I really wanted to like this book. The title itself, Where Dreams Descend, just invokes such a wondrous imaginative feeling that set the bar high but in the end, I just felt disappointed. The story was hard to get into and I had trouble liking the main characters, which added to the feeling of not wanting to continue reading.

For once the pitch is pretty spot on. You have the intense, moody foreboding of Phantom of the Opera coupled with the sexy whimsy of Moulin Rouge with a dash of The Prestige thrown in for good measure. It made for a fantastic premise and solid debut fantasy.

MAGICIANS, SHOWGIRLS AND MYSTERIOUS TOWNS, OH MY!
This book was a lot of fun. I loved the mystery and intrigue that was woven through the setting and relationships, though we do end up with more questions than answers. Total set up for book two anybody? The prose was beautiful and set the stage for each performance to leap off the page. I am all in for a magic competition my friends.


The entire cast of characters where entertaining and captured my attention but I want to focus just on our heroine, Kallia. Giving those potential spoilers a wide berth. I am so here for an unapologetically ambitious woman who knows her worth. She is the best and is not shy about it. Why should she be? You know the male magicians won’t be. Women are also constantly sexualized, yet are look down upon when we take back ownership and make it a weapon or tool. I appreciated Kallia used that to her advantage here because why the hell shouldn’t we embrace all aspects of ourselves?!

Romance-wise it was an absolute slow burn but also a bit of a love triangle. Typically that would lead to a DNF right there but oddly it worked in Where Dreams Descend. My spidey senses are tingling and am super curious to read where this is going.

Where I had the most challenge was a combination of the world building and the magic system. There were times the world was so vibrant and engaging while other times I wasn’t real clear how things fit or why they where important. I am suspending my verdict on this aspect because it also could be part the very mysterious vibes happening. Did I mentioned we end with more questions than answers? However, the magic-system felt confusing and underdeveloped so I am hoping we get more clarity in book two.

OVERALL
Overall, Where Dreams Descend was a sparkling debut. It was fantastically theatrical and left me feeling like I was sitting right in the front row of the most incredible circus. I cannot wait to unearth all the secrets in the next addition to this tale. Can I time travel to the release date please?

Warning: Cliffhanger

Audiobook: I read Where Dreams Descend in a combination of ebook and audibook formats. The audiobook narrators were FANTASTIC and I highly recommend it. Only wish there was more Steve West because he is the best narrator on the planet.

Recommended for fans of: Caraval, The Night Circus, magicians, strong women, fantastic debuts, diverse representation, and slow-burn romance

My final rating for this book is 3 stars. I enjoyed the general concept of the book, but there were a few things that stuck out which stopped me from giving it a higher rating.

Things I loved:

The way the magic is used is really cool! I loved how in this world magic is used to entertain as well. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything where one of the main careers a magic-user can do is entertainment through magic. I also thought it was a clever twist on the real world non-magic “magic” shows.

However, I would have loved to learn more about the magic system itself. How it’s used, how one becomes a magician etc. It was touched upon a little bit, with mention of the magic schools and acquired vs. born magic, but I felt like it could have been delved into a little more.

What I just mentioned ended up being my main complaint with the book. I felt like there was so much more to know about the world and the magic system that wasn’t mentioned, and it ended up leaving me a little bit confused. I know some of it may be contributed to the fact that the main character (Kallia) had an incredibly “sheltered” upbringing and doesn’t really know much about the world, but there were sections of the book told from other characters POV and I still don’t think that anything was clarified.

I was left knowing next to nothing about the world where this story took place, and even at the end of the book, I didn't fully understand the motives or that was built up throughout the entire story.

Character-wise, Kallia was fantastic, a strong-willed character who absolutely crushed it at almost everything she did. I especially liked reading about her from other POVs.

Dara-bleh. Not the most interesting love interest? And his motivations for being in Glorian in the first place were honestly a bit weak. I was also sort of confused about his character in general.

Aaros-Loved him! But he was a little 1 dimensional. Back to my main criticism that I really wish I knew more about some of the characters and the setting. One thing that bothered me was the fact that Aaros was from Glorian, so I thought Kallia could have asked Aaros about its history and why the city was closed off and why they opened it all of the sudden.

