This slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers paranormal urban fantasy wasn’t exactly my cup of tea, so I’m giving it three stars. While the story itself didn’t fully click for me, I think many readers will really enjoy the cozy atmosphere and the gradual build of the romance between Kuro and Caroline. The shape-shifting kitsune lore was intriguing, and there are moments of suspense and adventure that kept the plot interesting. However, the slow-burn pacing was just a bit too drawn-out for my taste. That said, for those who love a slow build-up and tension between enemies-turned-lovers, this book could definitely be a hit.

In the shadows of the forest, two shape-shifting kitsune prowl: Kuro, content with the solitude of the mountains, and his only ally Jaden, a demon with dark dreams for their future.

When a figure from Kuro’s past snaps a photograph of the demon fox, the kitsune are forced to leave their home behind and follow him to Asheville in a bid to prevent its publication.

But trouble has a way of accumulating around Kuro. When police secretary Caroline Lahey sees the kitsune from the top of her barn, she doesn’t hesitate to shoot. Captured, Kuro knows that killing her is his only chance at freedom…but it would also turn him into something he’s not, something that repels and disgusts him.

Someone like Jaden.

As Jaden tries to pull Kuro further into his world of violence, Kuro realizes he can no longer stomach the thought of bloodshed, but neither can he bring himself to reveal everything to Caroline. Forced to rely on her soul for his survival, his life becomes a precarious balancing act of hiding her existence from Jaden…and hiding Jaden’s violence from Caroline.

Soon, Kuro finds himself trapped by his own lies, and when his balancing act fails, Jaden knows that Kuro will do anything to protect the woman he’s fallen in love with.

Even, at last, kill.

A Black and Solemn Silence is a slowburn, paranormal, enemies-to-lovers romance and the first book in the adult urban fantasy Color by Numbers series. It includes adult themes and ends on a cliff-hanger. The Color by Numbers series is perfect for grown-up readers of the Gumiho duology and The Red Winter trilogy; content advisories are available on the copyright page.

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

A Black and Solemn Silence is a fast paced paranormal urban fantasy with a bit of an enemies to lovers romance and a ton of action.

Two shape shifters, Kuro and Jaden, are alone in the forest when someone from Kuro’s past takes a picture of him in his demon fox form. They begin a journey to find him before he’s able to post the picture. Kuro becomes injured after someone shoots him and he has to make a very difficult decision that will challenge his morals. This book was such a fun an unexpecting read! I devoured the story and the strongly likeable characters.
Mystery and Romance go hand and hand with this quick, devouring read.

Looking forward to reading further works in the future.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC of this book. This was a very different read from my usual genre. The story was a bit of a slow burn but wonderfully written. The multiple character POVS helped the story move forward rather quickly.

So I'm a huge lover of mythology retellings or for myth to be incorporated into a story, and this is such a cozy read. It tackles some difficult subjects and the characters are so multi-faceted. It was so well-written and I really enjoyed the flow of the prose.

I've tried a few times to get into this book, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to suit me. The cover is beautiful and the writing isn't terrible, it just isn't holding my interest. I wish the author the best of luck with her upcoming books! From what I have seen, this has been well-received.

The perfect combination of cozy and spooky, A Black and Solemn Silence is captivating in every way. It is extremely well written which makes the story easy to follow. It gives two huge tropes their spot to shine: slow burn and enemies-to-lovers. I loved each perspective of the four POVs throughout the book, learning more about the characters as time went on. This book also combined everything I love about fantasy, romance, and mystery! I will be patiently waiting for the next installment!

Thank you to NetGalley for an early copy of this book!

I loved how different this book is, and I regret not reading it sooner. I'm a huge myth - culture lore - legends person, and this book is unique. I love how the author took the concept of kitsune, yet made it their own. The character development is great - the fact that the two main kitsune we meet are polar opposites and that they drive that home is fantastic.

There's uncertainty, willingness, and betrayal (through lying and believing in someone that's not true), but there's also hope, curiosity, and the want for something new. It's a great read if you want something to mull over and think about how others exist.

It's a fairly quick read, so you could binge it in a day if you so wish.

I'm super excited for book two later in the year.

The writing was pretty good, and the story flowed nicely. So, over all, this was a solid read. The story constantly leaves you with this curious feeling of wanting to know more about these characters. Hence, the story is easy to read and get through.

This was a bit of a mixed read for me.

The positives were that I quite like the writing style of the author. I liked the characters and the dichotomy between the two main kitsune characters. I also like how the book tackled some tricky concepts like trauma and mental health.

