This book was everything and more that I love about indie, fantasy stories. The romance and tension in this book were stellar. The magical system was explained well enough to not fell like a info dump since Ember was learning all of this along the way as well. Of course my favorite thing was the mysterious Crescent Prince, or Mordecai as we later find out his name. This book is a beautiful play on the balance of light and darkness as well as deceit and bitter truths. The twist at the end came out of nowhere so I was very intrigued. The pace of the book was on the slow side and the instant love are my only two issues but overall I really enjoyed this book!

I was surprised by the divide in feedback for this book as I overall enjoyed it, however I do see where it may be in need of improvements. While the inner monologue can be underwhelming if in abundance, I felt that the premise was enough to keep me invested in the story. It takes a little time to build up the plot, however once the ball got rolling I found it pretty difficult to put down.

*I received a free copy of this ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.*

The cover is pretty, I'll admit that much. But overall, I was underwhelmed by the Evenfall. There is a lot of telling rather than showing. It was a lot of words that remained just that--words. I like to see what I'm reading in my head, and Evenfall just didn't provide that. Most of the book is Ember just kind of narrating; there's hardly any dialogue.

Initially I thought this was one of those hit-the-ground-running books. You know, the ones that confuse you for a while until you realize you're not sure when it all started making sense. But after the initially drop into the book when Ember wakes up in an unfamiliar place, the book slowed down. Significantly. The first 2/3 of the book could have easily been condensed into a fraction of that length, and I think it should have. Here's what happens: Ember wakes up, finds out she's supposed to save people from an evil prince, makes friends, and gets captured by said evil prince while trying to plot his overthrow. The last 1/3 of the book was better, though it was still rather long-winded in the narration. There was just more going on.

In terms of characters, the book is okay. I suppose I like Ember (18) and Mordecai (immortal), though Ember's friends kind of annoy me. No one was particularly lifelike, and I think the only reason I pictured Ember was because I assume that's her on the cover.

I'm disappointed that it's a series, to tell you the truth. If the rest of it is written in a similar manner, then I'd bet it could all fit quite easily into one book with some good editing, cutting, and condensing. Since it's a series, however, I guess I'll never know how it ends. I'd like to know the ending, but I'm unwilling to spend my time reading any subsequent books.

Note: There was little swearing in this book; however, there were several f words. I wouldn't be surprised if the number of f words equals the number of all other swear words combined. Honestly, none of the swearing fit--it just felt out of place.

I want to thank Netgalley for letting me review this book. I loved the main character ember and The relationship that were evolving as well. The magic system is very interesting and cool.
The first half of the book was a little slow moving but great for me and towards the end, I was so involved and couldnt put it down.
I would recommend to others. I think this book could be a wonderful series.
Thank you for allowing me to review this book.

First of all, I want to thank Netgalley and the author and publisher for the opportunity to get to read Evenfall. I don't get many ARC opportunities, so I really am thankful for the times I do get to read a book in advance. I only wish that I could have managed to finish this sooner before it was published.
Now to try and form all these thoughts about the book in my head into a somewhat coherent reveiew!

This book... MY GOSH! It was quite the struggle to get through it. I considered quite a few times quitting, at the 25% mark, the 60% mark and even later in the book towards the end. It just was so difficult for me to get into for some reason and the struggle was so real! I am really stubborn when it comes to not finishing things though and for that reason I persevere onto the end and FINALLY finished, even though it was a bit later after the book was already published. But hey I did it! I am really glad that I did push through though because the last 30% really made this book into what I was hoping it would be the entire first 70%. I'm actually kind of interested in finding out what happens in the next book now!

Evenfall is about a girl named Ember who wakes up in a strange land very different from her own, with no recollection as to how she got there. She is immediately found by a girl named Ada who somehow knows who she is and tries to whisk her away to hide her from the Crescent Prince. The prince wants to use her for her magic that she didn't know she had, and the girl Ada wants to use her to save the world. Little does Ember know just what it will take to reunite these broken lands into the whole world the way it used to be before there were lands of infinite sun, and infinite night. Through discovering how important she actually is, Ember also discovers so much more about this new land and its ruler, and even her own destiny.

My struggle with this book mostly came from the overabundance of information. The whole first 40% is mainly the main character being told the history of the world and how it came to be how it is. But also on the same hand, you are thrown into this world and all its workings from the start with little understanding as to how it all is supposed to function. This weird balance of not enough and too much information had my head spinning from the beginning. It was like there was so much being told to me as a reader that my mind couldn't comprehend it all. But on the same hand, I wanted to see the action happen and find out that way rather than reading it like a history book of a world I don't know a thing about. Then again after the action finally starts, we are caught up in chapters of the main character rehashing everything shes learned. Why couldn't we get those cliffnotes from the beginning. That would be a much more effective and less cumbersome way to go about it! Not to mention we wouldn't have to hear the history lesson twice in a matter of chapters!

