Book of Night

"A delicious, dark, adrenaline rush of a book. I'm already dying to see Charlie Hall's next con." - New York Times bestselling author, Alix E. Harrow

Now in paperback! Book of Night, #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black's stunning first adult novel, is a modern dark fantasy of betrayals, secret societies, and a dissolute thief of shadows.

Charlie Hall has never found a lock she couldn’t pick, a book she couldn’t steal, or a bad decision she wouldn’t make.

She's spent half her life working for gloamists, magicians who manipulate shadows to peer into locked rooms, strangle people in their beds, or worse. Gloamists guard their secrets greedily, creating an underground economy of grimoires. And to rob their fellow magicians, they need Charlie Hall.

Now, she’s trying to distance herself from past mistakes, but getting out isn’t easy. Bartending at a dive, she’s still entirely too close to the corrupt underbelly of the Berkshires. Not to mention that her sister Posey is desperate for magic, and that Charlie's shadowless and possibly soulless boyfriend, Vince, has been hiding things from her. When a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie descends into a maelstrom of murder and lies.

Determined to survive, she’s up against a cast of doppelgangers, mercurial billionaires, gloamists, and the people she loves best in the world—all trying to steal a secret that will give them vast and terrible power.

1139682025

Book of Night

"A delicious, dark, adrenaline rush of a book. I'm already dying to see Charlie Hall's next con." - New York Times bestselling author, Alix E. Harrow

Charlie Hall has never found a lock she couldn’t pick, a book she couldn’t steal, or a bad decision she wouldn’t make.

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Book of Night

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Overview

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Charlie Hall is trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading, but she can’t seem to escape this maelstrom of doppelgängers, thieves, and magic. Manipulating shadows has a cost, and Charlie is about to be swept up in a battle for its secrets. Holly Black’s adult dark fantasy debut is everything you loved about The Cruel Prince series, now for adults.

"A delicious, dark, adrenaline rush of a book. I'm already dying to see Charlie Hall's next con." - New York Times bestselling author, Alix E. Harrow

Charlie Hall has never found a lock she couldn’t pick, a book she couldn’t steal, or a bad decision she wouldn’t make.

Product Details
About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250812216
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/15/2023
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	160,510
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Holly Black is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of fantasy books, including the Novels of Elfhame, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, the Spiderwick Chronicles, her adult debut, Book of Night, as well as an Arthurian picture book called Sir Morien. She has been a finalist for an Eisner Award and the Lodestar Award, and the recipient of the Mythopoeic Award, a Nebula, and a Newbery Honor. Her books have been translated into 32 languages worldwide and adapted for film. She currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret library. She invites you to visit her online at blackholly.com or on Instagram @blackholly.

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01/17/2022
Bestselling YA author Black (The Cruel Prince) conjures a dark world filled with crime, betrayal, and power in her atmospheric adult fantasy debut. Shadows are a valuable commodity to be manipulated, altered, traded, and experimented on—and there are many dangerous players looking to harvest them. Growing up in this treacherous world, Charlie Hall learned the arts of conning and thievery from a young age, and there’s no denying her skill. At 28, however, Charlie’s determined to stay on the straight and narrow, using a bartending job to distract herself from the thrill of her old lifestyle. But when she reluctantly agrees to an odd job, a horrifying encounter reveals the return of a sinister individual from her past, plunging her into the dark underworld of shadow trading. Investigating its secrets leads her to discover a magic even darker than the shadows themselves. As the narrative shifts between past and present and the skeletons in Charlie’s closet come to light, she must reckon with her dysfunctional childhood—and with just how powerful shadows can be. The many mysteries keep the suspense sizzling as Charlie guides readers through this slippery world. Black’s adult fans and readers looking for dark urban fantasy will be thrilled. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Holly Black:
“No one writes like Holly Black—eerie and vivid.” —John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author
“I will never forget my first time reading Holly Black…Such a beautiful writer.” —Daisy Johnson, Man Booker Prize finalist and author of Sisters
“Black is a master at world-building” —The New York Times Book Review
Praise for The Cruel Prince:
“Lush, dangerous, a dark jewel of a book…. This delicious story will seduce you and leave you desperate for just one more page.” —Leigh Bardugo, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Six of Crows and the Shadow and Bone trilogy
“I require book two immediately. Holly is the Faerie Queen.” —Victoria Aveyard, #1 bestselling author of the Red Queen series

