What Feasts at Night

I would read an entire tome of Alex's unwilling adventures with the supernatural. What Feasts at Night is a follow-up to What Moves the Dead, showing Alex in the wake of the mycological horror they recently experienced. This is a simpler and more straightforward plot, but I still enjoyed the characters and the strange and eerie creature haunting them. This was a very quick and entertaining read.

"What Feasts at Night" by T. Kingfisher is a fantastic follow up to the first Sworn Soldier book, "What Moves the Dead." We are back with some of our favorite characters, Easton, Angus, Ms. Potter, Angus' moustache... They have traveled back to Gallacia to a family lodge so Ms. Potter and Angus can "look for mushrooms." And find rumors of a monster of folklore may be responsible for death and unease in the community.

T. Kingfisher has quickly become my absolute favorite author. Her description is phenomenal. I love that a serious horror book can also make me laugh, and feel so endeared to sweet characters.

I read this in one sitting as soon and I received it, and still pre-ordered my own copy. THANK YOU to Netgalley for the ARC of this book, and thank you TOR Nightfire for supporting T. Kingfisher so we can continue to read more of her work!

Always a fan of T. Kingfisher. This latest book is the second in a duology but I would love to see it become a longer series! It’s a classic gothic horror, featuring the notorious cabin in the woods, some small town whispers, ghost stories, and chilling dreams. Not too scary but still a lot of fun!

Just as the first novel does, the second is equally exceptional representation, with trans/nonbinary character Alex Easton as the protagonist and some unique use of neo pronouns and language around gender.

All around, great storytelling. The pacing was great, the characters were as developed as I’d expect in a novella, and the plot kept me in to the very end!

Another spooky adventure with Alex Easton, our stolid and damnably likeable narrator. Taking us into the alternately cosy and foreboding woods of fictional Eastern Europe, which have a fable-like atmosphere that recalls Jonathan Harker's early Transylvanian travels in Dracula, and likewise pulling from eerie folklore. Even if you aren't previously familiar with this book's monster, you don't need to know it to feel the dread. It's the kind of thing that feels like it exists in the shadowy corners of your psyche, a threat that you forgot you were supposed to remember. Kingfisher does a fanastic job of relating this, capturing the creeping sense of unease while also offering the everyday response and the daylight-thinking of someone who doesn't know they're in a horror story.

Marvellously managed tension and side characters that are compelling even when they're dislikable, and frequently funny writing that is a trademark of Kingfisher. I can never get over how much I like just hanging out with her characters, and Easton in particular.

Retired soldier Alex Easton would like nothing more than to continue holing up in their comfortable (if extremely messy) French apartment while they try to recover from the events of the last book, but after being asked to help provide lodgings for their friend Miss Potter to stay and study fungi in their home country of Gallacia, they travel deep into the backwoods to make ready an old family hunting lodge that would serve Potter's purposes perfectly. After hiring some cautious locals to replace the previous caretaker who had passed away in Alex's absence, everything appears to be set for Miss Potter's arrival. Unfortunately, something unseen has also taken residence in the lodge, an unwelcome presence that will push Alex to their very limits as they try to protect their friends.

T. Kingfisher has delivered a standout follow up to the first book starring Alex Easton, and fans of the prior entry will be delighted to spend more time with Alex and company in this horrific tale. While not as viscerally shocking to me as What Moves the Dead, the slow building horror and atmosphere of the dark forests of Gallacia and the terrors within kept me turning pages well into the night.

Magnificent!! The adventures of Alex Easton, Angus, and Miss P are always in the right place at the right time for a perfect horror novella!

In this second novella in the Sworn Soldier series, Easton has decided to head to his hunting lodge, along with his long suffering steed Hob and companion Angus, as well as Miss Potter who will be joining them a bit later.
Upon their arrival however, the lodge is even greater disrepair then expected due to the demise of the long time caretaker. Easton believes this to be due to an illness, and simply old age... the caretake HAD been employed for quite a while.... but the gossip around town indicates something far more sinister and spooky.
Only one particularly desperate villager and her grandson are willing to brave the possibility of a breath stealing moroi.
This was definitely a great spooky October read, descriptive and atmospheric. I did enjoy the first book, What Eats the Dead, a little more, but this was still and excellent story and highly recommend it, any time of year.

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

T. kingfisher returns to her characters from What Moves the Dead in this sequel. While the debut of this series was rooted in a classic tale, this one appeared to take on its own roots while following Lieutenant Easton, Angus, and Miss Potter as they take up residency at Easton’s hunting lodge. They find the caretaker of the property not present, and shortly after discover that he has died. The locals are incredibly superstitious, and believe that he was in truth killed by a fictitious monster by the name of a Moroi. Things seem to escalate after the grandson of a widow who moved in to take care of the property falls ill. Easton must soon. One face to face with whether this creature is real or just simply the power of suggestion.
The storyline was captivating, truly an enjoyable read for me. I did view the book to be very quick towards the end. I think I would have liked to have explored more of the Moroi, the finality of the ending wasn’t expected, and the wrap up felt a little rushed. However, I couldn’t put it down, so for me personally it is a 4.5 star….however, you cannot give half stars. As a result I am going to give it 5 stars.

