I was so excited to read this book after I read the blurb, but the execution was poor and hard to get through. 90% of the book was description, which got old very fast.

I did not enjoy this book as much as I hoped to. It was very slow and forgettable. While not badly written, I just didn't find it to be original.

The blurb really sold this for me and I was super excited to read it but the execution just wasn’t great.

This book was beautiful! It was very poetic and I felt left room for so many underlining interpretations. It was dark and twisty. The end ties it together perfectly. I was pretty obsessed and couldn't stop reading it one I got about 30% in.

Sooooo, hard to write a review on this one. I dislike giving low ratings on books but this one was tough. It had SO much potential. But ultimately it was incredibly disjointed and confusing. And very over-written. Now don't get me wrong, I can handle flowery descriptions and The Night Circus is one of my favorite books. But this was done in a way that doesn't even make sense. I had to reread passages to try to get what she was describing but came up empty. If you want a thorough review that I agreed with, check out Marquise in the review section.

This was an ARC I read through Netgalley.

Nocturne was a magical dreamland full of difficult choices for a girl with a kind heart. I enjoyed the vivid setting descriptions of the boarding house, Master’s house, and the city and temple.

I also loved how the story revolves around a ballerina who gets her chance to be prima but at a ghastly cost.

This story was beautiful and held my attention. I thought the language was perfect for the time period. I do wish the author had given more of a backstory for Mamma and Lorenzo.

The cover and the description of this book really sold me-- a dark re-telling of Beauty and the Beast that is also historical fiction and has elements of ballet?! It checked all the boxed of things I typically enjoy reading. The execution of these elements fell a little flat for me. The pacing of the plot was a little rushed for me, I wanted more world building and details of every element of the story because the premise is interesting! Overall, this book was not for me, but I may check out future titles from this author.

Nocturne by Alyssa Wees is a dark fantasy phantom of the opera meets Beauty an the beast with intense Night Circus vibes.

What worked for me
-Lovely lyrical prose
-Dark academia elements
-Mysterious benefactor
-a type of ending I don't often see

What Didn't work for me
-Our main character felt far too easily led by the words of others and was inconsistent in how she responded to basically every character.
-Our main character being as young as she is makes the behavior of much older beings feel incredibly off.

Who I would recommend this book for

Nocturne is a Great read for fans of Dark fantasy looking for a ballerina story written in a lyrical style similar to the Starless Sea or Strange the Dreamer.

3.5/5 rounded down

Nocturne is a beautifully written dark fantasy for fans of Belladonna and The Night Circus. In this story, we follow Grace on her journey from becoming an orphan as a child to becoming the new prima ballerina for her company. When a mysterious man starts supporting her performances, Grace is desperate to figure out his identity. However, once she meets him, she is filled with confusion and anger...and starts to regret ever being the prima ballerina.

I did feel the story dragged a bit at some points and I never felt as connected to the characters and their relationships as I wanted to. However, I would still recommend if you're in the mood for a fantasy book with artsy, dark academia vibes and a bittersweet ending.

Nocturne had a lot of potential, although there was an undercurrent to the story. It could have been a psychological thriller more easily than escapist fantasy. Grace feels and reads quite young. The story is mainly stream of consciousness with beautiful passages of lyrical descriptions, but the plot is stunted through most of the story. There is a cringe element with the idea of these immortal and timeless entities being obsessed with a teenage girl. Grace has experienced several hardships in her life which would generally lend a maturity to her character, but the story is mostly told through her mental ramblings. She is very easily persuaded to follow someone else's bidding and the ending still felt like she was reacting to those around her as opposed to owning her emotions and taking charge of her life.

