Nevernight (2016) by Jay Kristoff is the first book in the Nevernight Chronicle, a dark, blood-soaked fantasy that follows Mia Corvere, a vengeful teenager training to become an elite assassin in the deadly Red Church, a school of killers hidden in a desert of bones.
After witnessing her father’s execution and her family’s ruin at the hands of a corrupt Republic, Mia—armed with her shadow-wielding darkin abilities and a sardonic talking cat made of shadows (Mister Kindly)—embarks on a brutal quest to murder those who destroyed her life. The Red Church’s trials are grotesque and lethal, pitting students against each other in a vicious game of poison, blades, and betrayal, all under the watch of the enigmatic Speaker and the terrifying Shahid.
Kristoff’s prose is razor-sharp, laced with dark humor and footnoted asides that mock historical texts. The world, inspired by Venetian aesthetics and Roman politics, thrums with magic, from the ever-present sun (almost nevernight) to the eerie Church of Our Lady of Blessed Murder.
For fans of: The Poppy War (Kuang), The Blade Itself (Abercrombie), or Assassin’s Apprentice (Hobb)—if Hobb’s Fitz were a foul-mouthed, stab-happy antiheroine.
