Midnight Never Come (Onyx Court 1)

Product Information

The first quote isn’t too much of a big deal. The second quote however, is complete blasphemy if I’ve ever heard it. I was quite perturbed. Spiritualism and Christianity do not mix in the slightest. They are night and day. The fact that this writer is trying to sway people to think that Spiritualism will fix all the supposed problems or "ills" in Christianity is a testament to her motives and beliefs. I don't even know what to say about Galen, the Prince of the Stone. He falls in love with Lune, the Queen of the Onyx Court, after seeing her only once, and stays in love for five years. He knows, or should know, that she will never choose to fall in love with him, as she would have to, but he continues to think that if he sacrifices enough for the Onyx Court, she might fall in love with him, which does not happen to fae. He trusts Dr. Andrews to help the fae even after Andrews cuts out the heart of a salamander while it is alive. He wants to be the Prince, but he never quite manages to fulfill his responsibilities until he gives his own life for London Beneath Elizabethan London, there is a hidden city, where the faerie queen Invidiana holds court. The deal she made with Queen Elizabeth long ago draws mortal Michael Deven and fae Lady Lune, each seeking to gain knowledge and power, into a deadly web of political intrigue which tangles their fates and the fates of their courts together.

So why only three stars? The first novel in the series, Midnight Never Come, followed Elizabeth I's reign barely, focusing almost entirely on the Onyx Court itself, although a pact made between the queen above and the one below, made before either had achieved power, provides a link. In this second novel, there's far greater focus on the history of the real London; this would have been successful but for two problems. In fact the whole book was a solid 4/5 until part 3, where it started just... losing steam. It developed a bit of "last book syndrome," where it was trying to conclude the arcs of everything rather than just the arcs of its principle characters. There was no real solution to Owen and Eliza, Maggie Darragh, and even Lune, ostensibly the main character of this whole thing. But towards the end we find that things aren't quite as they seemed, and there are hidden depths going on. I also grew to appreciate the romance aspect of the story. The only thing that I found a bit confusing was the timeline. The events in the book (the Fire and the Plague) weren't strictly chronological. Brennan mixes in these books - as she did in her fist book - a well balanced blend of historical research and fantasy; and especially in A Star Shall Fall the mix of Victorian-age science blended in with the world of the fae and was very nicely done.NOTE: This review was first published at The King of Elfland's 2nd Cousin on September 27, 2011. If you enjoy this review, please come take a look! This is a novel, of course, but the historical accuracy of events against which the story is told is amazing, yet it rarely gets in the way; if anything, it enriches the tale. The machinations of Ifarren Vidar use Humans, pushing certain political events even more than they might otherwise have gone, causing them especial suffering in the process, as he tries to wrest the Onyx Court for himself. To convince the reader that the Human and Faerie worlds go together in a logical, well-rounded way is not easy and yet here Marie has managed it supremely well. We not only see the growth and development of London above but the magnificence and other-worldliness of the Onyx Court below.

To me, reading it that way, the pacing was mostly really good, though some of Michael Deven’s sections were frustratingly disconnected from the main plot — partly by their mundanity, and partly because Michael isn’t a major player or even properly clued in for a lot of the book. Lune’s sections work better because she is more aware of the situation on a macro-level, and though her goal is personal advancement, at least her eyes are open to the wider implications of what she’s involved in.J'ai fini par m'arrêter et comme il est difficile de choisir quand on a l'auteur en face de soi, j'ai réduit le choix en demandant ce qui restait en anglais. Il n'en restait qu'un : les quatrième tome de la série Onyx Hall. Heureusement, ils peuvent se lire indépendamment les uns des autres. Vendu ; emballez, c'est pesé!