Title: Down Comes the Night
Author: Allison Saft
Rating: ★★★

ARC provided by Wednesday Books through NetGalley.

My first disappointment of the year is unfortunately one of the books I had most been looking forward to reading. Down Comes the Night sounded promising with a synopsis indicating a darkly gothic story and an atmospheric fantasy. However other than the romance, many of the elements I had been hoping for were sadly missing.

The first issue I encountered was from early on there was lack of connection between myself and the book. The story wasn’t as captivating as I had been hoping. This was attributed to both the writing, which I found lacking, and my dislike of the main character. Wren acted childish and rashly at times, and there was a lack of critical thinking with some of her decisions which failed to endear her to me.

The romance was the book’s saving grace. I’m always a sucker for hate-to-romance and I thought the author did a really good job with this one. I found the romance to be really sweet and beautifully written. Another aspect of the book that I thought worked well was the ending. The ending was the perfect conclusion for a standalone novel: it wrapped the plot points nicely, while also giving a slight open-ending feeling.

Down Comes the Night promised a story full of gothic vibes, dark fantasy, and magic. Unfortunately, it failed to deliver on those promises which left me feeling disconnected to the story and disappointed.