The book is severely lacking on the worldbuilding front. I often felt confused about the setting because not much of it was explained. There were some places or events that were mentioned offhand, and I feel like if they were explained or delved into a little bit more it would have really benefited the story.

Additionally, there were several characters who I didn’t really understand their motivations or came across as a little one dimensional even though their character had so much potential!!
Overall, I enjoyed the book. It was unique, I loved the magic and the contest setting but I felt like it could have been a little bit more developed. I can’t wait for the second book, hopefully, I’ll understand a bit more of it then!

Even though it took me a while to get into Where Dreams Descend, it ultimately delivered. Where Dreams Descend is a story full of great characters, a dark and broody world, filled with suspense and magic. The magician / circus element is woven in beautifully and makes for an exciting premise. The main characters all have a mysterious past that we learn more about close to the end, which makes for very compelling and interesting characters. I was instantly rooting for the expected romance and the side characters added a more fun and light aspect. I would have enjoyed a bit more world-building since the possibilities where endless and I felt like it could have been explored more closely.

Where Dreams Descends builds up for an even more exciting sequel. I can't wait to see where this story will go next.

I had to DNF this book. I just could not connect with the characters and could not see the storyline going anywhere. I don't feel there was adequate world building for this story and it contributed to my DNFing this one. I will attempt to read this one in the future and will update my review accordingly.

Loved. This. Book. It was as advertised—the perfect blend of magic, danger, romance, and mystery. Janella Angeles is an amazing new talent to watch for with beautiful pros and masterful worldbuilding. I can’t wait for the sequel!

Kallia is a female magician in a world that isn’t ready to reconcile her power with her gender. Most female magicians are relegated to using their power in domestic service. When Kallia breaks free of her cage—the mysterious Hellfire House—where she has anonymously performed each night under the tutelage of the shadowy Jack, she stumbles into the once powerful city of Glorian. A competition for magicians reluctantly accepts her as she finds a delightful Pick pocket/assistant, Aaros, and befriends the performers of a traveling circus. Strange accidents and dire warnings plague the competition, and Kallia falls into a dangerous romance with former stage magician Darin Demarco. The abrupt end of the competition ups the stakes for the next installment.

Pre-publication press hails this debut novel as a mixture of Phantom of the Opera and Moulin Rouge - and it's definitely reminiscent of both. The aesthetics blend those nicely with the theatrics, the sort of love story and the overall spectacle. Kallia is something of a trapped songbird as the book opens - working for her mysterious jailer/mentor/teacher, Master Jack of this Hellfire House club. Yearning for real connections and freedom, Kallia hears of a magical competition in the closest city, Glorian - where she can only glimpse the rooftops from the heights of her beloved greenhouse. Making her escape, she joins in and learns of more mysteries and secrets while being drawn to the youngest judge on the panel with a past of his own.

The book unfolds a bit slowly - bogged down a bit with lavish descriptions of magical performances, costumes and the look and feel of the surroundings. Unfortunately, not as much time is spent on character development. The maintenance of all of the mysteries further slows the pacing and makes it hard to really connect with the story. There's also a fair amount of head-hopping that grated on my nerves and I wish that all the secrecy didn't detract so severely from the world building. I did like the writing overall, but I never loved this as much as I expected to. Still, by the latter half, the book hits a better stride and the cliffhanger of an ending will certainly have readers anxious for the sequel.

TW: controlling behaviour, death, grief, gaslighting, sexism

When I first heard of this sumptuous tale and its comparison to Moulin Rouge, The Night Circus and The Phantom of the Opera, with a dash of Caraval too, I knew I had to have it in my life!

Where Dreams Descend will cast a spell on you that entraps you within its deceptively beautiful pages, leaving you craving more long after the final page has passed.

