TL;DR

The Cage of Dark Hours by Marina Lostetter builds upon and surpasses the first book in the Five Penalties series. Readers, once again, follow Krona through crimes, through mystery, and through magic. This time, Krona will learn secrets that she isn’t prepared for. Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.

Review: The Cage of Dark Hours by Marina Lostetter

Thanks to J.R.R. Tolkien, the stereotypical impression of fantasy are big books that come in three. Trilogies are the staple of the fantasy genre, and most of the attention is paid either to book one or three. Does the first book take off? If so, will the author end it with a bang? Second books don’t quite get the love that they deserve, and there is an argument to be made for it being more important than the other books. After all, it has to build on the world and story of the first book, develop existing characters while introducing new ones, and grab the reader without overshadowing a potentially amazing finale. The Cage of Dark Hours by Marina Lostetter does more than this. She doesn’t just build upon the foundation of the first book, she’s dives straight into the mythology and attacks it. This excellent followup to The Helm of Midnight takes the mythological creatures from book one and explores them in a depth and detail that I wasn’t prepared for. The Cage of Dark Hours by Marina Lostetter was not what I was expecting from a second book in a series, but it was exactly what I wanted.

Thalo Child opens the book by being part of a Thalo ritual. He walks with the procession as six year old children are led to altars to place cement on their eyes. (It’ll come off eventually.) In attempt to soothe the nervous children, Thalo Child uses his magic to bring up a good memory for each child to experience during the ritual. But as Thalo Child is only a child, he’s caught by his overseer, who removes those memories from the other children all together, leaving Thalo child with the guilt of knowing his kindness led to the loss of their cherished moments. This the readers first view of the abusive tyrant that is Gerome. Next readers once again meet Krona, from The Helm of Midnight. She’s overseeing a punishment for people who broke one of the five gods’s laws. This particular punishment comes from Knowledge, and it is the removal of a hand. Krona watches inside her Regulator armor, all the while knowing that she’s guilty of the exact same crime. She grieves the death of her older sister, and in her free time, she’s attempting to find ways to connect with her. Krona possesses the mask made from her sister’s soul, and though Krona specializes in suppressing the echoes inherent in masks made from the dead, she fails when it comes to her sister’s echo. Krona lets her sister’s echo merge with her own identity, which is dangerous. Finally, readers meet Mandip, a noble. He’s also a twin, which in this world is special. Two of the Five God’s are twins; so, twins are revered. Being a twin and being noble means that Mandip and his brother are also in line to take over rulership of the city/region of Lutador. Mandip, due to his petty nature, sweeps up his cousin’s escort, who just so happens to be Thibaut, a.k.a. Krona’s informant. As they’re jockeying for interpersonal power, Mandip and Thibaut encounter Juliet, a popular opera singer. She invites them to her performance that night for the gathering of nations in Lutador’s rotunda. During Juliet’s show, the First Marquise is murdered, and Krona is framed for it.

The Cage of Dark Hours is a third person point of view novel. It’s fast paced, intriguing, and fun. Where The Helm of Midnight was heavily tilted toward a mystery/investigation story, this is an adventure tale as Krona seeks to clear her name, Mandip learns that the world he thinks he knows is a lie, and Thalo Child simply wants to survive.

The Foundations of Lostetter's Fictional World

Often in fantasy, a society’s myths are left as myths. In The Helm of Midnight, readers learned about Thalo Puppets. They were treated as monsters out of fairy tales. In most other fantasy series, that’s all the explanation needed. Lostetter goes the opposite way. She delves right in to the mystery of the Thalo and gives readers insight into these mythical creatures. Turns out, they’re not creatures at all. They’re human with a very special type of magic. I won’t spoil that secret because Lostetter explores it much better than I ever could. The ramifications of this magic, though, shred the foundations and history of human society in the valley.

Part of the Thalo storyline reads like a conspiracy theory. These elites that run the world behind a secret veil is a fun choice. In the age of Qanon, it struck me as not quite as fun as it would have before 2016. I don’t know what to do with that because I love this story, and I think Lostetter has set it up for an explosive and fantastic finale. But the idea of a secret cabal manipulating everything behind the scenes is a bit off-putting for today’s world. There’s definitely more to ponder here.

