Hi all! Day 7 of Blogtober and I’m going to get started on my half of our dedicate days of #Booktober. Niamh here if you haven’t guessed and spoiler: myself and Emma’s book tastes are extremely different this October! For my first post, I am going to be diving into L.J. Smith’s series Night World. Keeping with the Spooky season that we are in, Night World is a series dedicated to those who live among us but are part of the Night World Society – Witches, Vampires, Werewolves and Shapeshifters.
As 2020 has me rereading the entire contents of my book shelves at least five times in between attempting to buy new books, I decided for Booktober to fully get immersed in atmospheric books to celebrate the Halloween Season. I’ll primarily be keeping with books of a similar theme or that have spooky aspects to them! First up, as I said already, is Night World by L.J Smith. L.J Smith might ring a bell with any Vampire Diaries fans as she wrote the original books but, personally, I prefer the Nightworld Series dating back to the mid to late 1990’s.
Three things you need to be aware of when talking about this book series:
- Soulmates are a big thing in this series. I read these books back in 2008 when the entire of YA was dominated with Soulmate plots and, yes, I still adore the concept.
- There are two rules of Nightworld that you need to remember when reading the series. 1. Never allow humans to gain knowledge of the Night World’s existence and 2. Never fall in love with a human.
- I am still waiting on the final book, Book 10, 12 years later which is not as long as the fans of the book since they were first published between 1996-1999. Personally, I hope she drops it sooner rather than later.
The books were originally released one by one but the three volumes were released in 2008 and those are the copies I own. Three books are in each volume. Overall, the series creates a hidden world within our own but don’t think for one second it is all going to be happy endings. My vivid memory before rereading this series was: what happened so and so? Why did the author end their story the way she did! The first six books have the recurring theme of soulmates being an important factor in the storylines however, from book seven, the soulmate concept becomes a subplot as we are faced with an apocalypse! I would also like to point out here that the romantic aspect of the soulmates theme doesn’t fully come to the forefront of the stories until the challenges faced by the characters have been overcome or decisions to overcome these challenges have been made. It was a refreshing change to many of the fantasy and dark fantasy books of the YA selection of the mid 2000’s for me.
Upon rereading them, it was like reading them for the first time all over again; I did not want to put the book down until I finished the story I was on! Each of L.J Smith’s creations work well as stand alone stories in this series yet, all the while they work together to tell a larger story too! In many of the stories, your mind is going to be racing 100 miles an hour trying to figure out what happens the characters after their arc of the story ended!
Volume One is made up of Secret Vampire, Daughters of Darkness and Enchantress.
In Secret Vampire as the name suggests, the character James is revealed to be a vampire after his best friend and soulmate Poppy is diagnosed with terminally ill cancer. It becomes a race against time before Poppy dies with some big decisions, a kidnapping and a massive secret revealed! I didn’t put the book down once until I finished their story. Out of all the pairings these two won my heart over and I still ponder over their arc of the series.
In Daughters of Darkness Vampire sisters Rowan, Kestrel, and Jade Redfern escape from their homeland in the Night World to live with their Aunt Opal on Burdock Farm surrounded by humans. Things don’t start off well as their Aunt is found dead with a stake! The looming question is: do the humans know what they are? Their brother Ash comes to bring them home alive or dead but falls for someone while there. To those of you who liked Twilight, this one is what Twilight should have been people!
Enchantress (also released as Spellbinder) tells the story of Thea and Blaise Harman, witch cousins raised as close as sisters. Thea uses white magic while Blaise uses black magic. This one is all about not letting your sister be happy with finding her soulmate and a dark spell being casted that rocks the entire storyline.
Volume Two is made up of Dark Angel, The Chosen and Soulmate.
In Dark Angel, Gillian Lennox is brought back to life after a near death experience in the woods by a being who calls himself “Angel”. He comes back with her and helps her change her life. All seems like a dream until Gillian uncovers who exactly her descendants are.
The Chosen follows the story of Rashel Jordan who becomes a vampire hunter known as The Cat after witnessing her mother and best friend being killed by a vampire when she was five years old! You probably already guessed it: her soulmate turns out to be a vampire but, trust me, this one is well worth the read. It’s my second favourite story out of all nine.
Soulmate follows Hannah Snow as she has recurring nightmares and leaves notes to herself! This one is hands down my favourite. Recurring nightmares, past lives, Night world characters and two soulmates being ripped apart from one another. It has action, it has suspense and doesn’t end the way you want it to!
Finally, Volume Three is made up of Huntress, Black Dawn and Witchlight
In Huntress, Jez finds out she is half vampire/half human and decides to live among her human relatives for a while. This story is all about what happens when your soulmate is also your enemy and I enjoyed every minute of it! This book also gives us the first legendary Wild Power only three more to go!
Black Dawn is the book for the siblings! Round of applause for Maggie who enters the Night World in search of her brother. Rightly so, as we find out maggie’s brother was turned into a shape shifter! Her brother is the soulmate of a witch! Some stubborn characters in this one, the night council is falling apart and the second Wild Power has been found and has chosen their side!
Lastly, in Witchlight, we get the most action packed and fast paced arc yet! It begins with Raksha Keller and her team racing to a mall to save the new Wild Power! The new Wild Power, Iliana, is promised in marriage to a shapeshifter. I won’t spoil this one for you but it leads to the final chapter of the story, Strange Faith.
How I am going to end this is hoping that one day L.J Smith will publish Strange Faith as I would love to know how the story ends! Overall, the series is an imaginative and creative world where love may win overall but not without hiccups or the larger picture being more important. If you grew up reading fantasy YA (Young Adult) books in the 2000’s, I’d suggest giving the Night World series a go as nothing I have sunk my teeth into came close to holding my attention on its level.
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