Nastasya may be more than 400 years old, but she’s only now learning to truly live a worthy life. After centuries of a hard-partying lifestyle, Nastasya has finally found something that might resemble peace and contentment at River’s Edge, a kind of rehab for wayward immortals. Though her life isn’t perfect, she’s slowly learning to appreciate the things she used to take for granted. But her doubts still linger. With her head clear, Nastasya is viewing memories of her family in a new light and worries that she’s filled with a darkness she can’t escape. When things start to go wrong, she falls back to her old lifestyle and her old friends, hoping to spare the people she’s come to care for. But going back may ultimately put her in more danger – danger she doesn’t see until it’s almost too late.
Darkness Falls is the second book in Cate Tiernan’s Immortal Beloved trilogy. It builds upon the solid foundation Tiernan set up in the first book and then delves deeper into the lives, histories and magical roots of the world she has created. There are more details about the lives of immortals, the magic they possess (for good or for evil) and the great possibilities and dangers that exist as a result. Tiernan still includes echoes of her Sweep series with the basics of immortal magic, but Nastasya and her friends are reside wholly within their own story.
Readers will be alternatively thrilled and shocked by the revelations about some characters, while also on edge as Nastasya struggles with new internal and external threats. While the pace of the novel does start a little slow, I appreciated having the time to fall back into this world. There’s not much “rehash” of information from the first book (which I also appreciated), but there’s also no rush to start the action. The story builds realistically and once the excitement and danger becomes obvious, I couldn’t read fast enough, turning pages furiously to find out what would happen next.
The best part of this book – and the series – is Nastasya. Even as a 400+ year old immortal, she’s still completely relatable. She’s sarcastic and snarky, but in Darkness Falls especially, she’s also vulnerable, filled with self-doubt and trying so valiantly to do the right thing. The Nastasya of this book is quite different from the Nastasya of the first book and I absolutely love that. Readers can clearly see how much she’s changed, how much she’s learned and how far she still has to go. Her witty asides to the reader made me feel as if I were listening to a friend confide in me and helped provide some moments of levity to balance the seriousness and heaviness of her story. And while those asides are Nastasya’s way of deflecting and covering up her real feelings, I still understood exactly how hard she was trying to be better and I loved her all the more because of it.
When I first finished, I was quite surprised with the choices Tiernan made. I had expected the conflict that occurs in the climax of Darkness Falls to come in the third and final book in the series. As such, I was left wondering where Tiernan could possibly take the story. But the more I think about it, the more I realize just how much I still don’t know. There are still so many unresolved questions (not the least of which is Reyn and his complicated past). Things that have only been hinted at in Darkness Falls could come back and I’m excited to see where Tiernan will take Nastasya next.
Cate Tiernan is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, thanks in part to Darkness Falls and Nastasya. At times familiar and at times new and different, Tiernan has created a fascinating world of immortals and magic, a world in which our choices define who we are and where everyone – even those who are hundreds of years old – is still learning.
[Photo Credit: Goodreads]
