Oh my precious little cinnamon roll himbo Remy; I love him even more.
I loved Silver Under Nightfall and I loved this book just as much. It's hilarious, heartfelt, a little crazy, and a lot steamy. I loved the continuation of the relationship development between Remy, Xiaodan, and Zidan. They are just the perfect throuple and they balance each other so well. Plus they're really hot (*coughs* throneroomscene *coughs*).
The plot gets more intricate with the addition of the other courts, Remy's father, and The Night Empress. I personally love political intrigues and mysteries and plots, so I ate all of this up. There were still plenty of battles and action scenes, so I never felt like things slowed down. I mean, my reading speed had to slow down at points for my poor brain to try to process the complexities of the reveals and machinations, especially towards the end, but that in no way took away from my enjoyment.
I love this world and I love these characters. I definitely got emotional at times, but I thought the ending was great.

Would definitely recommend, especially if you loved the first book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the preview. All opinions are my own.

I love this highly character driven series and the sequel did not disappoint, I'm a (blood) sucker for vampires and this had all the familiar tropes found in vampire fiction but with a lot of heart, this was slower paced than the first book but I still enjoyed it!

A Court of Wanderers (Silver Under Nightfall, #2)
Rin Chupeco
448 pages, ARC
Queer, Bloody Epic Fantasy

PUB DATE: APRIL 2, 2024
Thank you Netgalley and @SagaPressBooks for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.


Amidst a civil war in the kingdom of Aluria, vampire hunter Remy and his royal vampire companions—Lord Zidan Malekh and Xiodan Song—strive to reunite the remaining courts. Their mission: safeguard peace between humans and vampires while navigating the complexities of their own relationships.

I did not care for the overcomplicated storyline, but I was once again drawn into the vampire debauchery in this mystifying gothic world. I just love Remy's hunger for Malekh and Xiodan's sweet love for Remy. They are just a very cool, laid-back triad living a comfortable royal life full of battlefields, wine, and blood which is exciting for those who like the gory, vampire fantasy trope. Although some aspects of romance were enjoyable, some dialogue felt superficial and I wished the polyamory aspect had been explored more deeply. I also enjoyed the small instances of character development moments but they were too spaced out, akin to loading screens in a video game. Despite this, the vampire courts, passionate throuple love, well-executed battle scenes, and darkly gothic world kept me engaged. I mean, a world of silk nightgowns, taverns, carriages, poly vampires into Edwardian regalia ... it can be a girl's daydream. However, I craved more depth in character development and world-building. Overall, I recommend this book to those who enjoy slow-paced, vampire fantasy in a very Castlevania world with triads into public displays of heavy affection!

Rating: 3.75/5

Boy this was SO hard to rate. 3.5 read rounded down for reasons I'll get into soon. But honestly this was sort of a hot mess that really needed to be edited more tightly. Yes it's been a year and a half since I read book one but I shouldn't have felt a desperate need to reread it to make sense of this. I think that's a problem with the whole duology. It's very character driven, nothing wrong with that but it wants to be plot driven.

And the plot is murky at best and that's where it trips itself up and falls flat several times. The whole court system and who wants to kill who and why isn't as well defined as it needed to be, especially since the whole plot of this is the courts want to install Malekh in a place of even more power. The betrayals that come later in the book don't hit nearly as hard as they should because it's so convoluted and unclear it's hard to figure out why I should care about this other than it nearly takes out Remy, Malekh and Xiaodan.

And as much as I still like our trio there isn't much growth for them in this. The biggest question is will Remy eventually allow himself to be turned (more on that later)

For me the biggest issue was the editing. That above mentioned question about Remy is asked multiple times. Sometimes the trio said nearly identical stuff to what they said two chapters ago. It's like 'this again?' I swear sometimes authors/editors run up against deadlines, book one was hot so they don't take the time needed to fix problems. For me there were several repetitive things in it (this being one of the most egregious) that could have been tightened up. The author

Speaking of tightening, this is where someone should have stepped in and said enough is enough. The sex scenes made this feel like bad fanfic. Seriously put me in mind of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer hey days when you'd get 50 page stories with 10 pages of plot and 40 pages of people rolling around in bed. I got SO bored with the sex in this. That's all Remy/Malekh/Xiaodan do! If I sliced out the sex scenes I think this would be a third of the book would be gone. It felt far too much like was overly enamored of watching their lovelies screw that we needed to see this once a chapter.

And some of these scenes were pretty gross and I say that as someone who likes a little bondage, polyamory and dominant female scenarios. None of them were very explicit. On the other hand a very lengthy scene of human familiars servicing their vampires (Remy now included) during court while they're trying to do business as a show of I don't know? Dominance? wasn't sexy, just boring and uncomfortable. Another entire chapter was them fighting while screwing to the point I forgot they were actually having sex since the three of them were talking non stop. Does anyone actually do this?

Had some of the extraneous sex been chopped out (along with the repetition) the pacing issues could have been fixed because seriously I almost DNFed this in the boggy middle. I did very much like the ending even though it was seriously weird and I wished more time was spent on what Malekh and Xiaodan went through at the Allpriory because that should have been a BIG thing but it wasn't.