Counting Down the Clock

One of the innovative ways Lostetter provides readers with backstory is through multiple timelines. Thalo Child’s story starts three year prior to Krona and Mandip’s. Each successive chapter for Thalo Child moves forward in time so that by the end, the two timelines merge. This provides a lot of needed information about Thalos and their society. It also provides a bit of tension because the countdown reminded me that I was headed towards some sort of crossover event.

Technological Level

Throughout the story, readers catch glimpses of oddities that place the tech level of this society in question. For example, steam trains are being researched and developed. But one character makes a comment about being camera ready. I found these odd references that are either anachronistic or purposely written clues that this is more than just a medieval equivalent fantasy society. We still don’t know what exists beyond the valley. Is this a fallen civilization? One that was walled off from the outer world on purpose and brought to an earlier technological level? Am I obsessing about issues within my ARC copy? Who knows! But I think Lostetter has created an interesting world, and what we learn in The Cage of Dark Hours has me paying attention to every little thing to see if I can catch Thalo manipulation.

Magical Plague

At the beginning of the book, there is an outbreak related to the magic of the masks. It ties into the ending of The Helm of Midnight as well, but it’s quickly dropped. While Lostetter does explain what’s going on, the storyline feels dropped and sort of hand waved away. I don’t think the explanation did enough to rectify why it was happening and what was really causing it. But, as always, this is simply my opinion, and I could be wrong. YMMV.

Mandip

The introduction of two new characters – Thalo Child and Mandip – worked for me. I liked Thalo Child right away. He’s innocent, caring, and sweet. You’ll want to protect him as much as I did. Krona, I still loved from the first book. Here she’s haunted, she’s grieving, and she’s almost broken. Lostetter gives her a chance to find her way back to herself. Mandip took some time to grow on me. He starts out as an annoying noble. He’s entitled; he’s petty; he’s naive and easily manipulated. He seems ambitious in wanting to rule Lutador. Like all rich, he believes that he knows best how to improve society. What saves him is his ability to learn, even if the lesson takes a couple of tries. Mandip really does want to help his fellow humans, and as the toil and strain of adventure wear on him, he rises to the occasion. The same noble who rigs a fencing match later learns the true cost of violence. He could pout and shutdown; in fact, he seems on the verge of it more than once. Yet, he never does. Mandip was a great addition to this novel, and by the end, I found his chapters surprising and more thoughtful than I expected.

Conclusion

Marina Lostetter’s The Cage of Dark Hours is the second book of the Five Penalties trilogy, and it’s a definitive change in gears from The Helm of Midnight. This adventure story explores the roots of Lostetter’s fantastical world and shines a bright light on its secrets. By showing us the mysteries at the heart of Krona’s world, Lostetter has gone where few fantasy series go. In effect, she’s pulling back the curtain to show us the wizard operating the machine. The Cage of Dark Hours cements The Five Penalties trilogy’s place on my must read list. Highly recommended.

The Helm of Midnight by Marina J. Lostetter was one of the most complicated and confusing books that I read in 2021. It was a strange murder mystery in a dystopian bubble world where people could summon the skills of the dead to empower them through masks. The book was so complicated that reading the recap in book two, The Cage of Dark Hours, was overwhelming to the point where I had to take a walk afterward. But, after a confusing and peculiar book one (that was worth reading in the end) Cage presents us with a much more straightforward adventure that starts to pull up the floorboards of book one and show us the innards of The Five Penalties series.

As I sit here writing this, struggling, I am trying to think of how to talk about the book without spoiling any of the juicy bits accidentally. Cage has shown me that this series is all about lies. Layer upon layer of misinformation, permeating a strange and magical world, where five universal laws (which have horrible penalties for breaking them) run everything. Book one is intentionally obtuse as hell to keep you guessing at everything that is happening around you. It reads like a surreal fever dream with a cinderblock of lore tied to its feet. In book two the cat is out of the bag so to speak and Cage breaks away from these trappings and starts to sprint full speed into something more closely resembling an adventure story.

Our protagonist from book one, Krona Hirvath, finds herself as one of the rare people who can see past the veil placed over her society into the mechanisms running underneath. This leaves her hunted by various people who want things to stay the way they are (I think; even in book two we have layers of misdirection). Cage is essentially Lostetter saying to her characters, “fine, you figured out what is happening. Now, what are you going to do about it.”

