ARC Review: The Witch’s Compendium of Monsters #2

Monstrous Nights by Genoveva Dimova

Publication Date: October 22, 2024

Summary from NetGalley:

With her magic reclaimed and her role in the community of Chernograd restored, Kosara’s life should finally be back to normal—but, of course, things can’t possibly be that simple.

She is now in possession of twelve witch’s shadows. Holding them may grant her unprecedented power, but that doesn’t mean they’re always willing to do her bidding.

Across the wall in Belograd, Asen chases his only lead on the latest witch murder case. He follows the trail of smuggling kingpin Konstantin Karaivanov to an underground monster auction—which leads him right back to Chernograd.

There, sinister events follow one after another: snow falls in midsummer, a witch with two shadows is found dead, and monsters that should only appear during the Foul Days are sighted. The barrier between worlds thins… and Kosara is certain it’s her fault—and her job to fix.

ARC provided by Tor Publishing via NetGalley for an honest review.

Confession:

This second book in the series is just as delightful as the first, Foul Days. I loved the characters and how they developed over the course of the two books, the world building is marvelously dark and scary, but it still has a lot of humor shining through. The slow burn romance from the first book continues on, maybe a bit too slowly but was just as sweet.

Kosara is still dealing with many of the same issues in this book as the first. She still doesn’t trust people to help her and she still feels like the town’s safety is her sole responsibility. But she does show growth over the course of this book, slowly realizing that she can’t do it on her own and that she can accept others help to save her town and the people she cares for. She is also still carrying a lot of grief and guilt about her past and about what she did in the first book. It also doesn’t help that the twelve witch’s shadows all have their own agenda and keep showing her visions of how truly bad the Zmey was. It is bad enough dealing with your own baggage without 12 others piling on as well.

Asen is just as wonderful in this book as the first, and here we have chapters from his point of view. He is just as sweet and adorable as the first book and I loved seeing his emotions and how he deals with his grief and guilt as well. He also shows his strengths when Kosara needs him most, even when she tries to leave him behind so he doesn’t get hurt.

I did enjoy the slow romance between Asen and Kosara, but it was perhaps a bit too slow. Of course it is hard to progress a romance when the kikimora of your first wife keeps showing up and trying to kill you. It does put a damper on things. But you could tell that these two were fated to be together and I kept rooting for things to work out between them. I would have liked a little bit more at the end between these two but I was still happy to see them finally admit their feelings for each other.

The writing was just as delightful as the first book. I loved the descriptions of the towns and the people that inhabit them. It really felt like I was right there with them. The blending of the slavic folklore into the story is also nicely done. The themes of guilt and grief are very prevalent throughout the story, but it is tempered with a nice sense of humor and witty banter from all of the characters. The monsters continued to delight me in their scariness and yet many of them often showed more humanity than the humans.

This is a wonderful dark fantasy duology that I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys this type of story. It has lots of fun characters and dark and scary monsters that will still make you love them.