I waited a long time to pick up Dark Light of Day. I was intrigued by the concept from the get-go but I found the cover a little off-putting. But after seeing all sorts of rave reviews around the blogosphere, I decided it was time to give it a shot. And boy, am I glad I did! Jill Archer’s debut novel is absolutely amazing and I’m so glad I finally took my first steps into Noon’s world.

First off, Archer has created a great series mythology. Dark Light of Day is a post-apocalyptic novel but the apocalypse wasn’t a natural disaster, or war, or anything like that. Well, it was something like that because there was a war but it was between angels and demons and, as the blurb says, the demons won. Surprisingly, life isn’t all that different, except there are people with magical powers that fall into one of two schools: waning (destructive magic, typically found in men) and waxing (healing magic, typically found in women). Noon’s a bit of an oddity because she has waxing magic and her twin, Night, has waning magic. (Love the play with their names, by the way.) It’s a really neat idea and I really love the way this duality was executed.

I also really liked Noon. At first, I wasn’t sold on her as a protagonist but she grew on me over the course of Dark Light of Day. She’s not very confident at the start of the novel but she really comes into her own, magically and academically, though she’s by no means perfect at either by the end. Watching her develop made this novel for me.

If magic and academics aren’t enough, there’s also a love triangle. Noon is torn between her childhood crush, Peter, who’s an Angel, and her new acquaintance, Ari Carmine, a fellow member of the Host. I wasn’t really taken with this part of the story but I appreciate how Peter represented Noon’s childhood dreams and her hope to not have waning magic and Ari represented her potential future, if she could embrace her waxing magic. I got it but I didn’t love it.

Nonetheless, I will definitely be picking up Fiery Edge of Steel when it comes out this summer. I really loved the world building in Dark Light of Day and I’m curious to see how Noon’s next adventure will go.

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Full review to be posted soon:

Solid entry to a new series, although I did find it difficult to get into the book in the beginning because of the slow pace, immature heroine who does redeem herself soon after and info-dumping. But because of the complicated world-building, I can understand why it needed to establish itself. I enjoyed the elements of a Coming of Age story which was very NAish with the College setting and a fun and sexy romance with a hero who is hawt! Will definitely pick up the next book in the series. ( )

I don't use star ratings, so please read my review!

(Description nicked from B&N.com.)

“Armageddon is over. The demons won. And yet somehow…the world has continued. Survivors worship patron demons under a draconian system of tributes and rules. These laws keep the demons from warring among themselves, and the world from slipping back into chaos.

Noon Onyx grew up on the banks of the river Lethe, the daughter of a prominent politician, and a descendant of Lucifer’s warlords. Noon has a secret: She was born with waning magic, the dark, destructive, fiery power that is used to control demons and maintain the delicate peace among them. But a woman with waning magic is unheard of, and some would consider her an abomination.

Noon is summoned to attend St. Lucifer’s, a school of demon law. She must decide whether to declare her powers there…or to attempt to continue hiding them, knowing the price for doing so may be death. And once she meets the forbiddingly powerful Ari Carmine—who suspects Noon is harboring magic as deadly as his own—Noon realizes there may be more at stake than just her life.”

Oh boy, this is one of those novels that had such potential and yet blundered in so many ways. Let me say from the outset that, for the most part, I liked it. I just think that it didn’t capitalize on some really great ideas that got buried under other things that annoyed me.

The thing that I liked best about this story was the worldbuilding. The author has put a lot of thought into not only what the world would be like two thousand years after Lucifer wins Armageddon, but how the remnants of our current culture might carry over into a demonic society. There are little hints of things common in our daily life and collective consciousness that show up here in skewed ways. I appreciated that readers get a real sense of the world having shifted, but also a sense of the connections that remained from the old world.

A good chunk of the worldbuilding is devoted to the law school that teaches Barristers and Maegesters, those who will adjudicate among demons and humans. Since the author also practiced law for many years, I’m sure that the legal proceedings have a solid basis in present-day fact. And it is interesting to see the students in training as they work their way through theoretical situations that test their knowledge of demonic law. I did notice that the author occasionally forgets to translate the Latin phrases that she oftentimes includes, and that’s kind of frustrating.

