grab a copy of the audio book seeing as how I had a few free credits.

So glad that I did.

Nevernight is easily one of the best things I have experienced this year. So much better than I could have imagined. It is, essentially, a bit of a ‘Harry Potter of assassins’ story, but it has so much more that I had to admit I was stupidly wrong in not wanting to try this book. The way it is written, for one, would be reason enough to give it a go. It is humorous and told from the point of view of someone who knew the protagonist in a ‘fireside chat’ kind of way. A really interesting and refreshing way of being told a story.

It has a lot going for it. As you’d expect, in a tutoring scenario it has the squabbles between ‘classmates’ but, due to the nature of the ‘school’ they are at, these are squabbles that often end in the darkest of ways.

Nevernight has a healthy dose of mystery and intrigue threaded throughout and it has some seriously epic moments. One of my favourites being the last couple of hours of the book. Just wow. So much wow.

The magic system is pretty good in this. The one that sticks out the most for me being the method of how the assassins travel. I was pleasantly surprised at the originality of that. There is also another sort of magic that I’ll not mention. Gotta leave some unexpected surprises.

 Another thing that really adds to Nevernight as a solid opener to a series is the imagery. The author does an excellent job of painting the picture he wants the reader to see, and what dark imagery there can be found within!

It is guilty of having my pet hate in there as well: flashbacks. I do think that, perhaps, there were one too many flashbacks that could have been explained better in other ways, but I suppose I can’t have everything. Some people enjoy flashbacks, others hate them. I find myself closer to the hate side of the scale.

I’m also not much of a romance fan (my black heart has no room for the love of others) and, whilst it does appear in the book, it isn’t to the extent that I find off-putting.

So yea, it literally has something for everyone.

The narration is top notch. An excellent narrator that provides a brilliant array of voices for some pretty diverse characters. I already have the sequel downloaded and will be keeping an eye out for the narrator’s other works in the future. Even the best of books can be made painful by a bad narrator. So it’s always worth keeping your eye on the gems!