Wow. What an interesting read! I could not put it down! I think it’s important to know that One Dark Window is definitely more of a political fantasy book with a romantic subplot— not a romantasy.The setting feels dystopian, and the magic system was really interesting.  I am going to pick up the second book stat! I look forward to see what will happen next.

✨ 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰: 𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐰 ✨

Tropes: 
🎴 Unique Magic System
🗝️ Enemies to Lovers 
🎴 Monsters 
🗝️ Secrets  
🎴 Paying the Price 
🗝️ Gothic Medieval Setting 
🎴 Fake relationships 

Spice level: 🌶️🌶️

Rating: ⭐3.75⭐

"The Hawthorne tree carries few seeds. It's branches are weary, it's lost all its leaves. Be wary the man who bargains and thieves. He'll offer your soul to get what he needs."
- One Dark Window, Rachel Gillig 
_________________________________________

One Dark Window was a book that I both enjoyed and struggled with a bit. It was beautifully atmospheric, the characters were amazing and the plot was setting itself up to be incredible. However, for me it fell a little flat due to predictability and pacing.

We are immersed into the world of Blunder, where 20-something year old, Elspeth Spindle, was plagued years ago with a highly feared disease causing a forbidden magic to creep through her mind and body. She's kept her magic and the creature that lives within her a secret for years up until now when she finds herself amongst others who, in part, she allows to see her for who she really is. Although she still keeps some of her magic to herself, there now exists a use for what she believes is her curse. They embark on a treasonous quest in search of magical cards in an attempt to break Blunder free from the clutch of an ancient bane. 

The book is a dark atmospheric read in which the reader can easily imagine the setting, castles, mist, and ruins. I found the world building to be well done and interesting. With a complex magic system and interesting magical cards this makes the book incredibly unique and the occasional rhyming laced with well chosen words gives the book an eerie, sinister feel. 

The characters were also well developed in my opinion. I despised the villain and loved the FMC and the MMC. I enjoyed reading about the flourishing and struggling relationships and friendships. I would have liked if we could have seen more development or destruction of these relationships, especially one relationship in particular that was supposedly very detrimental to the FMC. Yet maybe there is more development of this relationship in the second book of this duology. 

I've seen so much hype and I wanted to love One Dark Window but I felt like the pacing was a bit slow. I wanted more events, more action, I would have gladly read another 100 pages if I could have had more epic edge of your seat moments. In my opinion, it had all of the right elements to become a fantastic read but for me it felt a bit predictable, especially the ending.

Overall, I think One Dark Window was worth the read but for me it didn't live up to the expectations that the internet hype created. It had all the parts to be an epic read, atmospheric, great character development and story so I still do plan on reading Two Twisted Crowns and I am hoping that the second book peaks my interest more. 

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A dark fantasy with a card system for magic. It’s different and frankly refreshing. I couldn’t stop reading it.

Best book I have read this year, 5/5⭐️ the magic system is unique and I can’t think of anything I’ve read that’s similar. The characters are complex and worth getting attached too unlike other series (cough ACOTAR cough cough) 

Elspeth made me love, hate and worry about her. 🤦🏻‍♀️ The girl needs a hug badly. 

My heart went out to Emory, he seemed so young and carefree between his bouts and I think his interactions with Elspeth massively enriched the world building helping you to understand the relationship between the nightmare and Elspeth. 

When it comes to the nightmare my feelings were complicated at first we was menacing then he seemed to thaw and I actually started to relate to him and his protectiveness of Elspeth but in the end I’m so conflicted on his actual intentions I’m going into book two wary of the giant fur ball. 

Ravyn is dark, mysterious and tense and I honestly think the author was a little bit smitten with him 😂 all those descriptions of his smirk. I saw them and girl you need to chill. However I get it he’s a handsome scary(not really) boy. 

I will say this book has a large amount of background/secondary characters and at first keeping up on who’s who can be a little difficult but honestly they enrich the story so well I wouldn’t get rid of any of them. Except Nerium she’s just a b*tch. 

