This was a middle-of-the-road read for me. While I liked a lot of aspects, there were some things I disliked, and overall, I just didn't feel strongly enough about the book to really warrant adding an in-depth review to the blog.

Every time I tell myself "I won't get into another unfinished series!" And every time I fail. Because holy crap, people. I absolutely loved this book. I must know what happens to Anton, Hassan, Jude, Beru and Ephrya. I MUST KNOW!

Character driven YA fantasy book that offered diverse characters and point of views. I recommend this.

I love a book that can pull off multiple POV’s without leaving the readers completely lost. I loved the eclectic cast of characters, and I felt a pull to all of them, all for different reasons.

In There Will Come a Darkness, the world is in peril & five people can either save the world or end it. This means the author chose to give each of the five main characters a voice in the narration of the story. Unfortunately, I think the novel would have been far more powerful if she had trimmed the number of narrators down to no more than two. It would have allowed me to develop a stronger connection with the characters. On a positive note, Ms. Pool creates a well-defined dystopian society for her characters & provides the necessary explanation for the magic within her world. As the first of a series, There Will Come a Darkness has plenty of room to grow. Thank you to NetGalley & publisher for an ACR of this novel.

Incredible first book in a series I am eager to see continued. As the cast of characters are introduced, and their lives become interwoven as the story is revealed, I became more and more engrossed. The premise and world building are a fresh take on a story told again and again - a chosen rag-tag bunch must save the world. When re-writing a trope, authors must tread carefully. Pool creates an immersive world with incredible original lore that you will be dying to learn more about. The character development is well paced and multi-layered. I can't say enough good things about this title.

This was a debut?! Wow! This was so well written and captivating! I loved every minute of this amazing book!

A solid YA novel that was a good purchase for my library. Students have read and enjoyed it, and I purchased it because of this review copy.

Not bowled over, but a worthy step in the right direction.

Came for the queer fantasy and...mostly got it. I'd love for some sapphic rep or at least a gay couple on main though considering the straights have one right away.

There's 5 main POVs. Two are sisters with no romantic attachments, one prince with a soldier girl romance, and two boys that like boys though they don't meet until the end and neither have partners.

Of the two gay male characters, one's a flirt and the other is kinda sorta struggling with having any romantic feelings vs religious duty. No guilt about being gay per say, but people might say it's a distinction without a difference. YMMV.

There are also an adorable husband couple in the background cast.

Love the vigilante justice in the beginning. The Pale Hand kept me reading when I was bored with Jude's irresponsible whiny guilt re: Hector and Anton's drawn out mystery.

The surprise ending is perfect villain backstory and what I'm mostly excited in pursuing. The thread I like makes it like The Bone Witch with less world building, more POV characters, and messy drama.

I think the next one is going to have more going on from the get go and is going to be gayer, so I'll try continuing.

While I was very excited for this one, unfortunately I found the description of locations to be very poor; for a fantasy, this made it particularly difficult to continue.

There Will Come a Darkness is the first in a new series by Katy Rose Pool. I found her writing to be solid, and her character and world descriptions were great. My struggles were with the number of characters and the spacing of each character’s story. There were 5 main characters, and the book was written from each character’s POV. What made it difficult to follow was that each chapter was written from the POV of one main character, and at the end of their chapter, it switched to someone else’s POV. So, to follow one character’s storyline, I had to get through 4 or more chapters following a different character. That made it hard to keep each person’s storyline fresh in my mind. I’m giving this 3 stars because her writing and world building were solid. I can’t go any higher, because it was difficult to follow with the constantly changing POV.

With five different points of view, a plot that brings them all together, and nearly five hundred pages, There Will Come a Darkness is certainly ambitious and it’s enough to throw my mind and heart all over the place before the end. I’m going to attempt to be as concise as possible because I’m not trying to write an essay, but there are a few things that I wanted to talk about.

As a reader, I can’t resist a book with multiple POVs, but I feel like the balance only works if I’m equally invested, in one way or another, in each character’s perspective. This book gave us Ephyra, Anton, Jude, Hassan, and Beru. We’ve all got that one character in these kinds of narratives that just doesn’t hold up to the rest, but in my case, I found myself losing interest in two of the five characters and wanting more of the one character that got significantly less page time and it threw my reading of the book off balance. My main concern and interest quickly became the relationships between Ephyra, Beru, and Anton, and I felt like Jude and Hassan’s perspectives started to highlight the two main issues I was having with the novel as a whole: the plot and the villain.

One of the things that raised a red flag for me early on regarding the Hierophant and the Witnesses is how strikingly similar they are to Amon and the Equalists from the first season of The Legend of Korra. It wasn’t something I was ever able to ignore and it was the one spot in this novel that took me out of the narrative. Despite the heinous actions of the Witnesses, we never see the Hierophant until the end of the novel and so I never once felt afraid of him or his influence. In the long stretch of time it takes for him to show up on page, the novel is full of frequent betrayals that absolutely exhausted me as a reader. It felt like there was a betrayal at every single turn and that made me feel like the stakes existed for these characters only at an individual level, because by the time they all came together to face the Hierophant and his threat was directly at their doorstep, I couldn’t help but feel like it was the easiest thing they’d faced yet.