Not saying I disliked it. I am saying I didn't like it nearly as much as book one. That said, the ending is open and if the author came back to this world down the road I'd read it.

Respectfully, what the heck was that? If I hadn't been reading this as an ARC, I would've called it quits around the 60% mark. There's no way this was written by the same author as the first book. I am shocked at how truly bad it was. Like... wow, what a massive disappointment.

If you enjoyed the first book, or are interested in any of the below, and are up for potentially torturing yourself, give this a try! 🙃

• Single POV
• Political machinations; lots of courts, lots of secondary characters
• Old castles with hidden passageways and secret laboratories
• Frankenstein'd, necromantic creatures
• Vampiric wildlife (trees, flowers, birds, reptiles, etc)
• Battle scenes with aforementioned creatures and wildlife
• Poly relationship between the three main characters
• (Mostly) fade-to-black sex scenes with some light puppy play

Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press - Simon & Schuster for the e-ARC. 💌

Thank you to the publisher - Saga Press - and NetGalley for this eARC!

3 stars

This is an unfortunate turn of events. Book 1 was an enjoyable popcorn read that came at the perfect time. This book however was difficult to even get through.

The book’s prose would pull me out of the story. I would have to stop, go back and work out what was actually meant.

Overall, the pace was positively glacial, whereas the exposition of the eight courts and wider world-building was entirely too fast. The majority of this book was exposition for a final battle that was maybe 30 pages. And then we had another smaller, final battle. And then we had the MC dealing with the ramifications. And then he has to get his happily ever after.

There wasn’t enough development taken with the many side characters each with centuries of history in their respective courts. No less than 12 new characters were introduced in a confined setting all of whom were referred to by different names or titles making it difficult to keep track of who was who.

The point is that this book felt like two books compressed into one. I really wish I had found it to be a more satisfying conclusion.

It’s rare that I like a sequel better than book 1, but I think that Court of Wanderers beats Silver Under Nightfall! We get more worldbuilding, more vampire politics, more and bigger battles, and (my personal favorite) more of Remy’s family.

My complaint from book 1 still stands - I don’t feel like we know anything substantial about either Malekh or Xiaodan, and I feel like the romance is very contrived. I just don’t believe anyone is in love! This bothered me a fair amount, as I think the romance is a major selling point of this series, and it especially felt weird because I think the other relationships in this book are absolutely fantastic. Elke and Remy’s friendship is so well written, and the relationships within the Pendergast family were so incredibly raw and tangible. I think my thoughts on the romance in these books are pretty unpopular, so don’t let it dissuade anyone from trying these out! I think this is a case of ‘this didn’t work for me personally’ and not ‘this is just plain bad’.

Another unpopular opinion, given the other early reviews I’ve seen - I LOVED the vampolitics (new word I’m coining for vampire politics). The scenes at the Allpriory really felt like a group of people who had been bickering for hundreds of years. It was a little complicated and hard to follow, sure, but that made it all the more enticing. I do wish that maybe we had a map of Aluria and the surrounding lands - I have the paperback of book 1 so maybe this was a feature in the hardcover? - but I had a bit of a hard time discerning where all of the different events were taking place during the war.

Despite my difficulties placing the many locations, I loved the continued worldbuilding in this book. The bloodwoods were fantastic, a little bit reminiscent of George RR Martin’s weirwood groves, and the lore surrounding the Godsflame made a few bits from book 1 make more sense. The revelations about Wikaan kindred added a distinct tang of grief to the fight against the Night Empress that I think made the story even richer.

Rin Chupeco does minor characters so well. Even characters we just get a little glimpse of feel so real. In particular I’m thinking of Lorien, Alegra, Riones, Isabella, and Trin, but this is true of pretty much all of them.

I won’t say much about this for fear of spoiling anything, but Remy’s relationship with his parents was my favorite part of this series. Both Ligaya and Edgar Pendergast are complicated, flawed people and they both failed Remy as parents despite loving him deeply. For circumstances both within and beyond their control, they would never be the happy family unit that Remy wanted so badly, and the tiniest glimpses we got of that made it even more painful that it could never truly happen.

TLDR: Court of Wanderers broadens the world of Silver Under Nightfall and expands upon themes of belonging, kinship, choice, and inheritance in the violent, volatile world its characters inhabit. If you enjoyed the political and worldbuilding aspects of Silver Under Nightfall, I think you will like its sequel even more!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC!

I really enjoyed Silver Under Nightfall, so my hopes were high for Court of Wanderers! Overall it was very similarly paced and structured as book one, but can definitely say I liked the first one more.

I liked how Remy’s relationship with Xiaodan and Malekh grew and didn’t find anything odd with their “puppy” treatment given the context,

—-lots of spoilers!—-

However, the end felt very anticlimactic. I couldn’t tell what was going on or where the characters were or even who the characters were. The betrayal of the Antecedents fell flat, the Godsflame didn’t turn out to be as important as we thought it would and the Night King/Night Empress switching minds back and forth really threw me. And then suddenly we’re on a beach? Making dinner?