Wow, this was a wholly unique read. I'll start by saying that I am a devoted fan of lush prose, so I have a very tolerance for lyrical metaphors and writing that's more rhythmic than efficient. YMMV, of course, but I think it's safe to say that if you do not enjoy writing that's crafted for beauty's sake, or have an aversion to an abundance of metaphors, this one's probably not for you. For me, though, the style of writing worked for most of the book and I was often in awe of the way the author put words together. The prose is lush and lyrical and dreamy, and overall, that contributed to the feeling that I was floating through this book along with Grace, one foot in the dreary reality of 1930s Chicago and the other in the realm of dreams. The writing and atmosphere of this book take center stage, which shifts plot to the backseat somewhat, but again, this was a choice I understand and accepted because it meant I got to feast on the beauty of the prose for 300+ pages. That said, I still think that, plot-wise, this book has one of the strongest openings I've read in ages. Grace, an aspiring ballerina of a ballet company in Depression-era Chicago, is chosen by a mysterious benefactor to be elevated to prima. Essentially, all her dreams come true, yet she yearns to solve the mystery of who this man is and who she is to him. When she's called upon to live at his estate and dance with him every Sunday at midnight, the mystery only deepens. Throughout this section of the book, I was hooked, and the balance of gorgeous imagery, Grace's palpable longing, and the mystery surrounding Master La Rosa elevated this book to as close to perfection as anything I've read in a long, long time. However, as the story progressed past the halfway mark, things faltered for me a bit. I felt like I figured things out faster than Grace did, which sometimes made me feel as if I was just waiting for her to catch up, and the latter half of the book takes even more forays into imagery and metaphor, which slowed the pacing somewhat when I felt as though it should be speeding up, instead. I also found Grace less sympathetic as time went on and she made choices that didn't resonate with me--she's inexplicably cruel to the other ballerinas at times in ways that felt condescending to me ("The Master picked me, not you, what do you know about anything?"), and her treatment of the "love interest" (it's questionable whether I can really call him that?) left me mildly baffled. She's hot, then cold, then trusts him, then turns on him entirely based on the spurious word of someone else. Which was very frustrating when it was very obvious what was really going on. Had Grace been more consistent and astute, I think I would have enjoyed the latter half of this book more. And the ending, while appropriate to the story, left me feeling a bit empty. This may come down to the fact that I'm a heavy reader of romantasy with standard HEA endings. This is not that, but if you like your books to take you somewhere unexpected, definitely give this one a try. Overall, I give it high marks for originality, atmosphere, and lyrical prose that burrows under your skin and haunts you even after you've put the book down. I'm very curious to see what Alyssa Wees does next!

For full-disclosure, I started reading this because the cover is beautiful and the description made me think it would be a retelling of Phantom of the Opera.

Well. It was not. It sort of started out like that, and then it sort of turned into something that resembled Beauty and the Beast. And then it sort of turned into something that resembled Hades and Persephone. And then the ending didn't really fit with any of the retellings. Which is all totally fine- a retelling doesn't have to 100% match the source material to be enjoyable.

But in all of those stories, I feel sympathy towards the Phantom, the Beast, and Hades. I did not feel any sympathy towards the Master, and it felt like the story wanted me to feel sorry for him. I did not like the Master and honestly thought he was too creepy to be any sort of romantic interest.

I also just didn't connect with the writing style, and I had trouble following some of the descriptions. I didn't really like Grace as a character either (particularly as a POV character).

So... unfortunately, this one was not for me.

The best way I can describe this book is both beautiful and surreal. Historical fiction with a fantasy twist. A strange twist between HadesxPersephone/Phantom of the Opera. To try and even explain this plot seems honestly daunting in thought. The characters are intriguing and well written, the plot leaves you guessing at almost every turn, and the ending left me craving a second book.

This book was weird as hell, but I absolutely loved every page.

Thank you to both Random House and Netgalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I think this book sits at a healthy 3.5 stars. The thing about it was that if I read this at a different point in my life, it might have gotten 4 stars. But I am oversaturated with purple prose, and while this book does it well without actively being grating, it felt unbalanced in how lush it was. But that also may be a personal preference.

I also think (and this is perhaps unfair to the book, though it does often reference Koschei and Marya Morevena) that having read Deathless in the last year left me constantly looking at it in comparison to this. There are a lot of parallels in the structure and plot beats, but again, the thing I kept returning to was the prose. Deathless always kept me guessing in terms of how it was written, short little bursts that broke through placid beauty to shock me into alertness and left my jaw opening. This remained at placid beauty, and while, if that is the sort of prose you are after, is very well done, and again, not egregious, I often felt myself drifting through the book like a dream, and not a memorable one at that.

But again, it is well written and well executed, and the ending was just the kind of thing that delights me, which ultimately bumped it up from three stars to three and a half. It is, in many ways, something that is good to read if you need something that isn't kind, but also probably won't set your brain on fire. Anyway! Had a lovely time reading it but I do not know how much I'll be dwelling on it in the future.

