Night Study by Maria V. Snyder
Genre: Fantasy
Published by: Mira Ink
Pages: 400
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: ★★★★
Series: Shadow Study (#1)

I received a copy of this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review.

Finally! I feel as if Night Study has found some of the original magic that made me fall in love with the Study series in the first place. Shadow Study was okay, but it wasn’t the best opener to a new series, but Night Study raised the bar so much, meaning I’m now super pumped to read the finale! Night Study is literally bursting with awesome characters, intense magic and complicated villains. If you haven’t gotten lost in the Chronicles of Ixia yet then you’ve got a lot of reading a head of you.

The first half (or so) of the book is dedicated to finding out whether Yelena is or isn’t pregnant after she lost her magic in Night Study. I have to admit that I was not as gripped as I could  have been, let’s say, buy the first 150 pages. Until everything started to fall back into place! I think this book worked so well because the characters had their little respite phase and then split up to achieve their own separate missions. Just like in the first book, we get perspectives from Yelena (💜), Valek (💕), Leif (🌿) and the occasional Janco (🌚)

(Because it’s been a year since I read Shadow Study for some reason I thought Ari had died and I was really concerned when it was just Janco like WHERETHEHECKISARI?! Until, oh, yeah, he’s with Opal’s daughter, what a cutie.)

Yelena’s just so bad-ass, and I love that her situation is changing, because even though she lost her magic and spends a lot of time worrying about whether she may-or-may-not-be pregnant, she’s still kind-hearted and brave. You can definitely see how Yelena has matured from the Study series.

As for Valek, whoa that guy went through a LOT. Valek, in a shocking turn of events, ends up visiting his family home, and this was by far my favourite part of the whole story. Vale probably had the most interesting story line and I would try and read Yelena and Leif’s POVS as quickly as possible just so I could see what was happening next on Valek’s end of things. I mean, he storms a pirate ship with a bunch of rebels and learn some crazy game-changing information about his immunity to magic.

Night Study has really come leaps and bounds plot wise from the first book, we know who tried to poison Yelena, we now know more about Theobroma and the Commander’s plans. It went from 10% to 150%, seriously. There is so much depth to this world and I am so excited to see where it could possibly end. There’s still so much that needs to be explored, after certain big reveals that I did not guess – DID NOT GUESS AT ALL. Also, am I the only one that wants a spin-off series of next gen characters? Zo and Zee, Opal’s daughter, wouldn’t that be amazing?!