However the ending was so abrupt I audibly gasped. I’m invested to deep to be cut off like that 😂 send help because I’m going straight into Two Twisted Crowns and I won’t be sleeping until I’ve read it cover to cover in a sitting. 

Ugh god this book is SUCH a great read. I read it in paperback and I went through three highlighters and a ton of tabs annotating it. It starts off a little slow plot-wise but the world, magic, and characters drew me in so completely that I hardly even noticed slow points.

Mild spoilers ahead, big spoilers will be tagged

What I really enjoyed about the world building was how the author sticks to her guns about the isolation of Blunder. They don't, can't, travel beyond it, so there's not a single mention of the rest of the world. It's so well done. We only ever see Blunder, but that means it's fully developed with it's own culture, traditions, superstitions, and history. The world is steeped in lore.

The magic system here is so incredibly unique and well thought out, I can't get over it. An infectious mist from a vengeful deity is such a badass way to give your characters magic, and having each person get magic unique to them after the infection just adds to the coolness of it all. Then to add the Cards on top of that? Consider me obsessed. The whole idea of balance, and the way the characters hold it in a place of reverence as much as they hold their deity in a place of fear, is so well done. If the deity hasn't exacted her spiteful balance yet, the people will, in whatever way they think is best. The creativity here is off the charts.

The characters feel so real. Being in Elspeth's head, watching her co-exisg with the Nightmare because she has no other choice, was such a great idea. Ravyn and his family have the same motivation but you can see how it affects each of them individually. The romance felt a bit fast but I didn't really mind it all that much 🤷🏻‍♀️

The foreshadowing and plot thickening is really well done. My only real gripe with that is that I felt like plot twists such as

the nightmare being the shepherd king, and Ravyn and his family being direct descendants from him

were pretty spelled out and elspeth still didn't catch on despite it revolving around the creature living inside her head who dropped every possible hint about what was to come. Like she just, didn't connect the dots, or didn't even really try a ton? And normally that would bother me more but that's usually when characters are preached as geniuses and still can't see what's going on right in front of them (sorrengail 🙄). Elspeth isn't touted as her generation's genius detective prodigy so I was more miffed than actually mad about it.

I like that the author left a lot of different loose threads for the second book to finish. I'm not super far into the next one but I can already see the loose ends from the first one being pulled into play and it feels really well done.

Overall, this book is just fuckin incredible. The plot, the people, the world building, the incredibly unique and mysterious magic system, and the (albeit kinda fast) romance. I ate this up and enjoyed every minute of it. I do wish there was more diversity in the characters, and that elspeth was a little less oblivious to what's going on around her (and in her head). But besides those and the quick romance, I have no complaints. None. No notes, no crumbs. Gillig knocked it out of the fuckin park here. Even when the foreshadowing felt kind of not super hard to solve at times, it was still so well executed that I really enjoyed each of the reveals. And there was still plenty of things that surprised me. The action was great, the consequences of people's choices were logical, there's just so much I loved here.

2024 is me getting back in my romantasy era and this is such a dope way to start it.

This was a really enjoyable read. I loved the unique magic system with the cards, it reminded me of tarot cards but with magic and consequences of using said magical cards. I loved how, while this is depicted as "YA", we get that deeper insight into the magic system that we normally wouldn't get and how focused the plot was on the cards, the sickness, and the world. 

However, that being said, I don't really have many strong feelings on the book. I neither love nor hate it. I was more invested in the magic than I was the characters. The magic was unique the characters not as much. They definitely followed the typical YA character arch, along with the romance. Don't get me wrong there was good character development and even secondary characters seemed fleshed out. However, there was nothing special or unique about them. 

The romance also seemed to follow the same YA fantasy romance pattern - instant attraction, tension/lust, confession, and angst. 

One other thing, this is published as YA and it read as new adult/adult - especially with the s*x scene, gore, and other dark themes. Granted we get an above the bed version (feelings more than details). While I am all for lusty content in books and think that we shouldn't gatekeep romances/ s*x in YA. I do think that publishers need to start publishing books, like this one, in a New Adult category because many of these newer YA fall there and not with YA. That's just a personal thought.