Overall, kind of disappointed. I still think this series is great and that poly relationships should definitely have a space in books and could absolutely be written about more.

Thank you Net galley for this E-ARC. the first book was amazing but sadly this book was not what I was expecting. I was glad to see all my favorite characters again, yet it felt like they were written so differently in this book which really pulled me out of the story. I am super sad this was not what I wanted it to be but I look forward to reading Rin's other work!

An excellent sequel! The first book in the series had me wanting to know more about the world that the author was building, and this sequel did not disappoint in delivering that.

I was interested to see how Mx. Chupeco would wrap this, and frankly, this is a great way to do it. We have a triad finding their footing and their security with each other, while also dealing with the whole threat from last book and vampire courts. The vibes are great, and it’s good to see this wrapped in a way that Mx. Chupeco could continue if they so choose, but leaves things well enough for now. Definitely pick this up when it comes out in April!

Court of Wanderers picks up where Silver Under Nightfall ends. Reading them back to back was a great choice, as it made falling back into this world effortless. I'm not going to recap, as to avoid spoilers, but this book is made up of attempts to heal and solve problems with all of it being incredibly difficult.

Remy, Malekh, and Xiaodan are all dealing with their own internal turmoil over the events of book one. They also now are struggling to deal with all of the new challenges being thrown at them. Throughout this book their relationship continues to grow and develop. I love watching Remy settle into his relationship with them and be able to understand their emotions and decisions. They are all so cute and I adore them! Definitely one of my favorite polyam reps in books that I've ever read.

Remy getting to develop his relationship with his father and mother was another great element. I appreciate when there are lots of different relationships represented. In this one both romantic and familial are highlighted.

Throughout there is plenty of action and the plot moves pretty quickly, but still leaves time for slow, tender moments as well. I thought the balance was great. The end ripped my heart out, but I feel like it was the right decision.

Overall, a fabulous sequel! I am so glad I got to delve deeper into this universe and these characters. Highly recommend to any romantasy fans.

Silver Under Nightfall was a great read when released, so I've looked forward to the sequel. Sold as queer, bloody Gothic epic fantasy series, vampires, political intrigue.... Yep. Must read. As always, Rin delivers.

I looooooooooove how this ended! Thank you Rin for now cliffhangers 😂 I think this one is even better than book 1! The moments with Remy’s mom and dad had me tearing up 🥹🥹

I really wanted to love this, because the first book was a four star for me. I just could not get into this. I was really hoping to love. I am going to soft DNF at the moment, and come back and update at a later date. I would really like to give this book a second chance.
2 star for now

Silver Under Nightfall was one of my top reads of 2023, and I do think Court of Wanderers suffered from a sophomore slump. It did not live up to the perfect pacing, tension, and intrigue of the first book. I think it was slow at times, and even though I still love the relationship, I did not connect with the story as much as book one. Still a good book, but a tiny bit of a letdown.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

4.5

There is simply life before these characters, and after. I know I will forever judge relationships based on how they compare to the dynamic of these three. Also, why are there so few throuples in trad publishing? More, I say! More!

I thought I would have disliked the pacing and court politics of this book, as well as the fact much of it was spent in a singular location, but I didn't really feel that way. And yet something felt... off. It's hard to pin down exactly what it was. Perhaps the ending? It did feel rushed, given the slower pace of everything else. I'm torn between not wanting to drag things on and explain everyone's future steps and also wanting all the details of the courts' futures, Remy's decision(s), etc. It was vague with enough implication to be the end of the series but also open enough to leave room for a third book/novella. Part of me liked the ambiguity, the other part is greedy and wants more.

Overall, this book does an excellent job of balancing humor and tension with heavy topics (e.g. self-worth, loss of a parent, grief, survivor's guilt, etc.), which is a quick way to my heart.

I’m disappointed. I really really struggled with this book. I absolutely adored Sliver Under Nightfall. It was so perfectly balanced. It was in my top 10 for 2023. But this..I am so disappointed.

Court of Wanderers did not keep me engaged. I could see the vision and the intent, but the execution was terrible. The middle of the book just dragged on. I did not expect SO much world building in a sequel…in a duology.

There were times where the book felt rushed. Then it slowed WAY down for what reason? SO much dialogue and felt it lacked character building. I still just feel disappointed and like I could easily forget this book.

This ended up being a DNF @ 60% for me. I appreciate the chance to review the ARC. Thank you NetGalley & Saga Press

The first book in this series was amazing and this second book was no different, I was over the moon once I got accepted for this arc.

Big thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for the chance to review this book pre-release. Court of Wanderer's was a great follow up to Silver Under Nightfall, I really loved every aspect of the sequel. The slang was toned down a bit so I could enjoy the dialogue more, and the characters gave me a bit more to be invested in. I love this modern take on vampires, it remains fresh & kept me invested. 3.75/5 Stars. A more formal review will be available on my IG/TikTok and Goodreads.