Angeles has crafted such a brilliant story here with a rich world and creative flourishes that add that sparkle, which serves to make it stand out from the crowd. While reading Where Dreams Descend, I could scarcely think of anything outside of Kallia’s story. Her voice was so distinctive and I quickly found myself rooting for her. I loved her ambition and drive; she was so unafraid to go after her dreams and that passion is infectious. Rarely do we get to see ambition as a desirable quality in women, but Kallia thrives on it. Also, her ownership of her sexuality and beauty was empowering to read. However, the world she inhabits is determined to crush her spirit at every turn. She is belittled and marginalised as a woman who dares to thrive in a male-dominated world. Angeles instantly sets the tone of this misogynists, sexist hierarchy from the first page, as well as introducing the disappearances of women that have mysteriously occurred for years. This is often swept under the carpet and the experiences of women are dismissed until they threaten the hierarchy. It reflects the extent of the marginalisation, as they are so insignificant and invisible that they simply vanish without a trace.

This is just such a compelling and entrancing story, with a magical and mysterious atmosphere throughout that will keep you hooked. The intrigue is omnipresent, as more and more layers of the plot and overarching mystery are revealed. Like any good magician, Angeles uses her imaginative powers as sleight of hand, with vividly imagined magical displays and shows that are spectacles within themselves. In fact the entire world feels so tangible and real, with fantastic attention to detail allowing you to really immerse yourself in the story. Beyond the dreamy nature of some of the gorgeous writing lies the dark heart of the book. There’s such a tangled web of history, secrets and death to untangle and I really appreciated how Angeles gave us enough hints, but also left some tantalising plot threads open for the sequel. She expertly lays the groundwork for the expansive story yet to be completed while also ensuring that you get to know and love both the characters and the world they inhabit.

A key theme of Where Dreams Descend centres around mirrors and illusion. I thought that this was such a clever way to play tricks on the reader, as you can’t always trust what is presented to you. This perfectly encapsulates the ideas of magic and the seedy underbelly beneath it in the book. In a world where presentation is everything, manipulation and distortion are key players. The power dynamics reflect this, as does the central theme of control. Angeles is a master at manipulating emotions and making you feel as though everything you know is constantly shifting. This makes for such an original and fascinating reading experience.

Where Dreams Descend is an alluring and beguiling story with a world inside that’s as darkly beautiful as its stunning cover.

DNF @ 25%

I am having a hard time enjoying this book. The descriptions are overdone and slow down the plot. Also, the main character is not easy to relate to. Not for me, unfortunately.

I enjoyed this but I thought the pacing was slow (maybe because the author was building up to a sequel?) and it felt like we just meandered along for so long before the plot really kicked off and got interesting. I also was expecting for of a love triangle (sucker for a trope!), but maybe that was my misunderstanding. All of that being said, I am still likely to read the sequel just to see how everything wraps up.

Not particularly my type of ya; my taste has just shifted a lot this past year. Would be good for fans of Caraval. I enjoyed the writing.

4.5 stars!

I was definitely very skeptical going into this book after seeing it being marketed as a fantasy novels with Phantom of the Opera and Moulin Rouge vibes. I’ve been disappointed by books in the past that were marketed in a similar way, but I have to say that this book totally delivered!! I loved the elements that Angeles incorporated from both stories. It made my reading experience all the more enjoyable.

Jack, Kallia, Demarco, and all of the side characters (I especially loved Aaros) were all very intriguing and added so much to the story. Plus, the love triangle was really well done IMO 🔥🔥🔥. The ending was also SO exciting and left off on a great cliffhanger. I can’t wait to see what happens next and to see how the world expands in the next book.

**Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-arc in exchange for an honest review!**

I'm hovering between a 3.5 and a 4 star rating. This book was definitely imaginative, but I had some trouble visualizing some of the magic in it and picking up on what was going on some of the time (might be a me problem?). The setting was brilliant. The world was intriguing. I'm definitely planning on continuing when the next installment comes out.

This book was SO AMAZING. It's always such a joy when a book you've been heavily anticipating not only is as good as you'd hoped it would be, but also manages to surprise you along the way. I definitely need to buy myself a copy of this one in the near future!