The second thing that sort of got to me was the way that the characters were very one dimensional. As soon as I got to know a certain group of characters, Ember would then be whisked away to another location where she would fall in love within a matter of hours and the timeline just seemed so rushed. If the whole first 70% of the book hadn't been a history lesson, maybe there would have been more time to learn about the characters and then they could build actual relationships not these superficial things that formed over the length of a couple days. It just all seemed so rushed and forced.

I did enjoy the ending however. Things began to slow down and take their time and progress at a normal speed FINALLY at the end. I also started to really feel for the characters at this point and felt like it all started to make sense. I am glad I pushed on to the end of this book if not for this very reason. I finally got to see what the book was all about. And the ending also left me wanting to know what happens next which if by the time the second book comes out I remember enough of this one I'd definitely give it a try. But there is no way I am reading this one over again. It put me in the biggest reading slump of the year and I dare not do that to myself again.

All in all, this was a pretty big struggle to get through, but in the end it worked itself out enough that I give it 3 stars for that. But my gosh is it difficult to get to that point. I think that if you are one that likes to know a lot about the history of the world in which you are reading, then this will definitely be your cup of tea. I just couldn't get through the endless lessons and facts in the beginning which ultimately led me to become disinterested. I would say that it was definitely a well written book, there's no doubt about that, just maybe not the style of writing that I usually enjoy.

Evenfall had an interesting premise and a fascinating magic system, but I felt it could have befitted from better editing.

The characters were all very enjoyable, and I liked the dialogue a lot.
If the rest of the story had been written as well as the dialogue, I feel I would have enjoyed this more.

I found the inner monologue and descriptive paragraphs to be lacking interest. They failed to captivate me.

This might be a book for some people to enjoy, if they want something easy to read. You can kind of turn your brain off and just enjoy being in a magical world for a while.

I was approved to read an advanced e-copy of Evenfall by Gaja J. Kos from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Here are my thoughts on the book:

I had high hopes for this book as I had seen many positive reviews. The cover was another thing that sold me. I mean, it is gorgeous! But, the beginning was really slow and it took a lot longer for me to read through since it didn’t grasp me. Although it had a slow beginning, the ending didn’t disappoint!
The main character, Ember, is very relatable and that’s why I rode this book out until the very end. The writer really builds up her characters and the world around them. I will definitely be checking out the second book!

I was pretty excited to read this particular book because the premise sounded right up my alley and interesting, and the book itself started on a great note, but I had so many issues with the story and the characters.
I feel part of the reason why I didn’t enjoy this book as much as I wanted to is that there was barely any world building. I totally get that Evenfall is supposed to be the first book in a series, so it needs to set everything regarding the characters and the magic, but because there wasn’t much information regarding the magic system or the wod building I was very confused throughout some relevant parts of the story.
The story itself was quite lineal, and not much happened. It seemed more like a prologue to me than a first installment, because Evenfall dwelved more in the characters and their interactions than in a plot.
Regarding the characters, I admit I ended up pretty disappointed. They were very simple and bland, and sometimes the dynamics between them felt a bit forced and like they were there just to fill space and nothing else. Our protagonist had a nice evolution as the story continued, but there was something about her that didn’t make me empathize or click with her as much as I expected to. Also the relationship between her and the male interest was not only quite predictable, but also very weird and came a bit out of nowhere. It was rushed and that romance started in a part of the novel where I think it wasn’t needed, since the characters barely knew each other and only appeared a bit forced.
Overall, I had such high hopes when it came to Evenfall, and it had a few redeemable things, but I had a lot of issues regarding not only the world but also the character arcs that I couldn’t see past them.

The saying is never judge a book by its cover applies here. The cover artwork is what got my attention, but unfortunately the writing couldn’t hold it. A good idea that falls short. Ember bored me and the Prince is the same old hot brooding guy I’ve read before. I won’t be continuing with this series.

Did you want a book with more Alina-Darkling development than what the Grisha trilogy did? Then this is the book for you. No, really, it is like Grisha, with a few elements from Beauty and the Beast thrown in. Ember arrives in another world, with no knowledge of how she got there, and is told that she is hunted by the tyrannical Crescent Prince of the land, an immortal who has been searching for a power like hers through the centuries. Only thing is, she doesn’t think she has any magic, especially since back in her home world, women weren’t allowed to hold magic, so she is skeptical of her role in saving this and the other worlds. As the plot goes on, the divide between the people of this world, and the aim of the Crescent Prince, seems muddled, and she has to choose between her loyalties.