The follow-up to T. Kingfisher’s bestselling gothic novella, What Moves the Dead . Retired soldier, Alex Easton, returns in a horrifying new adventure.

I loved What Moves the Dead so much that I was worried this follow-up would fall flat. I was pleasantly surprised, instead, to find that it is just as good as its predecessor. Eerie and atmospheric and tense and just wonderfully done. T. Kingfisher is a master!

T. Kingfisher books are always good! This one wasn't as creepy as I'm used to from her work, especially after What Moves the Dead, but it was still enjoyable and still excellent writing. I'm hoping that she continues this series!

What Feasts at Night is set after What Moves the Dead. This is book 2 in the Sworn Soldier series but you can easily read this as a folk horror standalone. Alex Easton and Eugenia Potter are again the main characters. This time they're at the family hunting lodge trying to separate folklore from reality. As with T. Kingfisher's other books, atmosphere is key here. She writes descriptively better than anyone else. If you enjoy her other books, you'll love this too.

In this follow-up to the mushroom-horror novella What Moves the Dead, Lt. Alex Easton is returning to a hunting lodge they inherited many years before before hosting a traveling mycologist for a visit. When they arrive, Easton discovers that the caretaker has died of mysterious causes — though when pressed, the locals say that it was the moroi, a dark creature that causes nightmares as it sits on your chest and sucks out your breath while you sleep.

I love just about everything T. Kingfisher writes, and this is no exception. She creates a very realistic fictitious country, with local legends that are truly horrifying to consider — who among us hasn't woken up breathless from a nightmare at some point? While it doesn't hurt to read What Moves the Dead first, it's certainly not required. Either way, this one's well worth a read.

It only took one recommendation from a patron to get me hooked on T. Kingfisher, and now, she is an automatic must-read. "What Feasts at Night" is the next installment of her "Sworn Soldier" series, featuring Alex Easton and their compatriots Angus and Miss Potter, and it is as excellent as the last, 'What Moves the Dead." The eerie setting of the fictional Gallacia is so full of atmosphere that the reader is perpetually on edge, waiting for whatever malevolent being is lurking in the shadows to wreak its havoc to make its appearance. At just under 200 pages, Kingfisher once again proves the power of quality over quantity, and crafts a novella whose events will stick with the reader for a good while after it's finished. (And maybe, just maybe, might make them think twice about those sudden, middle-of-the-night awakenings...)

I could read about Alex Easton's brushes with the unknown forever and never tire of the stories. I was obsessed with What Moves the Dead, devouring it in a single night, and What Feasts at Night was the same. These novellas are deliciously haunting, the perfect mix of deeply personal, character-driven horror and supernatural thrill to keep you turning page after page. I also enjoy the casual queerness interwoven in the world building with Alex's status as a sword soldier and kar's use of non-traditional pronouns because of that status.

Best read on a cold winter night in front of a fireplace with a glass of wine in hand (or something like brennavin aquavit, which I imagine would be somewhat similar to livrit, if not better tasting).

I love T. Kingfisher! Her books are some of the most amazing and engrossing books that I have read. I also love that they tend to be fast reads but still hold your attention as though they were hundreds of pages long. In #WhatFeastsAtNight we get to meet up with Alex Easton, Angus and the mycologist Miss Potter, whom we previously met in #WhatMovesTheDead.
The trio once again finds themselves in the midst of a strange supernatural force that seems to be stealing the very breath out of men and women. In Gallacia they believe a Moroi is at the heart of it, a superstition of a woman who sits on your chest and pulls the breath from your body until you die.
Alex struggles to believe in such a thing even after the results of what happened in the previous novel What Moves The Dead.


Thankyou to #TorNightfire and #Netgalley for the chance to read #WhatFeastsAtNight by #T.Kingfisher in return for a fair and honest review.

This is the second story in the Sworn Soldier series, but you don’t have to have read that one to read this one. I’m calling it a series because I’m hoping there are more! I really like these novellas. T. Kingfisher’s writing is immersive without being wordy, and the way she writes- the language is so beautiful sometimes.

The folk horror story grips you. I read it in one sitting! The story build and builds in intensity. It’s hard to describe the plot without spoilers. I went into it knowing almost nothing. The characters are at a hunting lodge and something might be coming for them in their dreams. Or in real life. I loved it.

I love Kingfisher and all that she writes (though I haven't quite managed to make my way through everything, I am trying). I loved "What Moves the Dead". It was a wonderfully haunting retelling of "The Fall of the House of Usher". I would have been just fine leaving the book where it ended, but was surprised and excited to hear that it was getting a follow up with "What Feasts at Night".

I thoroughly enjoyed this second book, though I usually feel that second books aren't as good as their predecessors and that was kind of the case with this one. Alex is back again facing mysterious circumstances and creatures that go bump in the night, though this time they hit even closer to home. Its kind of surprising that he doesn't believe in superstition just because he has already delt with the weird and uncanny...but then again mushrooms and fungi are a naturally occurring phenomenon so maybe the events of the first book were just easier for him to write off.

Nevertheless, he persists in getting to the bottom of the supernatural issue. Is something rooted in facts or something else entirely. Alex will get to the bottom of it one way or another.

The world building, plot and narrator voice are consistent and this was a good follow up to the first book.