Despite being much more direct and much less confusing, I found Cage to be tonally very consistent with its previous novel. You still feel like you are walking through a spooky attic and running into web after web of intrigue. Every time you solve and lock down one element of the story, Lostetter just introduces a new one. The ability to don the mask of a dead person and gain their skills remains an extremely cool power system. I still wonder what you might gain if someone donned my death mask.

All in all my recommendation is this. I struggled with The Helm of Midnight a lot and still ended up liking it. So if you are in a similar boat and curious if you should press on know that I found The Cage of Dark Hours a much easier and relaxing read, but still retaining all the goodies that made book one intriguing. A remarkable improvement.

Rating: The Cage of Dark Hours – 8.0/10
-Andrew

It's a solid sequel with an intriguing world and exciting mythology. Unfortunately, it's slower than the first book and feels slightly bloated. I'm curious where the story goes from here but I hope the last book in the trilogy will be more focused.

TW: (body) gore, emotional child abuse, death, grief

The Cage of Dark Hours is a much awaited sequel and it does not disappoint in the slightest.

Where The Helm of Midnight felt like a detective story in a fantasy setting, the sequel has upped the stakes and put so much at risk.

In the first book, we follow Krona as she investigates the disappearance of a powerful death mask that belongs to the deceased serial killer Louis Charbon. In this world upon your death, your ability goes into a death mask along with your echo and memories so that someone can use your mask and learn about your special ability. For example, your ability is to manipulate/persuade people to do your bidding, the person who uses your mask will learn and be able to use your ability as long as they use the mask.
That is, if they can control the echo of the deceased.

And there is more complexity to the magic system and the world building. There is the constant threat of the varg, the monsters who can't be killed, only subdued and they are Krona's deepest fears.

The Cage of Dark Hours continues a few years after the events of the first book and we see how much Krona has changed as a person, even if not always for the better. We also follow two unlikely characters who keep you guessing at what is truly happening in the story.

I had no expectations for what could happen and my expectations were surpassed by the excellent writing and the reveals throughout the novel. There is so much more to the story than where we began with Charbon and I am anxious to see it all play out in the following sequel.

I don't want to spoil the events for this one so please take my word: if you enjoyed The Helm of Midnight, you will not be disappointed by the sequel.

The Cage of Dark Hours is a worthy continuation of what will undoubtedly become one of the best fantasies of all time.

Review copy provided by the publisher.

This is a sequel to The Helm of Midnight, and I'm a lot more ambivalent than I usually am about whether you can read it first. Probably? The beginning has a short but thorough explanation of what's gone before. And also...the focus has shifted a lot, compared to what you usually see in second books. All the elements are here, but which ones are background and which are of primary interest seem to have shifted significantly to me, rather than only progressing with the plot. (More monster. So much more monster focus.)

So...stand-alone? almost? Well, no: the ending is very much a middle book ending. Either that or it's a horrifying ending--think Han Solo in carbonite, the end good talk--so if you're looking for a stand-alone fantasy, this is not it.

If, however, you're looking for a really classically structured genre fantasy, this ticks all the boxes. Taxonomies of magic and humans and gods and monsters! Really wicked adversaries, vivid protagonists trying the best they can! Mazes of secret passages while horrible deeds are taking place. Mysteries of identity and fate and family. Twists on what you thought you found out from the book before. Sometimes you really want a fantasy novel that hits the brief, and this one very much does. (So does its predecessor.)

Had me on the edge of my seat. Thank you TOR for the first book. I loved the second even more. The fantasy work with the thrill was exactly what I needed

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this advanced copy.

The Cage of Dark Hours was a genius installment for the first book, I really loved every detailed information about the expanding worldbuilding. Also, Marina Lostetter's writing style was so enchanting and made me keep reading until it finished.

Fantastic sequel. Highly recommend it as it is a unique concept and overall it is just great fun. Highly recommend this as I cannot wait for the third installment.

An interesting follow up, I liked where this one went but I'm not sure if I enjoy it too much... I might read it but I might not.

A solid follow-up to The Helm of Midnight that expands the world and continues developing many characters from the first novel. Great for fans of Mistborn and Foundryside.

I requested a digital copy in order to sample the prose on my phone (since I don't have a eReader) before requesting a physical copy for review. My review will be based on the physical ARC I read (if I qualify)