Genre: YA Fantasy
Published: August 13, 2013 by Bantam
Series: #2 (The Sweetest Dark)
Length: 320 pages
Source: Bantam (ARC)
“It’s 1915, and sixteen-year-old Lora Jones is finishing up her first year as a charity student at Iverson, a prestigious, gothic boarding school on England’s southern coast. While she’s always felt different from everyone around her, now she finally knows why: She is a drákon, a rare, enchanted being with astonishing magical abilities.
As war hits Britain’s shores, and Lora reels from an unimaginable loss, she finds that her powers come with grave and dangerous responsibilities. At the request of Armand Louis, the darkly mysterious boy whose father owns Iverson, Lora will spend her summer at his lavish estate. To help the war effort—and to keep Lora by his side—Armand turns his home into a military hospital, where Lora will serve as a nurse. For Armand is inescapably drawn to her—bound to her by heart-deep secrets and a supernatural connection that runs thicker than blood.
Yet while Lora tries to sort out her own feelings toward Armand, fate offers an unexpected surprise. Lora discovers there is another drákon, a prisoner of war being held in Germany. And that only she, with her newly honed Gifts, will be able to rescue him.
With Armand, Lora will cross enemy lines on an incredible mission—one that could bond her to Armand forever, or irrevocably tear them apart.”
The Deepest Night was a nice read. I’ve never read a YA book that involved dragons so it was a fresh read to me. I’ll start with the things I didn’t like while reading. I didn’t like how the romance took over the plot. Most of the time it was Lora daydreaming about Jesse, the star guy who admires her. A little background… there are dragons and there are star guys (I’m not sure what you call them). The dragons love the star guys and the star guys admire dragons. This was first mentioned in the first book and was not explained of how dragons and the stars are connected. It still WASN’T explained in this book which made me disappointed. I think concepts like that needs to be clarified. The book was mostly about Lora still getting used to being a dragon and her other love interest, Armand (he’s a duke) experimenting his dragon abilities.
Second, since the romance mainly took over the plot, it wasn’t that action packed until the 2nd half of the book. I think since it is a book about dragons, it should have lots of action scenes that will keep the readers at the edge of their seats. Unfortunately, it didn’t leave me at the edge of my seat. I think it could’ve been better (plot-wise).
Third, I wasn’t really attached to the characters.
What I enjoyed about The Deepest Night is the writing style. I’m not a fan of ya historical books, but Shana Abe’s writing style was very good. I felt like as if I was in the 1900′s. Her writing had a very mysterious feel to it. It was an easy read, but I really do believe that if she added more action scenes and focused more on the plot, I would have loved this book. Overall I enjoyed it though there’s a lot to improve. I recommend it if you’re a sucker for fantasy books set in the historical time period.