What Evenfall did good was present the characters in varying shades of morality. For the first half of the book, she gets one part of the story – of the tyranny of restrained magic, of a Prince who hunts her, of the horrors he has committed; then in the second half, she gets the other side of the story – the why of it, without justifying or excusing his actions. Sure, the draw between both of them definitely plays into her impressions of him, but it calls into question the way actions can be presented, and how truth can have different facets and how even your friends can be wrong sometimes. Ember knows, when she comes into her power, that she will be hated alongside Mordecai, if the truth of her got out, yet she puts her trust into the friend she made, and tries to bridge the gap between the two warring parties. The stakes are raised significantly towards the end of the novel to make you nervous about her actions, and well, I wish I could say it all ends well, but it ends in a cliffhanger, so good luck with that!

What was not so great about this book was the glacial pace and the insta-love. The plot is slow, like really really slow, and I was wishing it would hurry up and get over with it in some parts. It goes into way too much detail in some scenes, like one where Ember first meets the mage who had bound her powers, and then goes into a whole paragraph of how her actions were selfish with regards to her daughter, and yes, it did come around in a circle towards the end when applied to the populace as a whole, but that wasn’t apparent then, and it just felt like a waste of the reader’s time! The world-building is unique, and employs different magic systems together, and involves it into the fabric of the plot, but a lot of time is wasted letting us know how Nysa’s festival was and how it works. Especially when, later on, it doesn’t mean much when Ember meets Mordecai, and starts to fall in love with him, which by the way, was a lot of magical insta-love: their similar powers being the thing that draws them together and serving to lay the building block of their relationship which culminates in them confessing their love within a week! A week! Yeah, Mordecai is sexy, hot and will stir the Darkling lovers again, but it could have done with more development that just her getting lost in his unreadable eyes.

Finally, it is a great fantasy book, with unique world-building and a to-die-for romance, but it needs to fix its pacing issues in the next book.

Evenfall is a story centering around Ember, a young woman raised in a privileged yet very restricted environment (especially for ambitious ladies). She mysteriously wakes up ands herself in a strange new land with no idea how she got there. Ember is quickly introduced to Ada, her mother, and a group of friends that have been waiting for her arrival for quite some time. As the story unfolds, we have some great escapes, close calls, and rescue missions, where most characters aren't quite what they seem and the fate of the worlds as they're known are hanging in the balance.

Evenfall was fairly run-of-the-mill YA fantasy, with a few interesting twists and some disappointments as well. The structure of the worlds and the magic system seemed intriguing and I would have loved to dig in deeper to those aspects of the story to really get to understand them better. The plot had solid forward movement, but I think some of the pacing aspects could have been better: there were some scenes that seemed to drag on forever and, conversely, some parts of the book that I wish got more time in the spotlight to help further the reader's understanding of the stakes and to build deeper, more convincing relationships.

While some of the writing, especially the big reveals, are clumsy and the level of detail probably won't blow you away, Evenfall would be an appealing read for someone looking for a quick and easy YA fantasy read.

Ember comes to in a unknown world without knowing how she got there. When a girl comes at her with a knife, she runs before realizing she was coming towards her to protect her. Later, this girl, Ada, tells her she is the savior.
But Ember doesn't know what that means or what she's meant to do or anything really because nobody tells her a damn thing! She only knows she has to be protected from the Crescent Prince, a very cruel dictator. Or so they say.

This was ok. The world building was pretty good and the characters pretty layered and interesting. But somehow, I had a lot of trouble getting into the story. I had to take a go at it a couple times.
And honestly, my favorite part was still the first half after I got into the story. I really liked the dynamics between Ember, Ada, and the rest of the team.
I didn't love the relationship between Ada and Mordecai. It felt forced to me. I didn't see the actual connection between them and I couldn't get into their romance... It was pretty predictable too.
Honestly, it started getting really interesting and then, it felt a bit like a let down...
I wanted more friendship and banter and less romance I guess...

DNF. Could not get through this one. I was hopeful with the premise it would be exciting and fast-paced but I could barely drag through it. It read like a book I was plopped down in the middle of. Except the middle was the beginning and everything was explained way too soon. And in an obvious way. Everything was all over the place and I couldn’t get behind the plot. Nothing against the book I just couldn’t get into this one.