However, this was a slow burn book that just didn't really have a climax and never seemed to go anywhere and then ended on a cliffhanger. There was never a resolution to any of the issues raised in the book, which left me very frustrated.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for permitting this book to be a Read Now to help members develop their Feedback Ratio in exchange for an honest review.

Review Summary:
This story follows two demons, Jaden and Kuro, as they navigate the human world. They are kitsune, fox demons who can shapeshift to appear as humans. As kitsune they can only survive by ‘feeding’ on the souls and emotions of humans… with a twist. They can only feed on the negative such as fear, anxiety and sadness. We follow our characters as they try to evade discovery of their true form following a widely publicised incident, while also trying to learn more about their kitsune abilities and their ancestry. All the while Kuro and Jaden learn more about each other and their seemingly unbreakable bond, and how this has influenced their interactions with others. Simultaneously we follow Kenneth, a human involved in their near-discovery, who becomes determined to find the pair and solve the mysterious incidences occurring since their arrival. I would definitely advise looking up the content warnings for this novel.
Positives are that this novel has a truly engaging plot, mixing fantasy with romance and thriller mystery. I finished this story within two days, I was so enthralled. The book also deals with some really complex emotional and psychological phenomena such as trauma bonding, depression and grief. This added some real depth to the story. I adored the slow burn pacing as it allowed me to feel so much more invested. The romances depicted in the novel are pretty controversial, but I still really enjoyed them.
Negatives were mostly related to the Kenneth POV, which I felt needed a little more development to match the quality of Kuro’s. There were some occasional inconsistencies with the lore and prose.

4 stars. Dark, controversial but so beautifully written. With a couple of issues ironed out this could have been a perfect 5 stars for me.

FULL REVIEW BELOW. AVAILABLE WITH THE ADDITION OF HIDDEN SPOILERS ON GOODREADS.

World-building:
The novel is based in the United States, in a forested rural area where Kuro feels most comfortable to hide in his Kitsune form and avoid excessive mingling with humans. The vast, expansive and often isolating environment was very well written with the underlying fear and anxiety of being in the middle of nowhere, and nowhere near any form of aid, being captured well. The lore and the history of the kitsune is largely a mystery even to the two kitsune themselves which added to the fear of the unknown. Watching Kuro and Jaden wield the powers they do know about was fascinating, and even being such a complex and unquantifiable ability as to search through souls the writing made it feel truly palpable. Later on as we start to pick up on more potential knowledge of the kitsune it lends itself beautifully to the characters own development.

Characterisation:
This book didn’t shy away from the darker aspects of the human mind, with almost all of the relationships explored in the novel being toxic in some way.
Kuro is a fascinating main character. His emotionally abusive kinship founded on trauma bonding with Jaden has left him with no true sense of self, whether that be worth or belief. He has always felt he is totally reliant on Jaden, and so to watch him start to develop his own agency and sense of morality was incredible. Jaden himself is a frightening antagonist. Frightening in how realistic it felt with his abuse of a power dynamic and watching him lose himself to his obsessions of knowledge and self discovery. I truly hated him and in many ways it was frustrating yet heartbreaking to watch Kuro feel so helpless against him while also holding such a strong sense of duty and obligation towards him, leading him to protect him even while vehemently condoning his actions. Kuro and Caroline’s story is a controversial one as their relationship is essentially built on fear, mistrust and violent intent. But what a beautiful slow burn it was. It was in many ways heartbreaking especially knowing that the characters are very much still hiding things and telling mistruths. Kenneth is an interesting but potentially underdeveloped character, along with his friends Jacqueline and Eric. Kenneth was an opportunity to explore chronic depression and the consequences of it, but I still felt I didn’t really know his personality outside of his depression and his feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness. It made me feel a little less invested in his relationships with his friend and with Jacqueline. Jacqueline suffered the same fate in which I felt I didn’t really know her personality outside of her dealing with her grief of the lost closeness with Kenneth. I’m hoping her involvement in solving the mysteries in the novel will help develop her character. While it kept being said that Kenneth and Eric had been best friends it didn’t really come across in their interactions past and present. Eric was probably the most interesting of the three, even though he was written as the levelheaded realistic friend. Hints of his deeper feelings were shown through his dialogue and facial expressions which made him mysterious.

Story:
This story had a little bit of everything and I loved it. Mystery, crime thriller, fantasy and romance. Some may have felt it was slow paced but I personally felt it made the story feel more realistic and immersive.
The aspect I didn’t like so much was the storylines involving Kenneth and his photojournalism. It felt a little corny in some aspects with the writers and the journalists trying to get their ‘big scoop’.