More frustrating for me were the characters. The ones that I liked (Fitz and Ivy, Noon’s friends at the school) were in the novel far less than the others, while the ones that I didn’t like (Ari and Peter) were all too present. I wasn’t too interested in Noon either. She struck me as going back and forth between too stubborn and too yielding, never finding a happy medium that would make her a well-rounded character. Part of that stems from how she interacts with Ari, her boyfriend, and Peter, her oldest friend. Both men treat her like a possession or a conquest, or like something that they can push around to get what they want, and she lets herself be swayed by their behavior. The author even has Ari go so far as to say something along the lines of “I deserve this, and so you’re going to give it to me”, which set off all kinds of warning flags in my head.

The plot may have been trying to do too much for the first book in a series. Readers get Noon’s law school training, her relationship with Ari, her first case and how it progresses, her quest to rid herself of waning magic, and a mystery involving missing healers. That’s a lot to cover, and it proves hard to balance the time spent on each of these elements. Personally, I would have preferred less of the relationship stuff, but then I didn’t like the romantic interests anyway. Given that this series is set up as focusing on law, I would have liked to have seen that balanced in a little better.

Although it fumbles in its execution, Dark Light of Day has enough promise that I’ll be going on the second book. The worldbuilding is definitely worth the price of admission, with enough twists and turns to satisfy those who love a good mystery.

This review originally appeared on Owlcat Mountain on June 24, 2013.

This reads like a YA. A really weak one. IIRC... the heroine is 21 years old. There are things I really enjoyed about the book. The author has a strong voice, the ideas of humans and demons interacting, having gone to war, and now the humans have to worship demons of their choosing is a unique twist on the plethora of demon books out there.

Noon Onyx is a 21 year old that's been born (or cursed depending on how you look at it) with the powers of waning magic. That's normally a power that's usually associated with males instead of females. This is not discussed at length.. and left me wanting to know more about her family.

How she meets and develops a relationship with Ari Carmine is THE weakest and biggest part of the book. We first meet Ari when they're on a ferry together. Noon has been having her friend Peter help suppress her magic for years. But Ari can tell what she is immediately.. although this isn't revealed until later on in the book. Noon and Ari are both attending St. Lucifer's Academy where you're supposed to "declare" your magic and learn the ins & outs .. as well as learning more about the demon world. Now, Ari, being the good guy that he is, realizes what Noon is.. and decides to threaten or "declare" her since she will not do it herself. She storms off in a huff but later decides to forgive him.

Now hold the fort please. If some guy whom I'd met ONCE before on a boat decides to threaten or take away my decisions from me, my response isn't going to be storming away in an angry huff. I'm going to take the beat stick out and yell," IT'S CLOBBERING TIME!!!" before I start in on his dumb ass.

In lieu of actual character development, both Ari and Noon have demon marks which allows the other to know what the other is feeling/thinking. Because.. hey, conversations.. who cares? Let's introduce a supernatural solution that lets the characters just automatically know what's going on. Ari comes across as a manipulative bastard that thinks he knows what's best for Noon and acts accordingly. And Noon.. while occasionally expressing dismay, comes to accept this. She always submits to him, and boy howdy, did I get tired of watching this routine happen throughout the book.

I really have mixed feelings. The ideas are solid, if a bit overly detailed at times, the voice is strong.. but I didn't care a whit for the characters. The book reads quickly.. and the structure is there.. but I must express my hate for the idiocy of Noon. She doesn't resemble a 21 year old self sufficient heroine. She's a teenager. A YOUNG one. ( )

Noon is considered an abomination. She was born with Waning magic which is extremely odd for a girl to possess. She has gone her whole life hiding her magic and wishing for the Waxing magic her twin Night was born with. Unfortunately it is time for her to declare her magic to the demons or she faces death.

To be 100% honest I started off being a bit bored with the first part of the book and some spots were a bit too slow for my liking. I didn't really get Noon or connect with her until we were a few chapters into the book. Ari was dark and mysterious and you could see the connection between the two from the moment they laid eyes on each other. I really enjoyed Ari's family, Noon's father is still a bit of a mystery to me and Peter threw me through a loop and I'm dying to know what happens next between with him, Ari and Noon if anything. The demons are interesting. Everyone has to deal with them one way or another and I enjoyed Archers explanations and insight into their world.

DARK LIGHT OF DAY was the first book in the series and it did a really good job with introducing you to the characters involved and helping you learn the world in which they live in. The characters were well written and the world was well built. There is a bit of action thrown in and danger throughout. There is still plenty I want to know about the characters and the world so I will look forward to grabbing a copy of book 2 when it is released in May 2013. ( )