Review--Nightweaver by R.M. Gray

 

For fans of Adalyn Grace's Belladonna and Lauren Roberts’s Powerless, Nightweaver is a propulsive YA fantasy debut about a strong-willed heroine avenging her brother and discovering her destiny.

Six hundred years ago, Nightweavers, cursed beings with untamed power, claimed the continents for their own. The ocean was meant to be a safe haven for humanity, including seventeen-year-old Aster Oberon and her pirate family. But after Aster’s brother is killed in an epic battle at sea against Nightweavers, Aster and her family are thrust into a new life on land.

When a handsome Nightweaver named Will offers the Oberons protection and work at his opulent estate, Aster is suspicious. As the arrogant and entitled right hand to the wicked prince, Will is everything that she has been taught to hate. But as he shows empathy and kindness, Aster can’t ignore a blooming attraction. And even more, Will opens her eyes to a new threat. There are monsters worse than Nightweavers, monsters who may be behind her brother’s death.

As Aster hunts the creatures responsible, dark secrets threaten to unravel everything she once believed about her family, herself, and her world.

Filled with elemental magic, forbidden romance, and breathtaking twists, this is a propulsive romantasy about an iron-willed heroine avenging her brother and discovering her destiny—perfect for fans of Powerless and Heartless Hunter.

R.M. Gray's Nightweaver is a positively perfect pirate fantasy read filled with supernatural and magical elements sure to delight every fantasy reader! This was a mysterious and intriguing story that kept me developing a hundred theories as I read and a few of them even panned out to some extent! Nightweaver is a pageturner of a story and is meant to be devoured!

In this world, you have your humans and you have your nightweavers, which are humanlike but have more monstrous like qualities. I haven't quite pinpointed them down to a comparison of sorts, but they are both humanoid and monstrous, making for an interesting character type for sure! Humans have basically fled land and went to the sea and thus largely became pirates as being on land was too dangerous, but granted being out on the ocean is just as dangerous as well. Aster and her family are essentially pirates, fighting to survive and stay together. But then the unthinkable happens...

After a bout of violence, Aster loses one of her brothers and the rest of her family is captured by nightweavers and taken to land where they are to work as servants in one of the nightweaver's homes. This family is a "well-to-do" nightweaver family and has a high social standing in their society. Aster is frankly baffled by the turn of events. Her mother, their captain of their pirate family, seemed to surrender easily and just accepted their new fate. The rest of her siblings also adapt well to their new lot in life and everyone seems content to stay on land and work for their former enemy.

Aster longs to return to the sea, but doesn't necessarily have the means to do so. She misses her brother, Owen, who died in their last battle. She longs to find the mysterious island her brother once talked about that was promised to be a safe haven, a paradise of sorts, for pirates like them. But no one in her family ever took any real stock into it.

But then, Will, the young man who brought her family to land and has helped them in more ways then one opens her eyes to some of the things happening on land. While on the surface, things seem "fine" there is a bit of discontent among the people and the royals who rule their land. There is some political upheaval and plots of rebellion. But what it comes down to is, who is the enemy? Who is the good guy? Things that used to seem to be black and white to Aster are now looking to be a whole lot of shades of gray.

This was definitely an intriguing story that was far more detailed than I anticipated it to be. There were quite a few moving pieces as to how society functioned on land. The different types of supernatural entities was also a bit of a surprise as the blurb just kind of mentioned the nightweavers, but there was a whole lot more going about on land. Even after finishing the book, I still feel like I am trying to connect the pieces. Hopefully things will become smoother once I get into the second book.

The pacing to this one was quite enjoyable. It was a well-paced novel for sure, but I feel like at time, some of the transitions happened a little too quick. Like one minute one character is deplorable and you're plotting their demise and then the next chapter, the heroine is suddenly becoming friendly with them and I was like, wait, what? Now some of that is slightly exaggerated, but the transitions happening seemingly in a blip is still pretty accurate, at least to me it felt that way. I guess if we had more page breaks or something to indicate that a passage of time had passed would've been nice. It was just confusing to have so much time pass by within the same paragraph of a previous event. It was just a bit discombobulating. Nothing too confusing of course, but it was just disorienting on occasion to say the least.

Now onto the romance. There wasn't a whole lot of romance, but there was loads of romantic tension! So many will they, won't they moments! Then I feel like Gray might have been laying the grounds for a love triangle. It's still too soon to say quite yet and I am still partially, loosely considering a love square or some other odd shape like that, but one of the "choices" doesn't feel too concrete as the other two who definitely feel concrete! Now if we're walking into a love triangle or not will most likely be determined in the next book! Lol. But for the most part, Aster definitely has romantic entanglements with one particular young man! It was definitely on the sweet side of things, so no spiciness!

All in all, this was a very enjoyable read! I greatly enjoyed all the supernatural like character types that were in it! There were a few confusing matters to muddle through on occasion, but nothing that really took away my enjoyment! And the romance was just at the right level given the circumstances of the story! Sometimes there really just isn't a whole lot of time for kissing! But hopefully in the second installment we might get a few more stolen kisses between the chaos! Lol. Nightweaver is the start of a glorious adventure filled with pirates and other supernatural monsters and I cannot wait to see what happens next!

Overall Rating 4/5 stars