Review: Night Myst by Yasmine Galenorn

Night Myst

NIGHT MYST by Yasmine Galenorn is book one of her new Indigo Court series.  It will be available as a Berkley MMPB on June 29, 2010.  I was also able to find it available in Kindle and Nook formats.  In the interests of the FTC rules, for full disclosure, I was sent an ARC of NIGHT MYST by the publisher for the purpose of this review.  I will also admit that I enjoy reading her Otherworld series, so I when I was offered this opportunity, I jumped on it.

From the back cover as pulled from: http://www.galenorn.com/IndigoCourt/index.php?body=ic-nightmyst.htm

“Eons ago, vampires tried to turn the Dark Fae in order to harness their power.  Instead, they created a demonic enemy more powerful then they dared to dream.  Bent on enslaving the world, the Vampiric Fae have been quietly massing their strength for centuries.  Now, Myst, queen of the Indigo Court, is rising again…and a long-prophesied war is brewing…

Born a witch, Cicely Waters can control the wind.  When her Elemental warns her that her aunt and cousin are in danger, she packs her Pontiac GTO and returns home for the first time in twenty years.  But the magical town of New Forest, Washington has changed.  The Indigo Court holds the city in fear; people are vanishing, and strange deaths plague the town.  Swept into an unexpected and passionate reunion with her trusted childhood friend Grieve, the Fae prince who taught her how to harness the wind, Cicely finds herself with a fierce and territorial lover.  But Grieve has become enslaved by Myst’s court, and now both lovers must walk a fine line to survive the machinations of the Vampiric Fae Queen.  Caught between two evils, both vying for supremacy, Cicely must fight for her family and her future.  As she discovers the hidden secrets to her own heritage, will she lose her soul in the process?”

Ms Galenorn’s first Indigo Court book, NIGHT MYST, provides a whirlwind of intrigue, mystery, dark sensuality, and a remainder that nothing is exactly as it appears to be on the surface – especially when dealing with Vampires and Fae. One of the challenges when starting a new series is balancing world building with character development, story progression and setting the hook.  Ms Galenorn surpasses that challenge by allowing the reader to experience New Forest’s world through Cicely, as she struggles to merge her childhood memories with the current reality and while dealing with her new responsibilities in the middle of this Fae war. Cicely is a very likeable character, with her main fault, to me as revealed so far, being that she believes in the goodness of the people she encounters and that what they present is who they really are.  Grieve, her childhood friend is a very torn individual.  His bond with Cicely still exists and might be what ends up saving New Forest but it has been and will continue to be tested.  Ms Galenorn included non-stop action and efficiently showed that sometimes the obvious easy way out doesn’t exist, and instead her characters are forced to choose between the lesser of the bad available choices.  She also doesn’t make it easy for the reader to develop a pure hatred towards Queen Myst because while I despise what she has done, I can also understand some of her motivation.  All of Ms Galenorn’s characters are complex and while some of their actions are predictable, it is never to the point that you can identify exactly what is going to happen when.  I look forward to seeing if Queen Myst’s evilness grows as the series progresses and more is revealed.

Throughout NIGHT MYST, she pushes, challenges and forces her characters to grow by dealing with painful and dark situations while also including a touch of hope.  As a reader I sympathize and feel for her characters, and how the hits never seem to stop coming. But as a testament to Ms Galenorn’s skill, I am never left with the sense that they do not have a chance to succeed.  I am actually challenged writing this review without including any spoilers because of the layers upon layers of complexity that Ms Galenorn has included in both her characters and their world, so I apologize for the brevity of my comments.

I enjoyed reading NIGHT MYST and give it 4 of 5 stars.  I highly recommend this book if you enjoy a dark, edgy, sensuous read that never lets up on the tension.

Ms Galenorn has graciously agreed to answer some reader questions in addition to giving The Book Pushers an interview which will be posted at the end of June. So if you have any questions you would like Yasmine to answer, pop on over to the blog on the 30th of June and join us. There will also be a giveaway – open to US/Canada only.

Thanks and happy reading!

P.S. Due to being in the middle of a military deployment, my fellow bookpushers will be responding to comments until I have internet access on a regular basis again.