Full disclosure: I am a HUGE Phantom of the Opera fan. It's absolutely my favorite Broadway musical, and I was so pleased to hear that this was heavily inspired by it. As a Phan, I'll definitely say that while this story is far from a direct retelling of Phantom (which I really appreciated!), you do see overlays of characters, small easter eggs, and famous scenes reimagined in a new way that added an extra level of fun in reading this story. But for those of you who aren't Phans or familiar with that story, don't feel like you need to be deterred at all from enjoying the story! Janella Angeles does a fantastic job of setting up the world without needing that knowledge and progressing the story to a dramatic, cliffhanger crescendo that leaves you breathless. (I can't believe that the sequel comes out in 2021! AGH!)

Fantasy can sometimes be hit or miss with me, but this story does a wonderful job of establishing a lot about the world very quickly and doing so without making me feel bogged down by exposition. We learn very quickly about the relationship between Kallia, our protagonist, and Jack, the Master of Hellfire House, and what twists and tangles lie behind the scene. But when Kallia escapes to a neighboring city, Glorian, to join a contest to be the next magician act to travel with a famous circus, the competition turns into disappearances and falls to mysteries only complicated the pasts of Kallia, Jack, and Demarco - a young judge of the competition with a huge secret.

There's a bit of a love triangle at works between the trio, but - as in Phantom - that love triangle is a bit one-sided. Of course, we find it much more complicated in the last act of the book, and then we're left to dangle until the sequel and finale of the series, so I can't wait to see it play out! It's definitely a slow-burn romance that I greatly enjoyed. Aside from our trio, there are tons of great secondary characters - a group of female circus performers who all hold their own; Kallia's assistant, Aaros; and Ira, a dressmaker who I suspect may become more important in the sequel. The competition aspect of the book is fun, but probably the story's weakest point and, honestly, a distraction to all the truly fun stuff happening in the background. The best part of this book is the mystery around Glorian, its' origins as a town, and the four families that once ran the place. We don't get all the answers in this first book on those things, either, so I'm excited to see that mystery unravel next year!

All in all, I'm just incredibly pleased with how much I wanted this and how much I loved it. Janella Angeles took a great story and used it as a framework to build a new world that is mysterious and beckoning, one that readers surely won't want to escape until they see how it all plays out. Can't wait for next June!

I loved the writing in this book, and the premise. But for some reason, I found it hard to get into. I tried several times, but just didn't seem to connect with it--not sure if that has to do with the current situation, because I've struggled with several books recently. I think this one is just not for me.

Reading this book was such a refreshing dive back into the YA Fantasy world. I have recently struggled to enjoy this genre because it’s difficult to connect with such complicated worlds and plot lines, but I think Angeles absolutely nailed the world-building, character descriptions, and dark tone she intended. I was instantly sucked in to Kallia’s story and knew she was going to do great things once she found her own voice.

This story follows a strong female lead, but she is in no way the perfect magician. There is so much she doesn’t know about her own world, but she knows not to trust anyone completely. While her past haunts her at every turn, Kallia proves that she is stronger and more capable than any of the male magicians who enter the Spectacular competition, even though they all blame her for the mysterious sabotages taking place.

I think this is a fabulous debut novel for Angeles, and I can’t wait to see how she wraps up the duology next year with When Night Breaks.

If there's one thing I hate, it's a book that asks a ton of questions and then answers absolutely none of them because the expectation is that the sequel will do that. A book should be able to stand on its own two feet rather than depend on the sequel to do the heavy lifting. Given that this book is also at least 100 pages too long, it becomes even more frustrating.

While I don't think Where Dreams Descend is without its merits, I had a lot of frustrations with it.

(→) The magic system is utterly nonsensical. There's soft magic systems, and then there's magic systems that have no rules or parameters whatsoever. We're not told what this magic can and can't do, what the limitations are, how it actually works, nothing. You're just meant to accept that it's there and it exists and it does whatever the characters want it to do. Also, the worldbuilding could stand to be a lot stronger; the world feels like a 2D sketch rather than a fully realized realm.