None of this is to say that There Will Come a Darkness did everything wrong. I loved the way the world-building centered itself so often around food, family, and traditions, which made everything come alive for me in a way that felt refreshing and confident. It’s evident from the first page that Pool knows this world intimately and I trusted her to guide me through it, even if some of her decisions didn’t land the way I’d have liked them to. The characters were all complex and compelling in their own ways—even those that faltered for me—and I think the relationships and their nuances were what really drove this novel to have the promise that it has. Between the Graced and their powers, the mythology, and the character relationships, Pool did a lot right here, despite my problems, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the sequel brings to the table.

For me, this fantasy felt so generic and typical of a novel that was quickly thrown together. The characters were cookie cutters, with no real characteristics that made them stand out from each other. The worldbuilding could have been so much more, but felt sloppy and no well planned. The dialogue was dry and heavy. I really did not enjoy ll the different points of view, especially since the characters' voices were practically indistinguishable from each other. They all sounded like each other, so I never got to really know anyone. It was a big disappointment.

Character-driven with an ensemble cast (my favorite), the shocking twists and turns will stay with you long after you’ve finished this fantasy. This debut was included in my list for The Young Folks, "25 Spooky, Witchy and Overall Fantastic Books of Halloween."

I suppose I am ending 2019 with what feels like a return to my roots – a fantasy young adult book with hints of apocalypse. There Will Come A Darkness is Katy Rose Pool’s debut and boy does it slap. It’s a long book and quite the journey from beginning to end. I am glad I read and will happily be back for book two.

There Will Be A Darkness follows five main characters who each get focused chapters. Hassan is a prince in exile. Ephyra lives with her sister Beru and has a strange and terrible Grace. Beru, FYI, is very sick. Anton is very good at card games and is running from his Grace. Jude is the Keeper Of The Word and in search of the Prophet. He also has to reconcile his heart and his duty. You see, in Pool’s world, some people have extraordinary gifts called Graces – this means some people can create wondrous inventions. Some people have amazing reflexes and strength. Some people can scry. Others have the power to heal. Meanwhile, there’s a cult called the witnesses who are lead by the Hierophant who want to wipe out the Graced. And man, this book gets INTENSE.

At times, yes the book does feel a little over long. It’s worth persevering through. I found that each character’s motivations were complex and interesting. There’s a whole lot of action. Also, we get snippets of romance. But honestly, the best piece of the whole book lies in the world building and the character growth for SOME characters. Not all, but some. So, add this to your list if you’re here for a big meaty book and some solid adventures.

I feel like most of this book is nothing more than world-building and setting up the rest of the series. There is so much repetitiveness while Pool builds that world, plus there is so much of it. The action does not really kick in until well past the halfway point. It is a creative world though, wherein those with magic or the Graces are not the villains. The whole bad versus good element of the story is spectacularly gray, as is the dynamic between the religious and the nonbelievers. I did like the story once it finally started and am intrigued by how each character’s role will unfold and change along with the prophecy. Still, it could use a little less predictability and a lot less repetition to make it truly great.

I had heard amazing things about this book, so I was very excited to read it. Unfortunately, for me, this book did not really grab my attention until about the last 25%. I felt most of the book was too slow and I had difficulty sticking with it.

I felt there were too many POVs, which made the story seem to drag too much. I did not much care for the character of Hassan, whose POV felt drawn out and boring. Beru didn't seem to actually DO much, but at least her chapters were short. Jude's POV annoyed me because they seemed way too drawn out, and I fail to understand how he could have been named (and accepted) the role he did simply by virtue of his birth. He was clearly not cut out for the role. However, I appreciated a couple snippets of his towards the end.

I loved reading Anton's chapters and Ephyra's chapters, although I felt we did not get enough of Ephyra. But I guess this tends to happen when there are so many other POVs. Some of the more interesting ones get less page time in order to fit in the backstories of the ones we don't care much about. There were also a couple characters I felt were placeholders and didn't really contribute to the story (i.e., the story could have been told without them entirely... like Hector).

The last 25% of the book really picked up the pace, though, and had I only been rating based on that, this would easily have been a 4 star read. However, I had to average with the first 75% which I felt was very slow.

I greatly enjoyed the romantic tension between some of the characters. I am mostly interested in the Anton/Jude dynamic and I will be picking up Book 2 mainly just to see what happens with them. I really want to know more about their connection and whether this becomes a romantic relation, something else, or what.

I'm also curious as to the true identity of Mrs. Tappan. I feel like she probably has a bigger role to play, even though we only saw her I think 2 times in the book.

I really enjoyed a great many things about this book. Characters were fleshed out and the plot was well spaced. Some of the secondary storylines could've used a bit more page space but all in all an enjoyable read!

If you love darker stories set in a YA Fantasy world, you may want to pick this one up next! 

In this story we follow multiple characters as they venture though a unique, magical world. They are all diverse and eventually come together bringing down the darkness. This is a densely character-driven plot, so if you aren't a fan of these types of stories, you may want to set it aside. 

Like with most multiple-POV stories, there were a few that weren't as exciting to read, so I did find moments were I was mostly skimming through until I can get to the more interesting POVs. 

Overall, I gave this one 4 out of 5 stars. It's definitely a world full of dark corners and dense content, so if you love reading these vibes, pick it up!

I received a digital copy of this book from Netgalley for an honest review.

This book just wasn't for me. Even with 5 different characters to read about I was bored with the story lines. I just didn't find any of the characters that interesting and nothing seemed to happen to advance the plots. There was too much flirting between characters and not enough of anything else to hold my interest.