Prose:
Stunning. This is a truly talented author. There were one or two typos and a couple of scenes where the wrong character was reacting or speaking, or looking up when they should have been looking down. This did not detract from the beautiful flow of language and poetic vocabulary. The dialogue was believable aside from the cheesy journalists. Caroline and Kuro in particular had some achingly beautiful interactions.

This book presented a unique form of magical realism. The character interactions were realistic and honest. As a local to the area in which the story takes place, I appreciated references to locations and beauty along the parkway.

A Black and Solemn Silence is a fast paced paranormal urban fantasy with a bit of an enemies to lovers romance and a ton of action.

Two shape shifters, Kuro and Jaden, are alone in the forest when someone from Kuro’s past takes a picture of him in his demon fox form. They begin a journey to find him before he’s able to post the picture. Kuro becomes injured after someone shoots him and he has to make a very difficult decision that will challenge his morals. This book was so fun to read! I got absolutely lost in the story and loved the characters. There was also an aspect of mystery that I loved alongside the romance. It had a little of everything and I thought it was great.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and Danielle Thompson for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review. This published today!

I have posted my review on Goodreads, in my Facebook book club, and will rave about this on TikTok the day after publishing day!

Thank you NetGalley and Danielle Thompson, Independent Book Publishers Association for this ARC Copy!

This was a book that I was immediately drawn to. The premise was so interesting and I was hooked from the beginning.
The story follows two MMCs who are shifters and they have grown up separate from the world, but as the begin to immerse themselves into the human world. The path that each of them take are very diffident but they will forever remain tied to each other, whether they want to be or not.

This book had some dark and twisty parts and I could not stop reading, and I can not wait for the second book in the series.

This is such an eerie story - not spooky or scary at all, but the kind of story that lives in shadows and dread. This is the story of two kitsune - mystical demon foxes - who only have each other, but when one accidentally gets himself photographed by a human, the other takes that as an excuse to indulge his cruelest tendencies.

I was completely enthralled by this book - from the start, I couldn’t put it down. The bits of magic, the way the relationships stretch and pull, they way little offerings of the full story are slowly revealed, all had me hooked. At times it could be shockingly gory, but the gore never felt gratuitous.

My only complaint is the cliffhanger ending - how cruel to leave us readers at that point! - but we’ve been promised even more kitsune in future books, so all will eventually be forgiven.

This was a really mixed read for me. I got on really well with the author's writing style. The prose is very rich, it's written maturely and I found the style itself very pleasing overall. I also liked how this is an urban fantasy romance with a very unique mythological basis which you don't see very much in the genre. Kudos to the author for picking something more out of the box!

Unfortunately, I felt like I just didn't really connect with the characters, not even Kuro. The plot was also a little meandering and there weren't many significant peaks or troughs - just the same kind of muted tension throughout. There were long periods of time where I didn't pick this book up because I didn't have that burn to read more.

A Black and Solemn Silence by Danielle Thompson is a slowburn, paranormal, enemies-to-lovers romance and the first book in the adult urban fantasy Color by Numbers series. It includes adult themes and ends on a cliff-hanger.

Kuro is the grumpy, brooding book boyfriend you want to take into your arms and show him that he can be loved. He hangs around with an evil and dangerous fellow, Jaden, who is the only other kitsune he's known since his existence. Jaden is very conniving and manipulative and Kuro never really puts too much thought into his future beyond hanging out in nature, that is until one fateful day when a chain of events unfolds in which they are being hunted for murderer and Kuro’s very existence and survival hangs in the balance between his trouble seeking companion and a country girl whom Kuro develops an unhealthy (physically makes him sick) interest in.

I loved Kuro’s character development as he begins to realize that there is more to life and companionship outside of the mountains. Jaden was portrayed exactly how you would expect a villian to be. I felt like there could have been more back story given for some of the other characters, but have high hopes those will be revealed in the future books released for the Color By Numbers series. Overall, I really enjoyed this story and it was left on a cliffhanger with a sneak peek into the next book at the end that has me anticipating the next release!

I really struggled getting into this book. The blurb sounded really exciting, but I found the writing and the storyline just wasn’t for me.

It immediately begins in a really confusing way. The author seems to expect the reader to immediately understand what’s happening and understand what the main character really is, but that was not the case.

The style of writing was good, but I think overall there could have been more explanations.

I started this one and while I enjoyed the writing it was never he right time for it.

Thank you NetGalley