(→) The mysteries are completely contrived. There's absolutely no reason for Jack to be withholding information from Kallia, nor for Demarco to be so reticent about sharing his past with her, especially since she could have easily found out if she'd been a bit more curious and just like...asked some of Glorian's citizens, who all know who he is. The lack of information given to both Kallia and the reader serves only to manufacture tension and suspense where there really isn't any. Like, there's no reason to withhold Demarco's reason for being in Glorian like it's some big, explosive secret when it isn't at all??? I don't know why he was so worried about people finding out.

(→) There is no explanation about anything??? The whole book revolves around this mystery of magicians vanishing, which is really interesting, but then the ending happens and it's a cliffhanger and absolutely nothing at all is explained. We don't know anything about why Glorian is so strange, or about who Jack really is and what his motivations are, or what happened to Demarco's sister, or what's up with the mirrors, or who the voices Kallia hears are. Absolutely nothing.

(→) I don't mind the love triangle, but personally, I was a lot more interested in Jack than in Demarco, and unfortunately he's only present for a few scenes. Jack was actually one of my favorite things about this book; every scene with him and Kallia was absolute fire. The yearning, the sexual tension, the longing. It was spectacular. Jack himself is a curious character, and there are many hints that he's much more than he seems, but of course we get absolutely no revelations about him or his past with Kallia.

(→) There are a lot of side characters that don't really serve a purpose. While I appreciate that Kallia has an opportunity to bond with other women, the entire Conquering Circus subplot could have been entirely excised with absolutely no affect on the overarching plot. I liked Kallia as a main character; she's spunky without being annoying, and her motivations make sense. She's an interesting character to follow because she's so active: she's always willing to take action.

(→) While at first I really liked the writing, over time it became a little too ornate for me. I usually love pretty writing, but this was a bit much, and it meant I often had to reread sentences just to make sense of what the author was trying to get across. I think the author is super talented, but perhaps she ought to tone this down a bit.

(→) Because of the flowery writing, though, the atmosphere in this book is pretty good. The Phantom and Moulin Rouge comparisons are spot on; there's so much pomp and glitter throughout this book that I truly felt like I was in a grand opera house watching magicians perform spectacular feats.

Where Dreams Descend is a bit like cotton candy: pretty and sweet, but with very little substance. An entire book of tepid romance and setup isn't a very good book at all.

"It's also an undeniable truth that the more others try to extinguish a flame, the greater its power must be. Why else destroy light if not envious of its radiance?"

Where Dreams Descend is a beautifully sensuous debut. The writing style flowed so richly and magically that it was like you were being enthralled by the events that were happening, like your own personal magical show.

Kallia is the main character of Where Dreams Descend and she is so gloriously feminine and has such strength in her femininity that it was lovey to see. She challenged the status quo and was not afraid to be confident in herself and her abilities, even if others (read: men) would disparage her for believing in herself and her abilities.

"Magician or not, we've always lived in a series of boys' clubs we're not allowed to enter" ... "We're told we're simply lucky to be in the room, as long as we stay quiet. Make even a little murmur, and it's like we've disturbed the order of life itself."

There was a bit of romance in this novel, however it was like an undercurrent just ebbing and flowing, never quite emerging from the shadows. 2020 is making me a fan of slow-burn romances, so I felt like this perfectly fit the novel and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. The romance wasn't the relationship that had me clasping my hands with tiny bouts of joy whenever they interacted. I absolutely adored the friendship that blossomed with Kallia and Aaros. They were an unlikely pair but they were perfectly matched, I also appreciated how Aaros' sexuality (bisexual) was never questioned and was just accepted that he was a heartbreaker regardless of gender.

The intrigue and mystery throughout this book will have you questioning and unfortunately with the cliffhanger that it left on, you will still be questioning but will be eagerly awaiting the sequel.

Taking Phantom of the Opera and Moulin Rouge and throwing them together in this beautiful new debut.

Where Dreams Descend features a group of magicians, and the writing is such a dazzling delight.

I highly recommend this one!

Thanks to Netgalley And the publisher for the free copy. All opinions are my own

I am so sorry that it took so long to write this review, but I tried reading this book and it did not hold my attention whatsoever. The plot, the writing, the pacing, it wasn't working for me and I could not slog through any longer. I do hope others enjoy it and please keep me in mind for future releases.