From the Publisher

09/01/2022
Black's ("Spiderwick Chronicles") adult fantasy debut features a system of magic based on shadows—people can detach from their shadows, augment or embellish them, and, in some cases, train them to act separately from their person. People who can manipulate shadows are called gloamists, or "glooms." Charlie Hall is a bartender and a mostly reformed con artist and thief of magical artifacts, stealing objects from and then selling them to various gloamists. She lives in the Berkshires with her boyfriend, Vince, and younger sister Posey. Charlie is trying to stay under the radar and on the straight and narrow, but when she finds the body of a murdered man who may have stolen a rare book of magic from evil billionaire Lionel Salt, she gets pulled back into the—literally—shadowy underworld. Black's world building is strong, and while the central plotline wraps up at the end, she leaves room for future books set in the world of the gloamists. Sara Amini's narration is exceptional, providing unique voices for the broad range of characters. VERDICT Listeners who enjoy real-world fantasy such as Leigh Bardugo's The House of Night will delight in Black's latest.—Stephanie Klose

Library Journal - Audio

★ 03/01/2022
DEBUT Best-selling YA author Black (The Cruel Prince) makes her adult debut with this gritty urban fantasy where the shadows have not only eyes but teeth as well—and feeding them is the way to magical power. Charlie Hall, formerly a low-level con artist, is trying to live on the straight and narrow. She's gone from pulling jobs to pulling drinks, living with her totally mundane boyfriend, trying to keep her sister in school. At least until a shadow-mage dies in her bar, and her life is thrown into chaos and back into the underworld she tried so hard to leave. Her old life has just been waiting in the shadows to draw her back in—whether to destroy her illusions or kill her outright is the question. Charlie wishes she didn't have to find out the hard way, even if that's the only way she knows. VERDICT Charlie Hall is every "bad luck and worse trouble" protagonist to ever magic her way into urban fantasy. She's desperate, she's profane, she's fascinating, and she kicks ass and takes names with the best antiheroes of the genre. Her world is gritty and mysterious, the stakes are always high, and the power is always tempting.—Marlene Harris

Library Journal

Award-winning YA author Holly Black has created an imaginary masterpiece yet again with her first foray into adult fantasy, narrated with perfection by Sara Amini. With a mix of cynicism and humor, Amini brings Charlie Hall to life, even while those around him are disappearing—or are they just being altered? Shadows in this new world can be stolen, changed, find new lives, and even commit murder. Amini will keep listeners on the edge of their seats with clear differentiation and a vivid depiction of each unique character. The journey through the convoluted world of shadows keeps listeners guessing. Creative and surprising, this is an audiobook that may keep listeners up at night. C.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2022 - AudioFile

2022-02-05
A former thief who specialized in stealing magical documents is forced back into her old habits in Black's adult debut.
Charlie Hall used to work as a thief, stealing for and from magicians—or rather, “gloamists.” In this world, gloamists are people with magical shadows that are alive, gaining strength from the gloamists' own blood. A gloamist can learn to manipulate the magic of their shadow, doing everything from changing how it looks to using it to steal, possess a person, or even murder. Gloamists hire nonmagical people like Charlie to steal precious and rare magical documents written by their kind throughout history and detailing their research and experiments in shadow magic. Gloamists can use onyx to keep each other from sending shadows to steal these treasures, but onyx won't stop regular humans from old-fashioned breaking and entering. After Charlie’s talent for crime gets her into too much trouble, she swears off her old career and tries to settle down with her sensible boyfriend, Vince—but when she finds a dead man in an alley and notices that even his shadow has been ripped to pieces, she can’t help trying to figure out who he was and why he met such a gruesome end. Before she knows it, Charlie is forced back into a life of lies and danger, using her skills as a thief to find a book that could unleash the full and terrifying power of the shadow world. Black is a veteran fantasy writer, which shows in the opening pages as she neatly and easily guides the reader through the engrossing world of gloamists, magical shadows, and Charlie’s brand of criminality. There's a lot of flipping back and forth between the past and the present, and though both timelines are well plotted and suspenseful, the story leans a touch too hard on the flashbacks. Still, the mystery elements are well executed, as is Charlie’s characterization, and the big twist at the end packs a satisfying punch.
Hits the marks for spooky thrills and mysterious chills.

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