3.5
The blurb is actually pretty accurate, which I don't see that often. It's slightly overwritten, but I think that actually works to fill out the slightly too thin story.

~NET GALLEY REVIEW~

Nocturne is Night Circus meets Mexican Gothic. While it was overly descriptive at times, I enjoyed the places Wees took me. I loved that it was about ballerinas, death and sleep. Friendship and romance. Grief and eternity. I felt cold when Grace was cold and warm when Grace was warm. I could clearly visualize the dances. The language was powerful. It does sort of get stuck in the middle and I would've liked more interaction between the brothers but it was a fun, twisty/turny read.

Thank you to the publisher, Del Rey snd NetGalley for this advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

I finished the book early this morning and am torn between 3 stars to 4. I enjoyed the story overall. But I didn’t really get the Beauty and the Beast aspect of it other than the fact that our main character, Grace was send to live with someone against her will. Every time Master La Rosa was referred to as a beast, I felt it was a bit forced to further make that comparison between Beauty and the Beast and this story. I’d probably likened him more to a monster than a beast. This story had more of a Hades and Persephone meets Phantom of the Opera vibe than B&B.

The book doesn’t have romance as a descriptor on Goodreads and it makes sense as there wasn’t much romance between the Master and Grace. I would have enjoyed seeing their relationship develop more throughout the story.

I did find myself racing to the end to find out where the story world go. but I tried to finish it after a long day at theme parks and a long drive home and late at night so maybe that’s why the ending was a bit confusing to me? I May have to go back to reread it again.

The first half of the book did have a lot of descriptions but it felt excessive. One or two sentences would have been fine but sometimes I felt like it dragged on. I only noticed this in the first half of the book. Writing style over all was very pretty.

An enjoyable read that I feel could be even better with additional editing before publication.

I am a sucker for any book with a ballerina in it (as the artistic director and choreographer of a ballet company, I know a fair bit about ballet :)) but I didn't love this.

At first blush, the story appears to be a retelling of Beauty and the Beast but we realize soon that it's not. To be honest, I struggled not so much with the depiction of ballet and its technique or study or performance, but mostly with the main character. Grace wasn't a convincing character to me: as a dancer, she should have been all-consumed by the art form. That would have been the only way she could have gotten into the company at an advanced age. Also, she had zero agency at all: she was not nearly angry enough at Master LaRosa for sponsoring her "prima" position and she felt a bit too fond of him so very fast. Had her "purchase" been to help her mother or brother, I could have understood her reluctance to do anything but both of them are dead.

Once Master LaRosa was revealed to not be who we think he is (just a wealthy patron of the arts), the plot got confusing. There was Noctem, a magical underworld, and the notion of marrying LaRosa so he could take her heart (literally not figuratively) which also confused me.

Part of me felt like this book wanted to be more YA than it was and instead got "aged up." So much of this story might have held for me if Grace had been fifteen rather than 20. Considering everything she had gone through, she should have been more mature and more feisty than she was.

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc to review.

Thanks to Netgalley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I still don’t know how I feel about this one. Reading it sometimes felt like a nightmare. It had a lot of fairytale elements that I loved, and I really enjoyed the first half especially. I think the second half lost me a little bit, and I wish the plot had been more clear. The writing was beautiful but sometimes overwrought. Overall though, it wasn’t like anything I’ve read in a while and it was definitely worth the read.

Thank you, Net Galley and the author for giving me a chance to read this book in advance, in exchange for an honest review.

As a lover of both Beauty and the Beast, and The Phantom of the Opera, I feel this novel needs a bit more help with editing to drive the plot through properly. Many passages had too much information that did not invite the reader to form a proper idea of imagery or concept of characters. While elements of folklore from what felt to be Greek mythology appeared, I felt this added way too much when this book is being marketed as a retelling of Phantom of the Opera.

It was generally hard to keep pushing through this novel and get to the ending, as there needs to be more editing and talks about the actual theme of the novel. I found myself getting more lost, and not understanding what exactly I was supposed to care about when I couldn't even get a firm grasp of what to even like about any of the characters. I believe this novel could very well make it higher in the ranks of YA if the author and editor re-read the novel and cut out a lot of excess imagery and marketed it to a younger audience.

Sadly, this novel lost its potential and grace somewhere about a 1/4 way into it, and I can only hope the author an editor take note to please make the plot more clear and concise (AND PLEASE KILL YOUR DARLINGS).