I have mixed emotions about this book. It was exciting and alluring but then some times it just felt like It was missing something.

Rating 4.5/5

How is this book not being talked about??! I cannot understand the under marketing for this because this was a fantastic read!

First off, the cover is GORGEOUS! Not often will a story match its intriguing cover, but this one does and even surpasses it! The writing is so beautiful and brilliant and weaves such a lyrical story that you immerse yourself in this world with ease and grace. The plot line was masterful as well - and it was so REAL! I mean in what YA novel have you read that even incorporated the female period in it! I was very surprised with this entire read and enjoyed it a lot!

I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher for my honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me an advance copy of this book to review.
I DNFd this book around 30% of the way through though I really did enjoy the portion I read though. The book is beautifully written and the story is interesting and unique. I stopped reading just because the pacing was a little slow for me and I had some other books I was really excited to pick up. I am hoping to finish the book down the road, but I really wanted to get my thoughts out there before the book is released. I'll update this when I finish the book.

2.4
I tried to get into this one, but ultimately it was just plain boring. If I hadn’t been committed to finishing the book to write an adequate review, I would’ve DNF’d it and been done. The characters contribute most to this issue. Pretty much all the characters are incredibly flat. I couldn’t tell you any personality traits of any of them after reading the whole book. The evil prince is technically not flat, but I found his “redemption” story unconvincing if not nonsensical, so I didn’t really find that as much of an improvement. Further, the plot moves at a glacial pace. It takes about 30% of the book to even present the premise of what’s actually going on. So many of the chapters prior have a bunch of verbiage that still leaves Ember (and the reader) thinking “wait, so what is going on?” Only to try and explain a bit more (to little or no avail) in the next chapter. I think this was to avoid infodumping, but it essentially just infodumped for much longer since there wasn’t much other development in those chapters. This is significant since the plot was actually quite simple. Some stuff happens for the next 30% bringing in a few new characters who still aren’t very interesting and featuring some action. Then the last 40% is just Ember swooning over someone for literally no reason other than that his sapphire eyes are SO hawt.

The other biggest issue is the book’s difficulty with fulfilling promises. The beginning of the book, while it was slow, at least set up some cool stuff with a chick-led heist story with a potential F/F love triangle in a torn-apart world with evil villains and a wealth of different magic. Then the main character gets captured, there’s no pay-off on the initial romance, the magic is incredibly vague, and the heist plot disappears. Ember kept referring to the group she was with earlier as her “friends,” but I began to wonder why seeing as she wasn’t with them long and was happy to trip over herself trying to get in bed with their enemy after he kidnapped her and threw temper tantrums, calling her useless for a couple days. Not only is the heist not on-screen, it basically doesn’t occur. The romantic tension with the two women earlier on is forgotten as if it never happened. There are times when such a setup and twist could make for interesting subversion. Instead it just felt like two different books crammed together.

For the most part, I’d just give this book 2 stars given the above issues. But I did feel like the prose was actually quite strong considering. Most of the descriptions were fairly vibrant and expansive, painting a picture of the characters and scene that the emotional beats were unable to accomplish. So I gave a few points for that. I would’ve given more but the book also strayed too often into being overwritten because of it and eventually, the prose got lazier and lazier with lots of repetition beyond intentional descriptive devices (ie, character tags are great in moderation, but the prince’s eyes are likened to sapphires 38 different times—and the word “sapphire” appears 9 other times in other descriptions—in the book, which is way overdoing it for a book this length. I began to think he might just literally have sapphires for eyes). Because of this, I wasn’t willing to give it too much of a bonus, despite liking a portion of the prose to some extent. I will also say that the definition of purple prose varies a lot from reader to reader. This book only strayed into that category a few times for me, but I think for a lot of readers it’d be too much.

There is actually decently cool world-building, even if some of it just felt like a Grisha rip-off. This sort of raises the book in my eyes, but I had a hard time enjoying it when such good ideas were often overshadowed or left vague when it came time to actually feature them. The book describes three different magic systems spread across three planes of existence, each with their own mechanics and aesthetic. Practitioners of each play key roles in the story and the magic is used throughout the few action scenes around the middle of the book. But most of the time I forgot most of these elements were there as the story focused on the brooding prince’s angst trying to convince me to care about him rather than the world. When the magic is used, it just kind of happens and little is done to make it all that interesting or dynamic. Still, I was willing to bump up my score a bit for the attention to coming up with these elements as I think they had the potential to turn the book around some if they were handled better.

Despite some of the better aspects of the novel, I can’t really recommend this book to anyone. Being dull is a fatal flaw for most any book and the other elements did little to mitigate that effect for me. Maybe a sequel would get better with this story arc out of the way, but while this wasn’t super long (it wasn’t super short either), I don’t think I’d have the patience to sit through another book like it. It’s clear from other reviews so far that it has its fans, but I have a hard time understanding why, even after reading some of them.

I was provided an advanced copy by NetGalley. All opinions herein are my own.

Quick summary: Ember finds herself in an unknown world where everyone seems to want a piece of her. including the Crescent Prince.

I really wanted to like this book but I’m sad to say that it just felt really flat to me. The characters and the worldbuilding. Ember has entire dialogues in her head and sometimes I got lost. Like did I miss an interaction? Ember easily gets swayed by Ada at the beginning to dislike Mordecai, almost too easily.

I love magic in books but even that couldn’t help me out with liking any of the characters.

I skimmed through most of this book, it didnt grab my attention especially the beginning. The ending is what made it a little bit better I guess.
No spoilers though but.

The cover is really beautiful though, points to the talented artist.

This book has a lot of things going for it. First, it's quite technically sound. The story started in the right place, and it was quite smart actually. I loved how the character was just as confused and unsure of the world as I, the reader was. And while this book was littered with tropes and was predictable in some ways, it did not feel cliche. There was still something refreshing and original about it. I loved seeing a character who just had no idea what was happening and had to figure it all out right alongside me.

That's not to say that it was perfect. Unfortunately, the turning point for the main character was just too late in the novel. I was at about 74% in the ebook when Ember finally stopped letting everything just happen to her and became proactive in the plot, making decisions about who was in the right and in the wrong by herself. Because of this, there was only the last 16% of the novel where Ember was the one calling the shots, and unfortunately, that was the best part of the novel. I think that if the turning point had been a bit sooner, I would have loved it more because, until that point, Ember's just floating along. While we are in her head the entire time, I did feel like I knew her until the turning point.

Ember still felt quite real though. Major props to the authors for writing a character who was so vivid and three-dimensional. Ember menstruates, something a lot of YA books seem to gloss over or skip unless it is a major inconvenience to the main character. She made both good and bad decisions throughout the book and had to own up to them, another very realistic situation even in a fantastical setting. It added a sense of realness to the world that I believe a lot of people appreciated.

The world was quite imaginative. It did, however, lack a certain solidness. I don't' know if that's because the magic in the realm was illusion magic or not, but I felt like there was vagueness surrounding the whole world (well, worlds, there are three of them but we'll get to that in a moment). It did not really clear up until the end of the novel. In a way, I felt like this could have been intentional as the book is narrated by Ember in the first person and I wonder if it had to do with how little she knew of the three realms. That being said, I still felt like there was something missing. Also, there did not seem to be a great many rules surrounding the world and the magic in it. This definitely had a weak/simplistic magic system.

One thing I would have loved would have been a flash-back to Ember's world, especially because it felt a bit more solid than the rest and I was quite curious about how things worked there. It would have given a much-needed insight into Ember's past and help me connect to her before her big mentality shift.

Lastly, I'm going to talk about the relationships, and for once I'm not going to bash them. While it wasn't subtle or a slow-burn, it didn't make my skin crawl nor did I want to punch the love interest in the face every time he opened his. This isn't the most perfect romance ever, and it sure was predictable from the moment the name was mentioned, There a semblance to The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo that I liked as well, but only a resemblance. It didn't feel like outright copying or anything as it did fit in with the plot, but anyone would be hard-pressed to deny the similarities between the Darkling and the Crescent Prince.

In all, I think this will appeal to fantasy lovers who don't mind a bit of romance. Fans of Shadow and Bone should find this book very enjoyable too.

(This is the script I will basing my video review off of set to go up the 27th of October on my YouTube channel. The video will then be embedded in the BookAxe review area as well as linked in a Goodreads review. Links will be added when the video is live.)

Evenfall tells the story of our MC, Ember, waking up in an unfamiliar world filled with magic, illusions, truths, lies, brightness and darkness.


I really wanted to love this book, the description seemed right up my alley. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. It was ~ok.


The storyline was hard to get into and I felt myself getting bored throughout. It recycled a lot of tropes that are in most YA fantasy novels but I just didn't feel like they were executed to the fullest extent.


I hate leaving reviews when I don't love a book as I know that writing is a passion project. I encourage the writers to stick with it as they do have talent and can write, the book just wasn't really for me.


*thank you to NetGalley and Xpresso Book Tours for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.