A Book Obsession..: Burn the Night

Burn the Night

, by Kt Clapsadl

Burn the Night by Jocelynn Drake

Dark Days #6

The Great Awakening approaches . . .

After eons in exile, the naturi have broken their chains and now roam the Earth bent on revenge. It is the sworn duty of Mira, the Fire Starter, to protect the nightwalker race—though even she may be powerless to withstand the horrific onslaught. As Mira and her brave lover, the vampire slayer Danaus, stand ready to do battle, thousands of winged shapeshifters darken the skies. The war of ultimate extermination has begun, and the battleground is Mira's home turf.

The humans don't yet recognize the doom descending upon them. And the nightwalkers will surely perish unless they unite with outcast naturi who claim to want peace. But these unexpected "allies" are the same demons who have long worked for Mira's destruction—and in these darkest of days the lines between friend and foe will blur treacherously before the bloody end of all things.

Mira is still reeling from the events in the previous books, but has no real time to lick her wounds. The Naturi have split into two factions and a catastrophic war is on the horizon. Mira will have to swallow her pride and then some in order to join forces with the very species she has devoted her life to destroying. At least these Naturi seems to want peace when the war is over, at least for a time. Mira is too smart, or jaded depending on how you look at it to believe otherwise. The Great Awakening is just around the corner, with the Nightwalkers and Shapeshifters scrambling to put it off for as long as possible. Secrecy has been necessary to their very survival, but with the Queen of the Naturi determined to bare all in plain sight, Mira knows the time of hiding is just about up. That won't stop her from make one last effort to prevent those events and put an end to the insane queen once and for all.

Burn the Night is told from dual first person perspectives, with both Mira and Nyx getting a few chapters each turn. I'll be honest that I was a little worried at first when things started out with Nyx, and that the book wouldn't have enough of Mira, but I need not have. Mira definitely got her due share, but I really enjoyed Nyx's perspective as well. It was like a behind the scenes look into a side we hadn't really understood before this point. In a funny way, Nyx is really similar to Mira in many ways. They both are extremely powerful, and both were shunned by their people as a result. Another similar trait was their fierce protectiveness and willingness to sacrifice everything if needed. This any many more things would make Nyx a formidable opponent for Mira if they were ever to come to blows, even more so than any other the others Mira has faced, because none of them have had that same sacrificial nature. Luckily for both of them they were on the same side, at least for the time being, but that fragile truce made for a very interesting reading, knowing that it wouldn't take much to tip the scales at all.

The best thing about Burn the Night was that Jocelynn Drake didn't just wrap things up with a cookie cutter ending nor did she try to shove these raw characters into a neat little wrapped box with a bow. The ending is fragile and tenuous, with the knowledge that no peace nor resolution will be permanent due to the nature of all the different species, but at least we do get a small look into a reprieve, however long or short that may be. Trust me, Mira's earned a little downtime, if not some major R&R. Anything more concrete just would not have been realistic, and I cannot be happier that she stayed true to the characters and the wonderful world she built.

Burn the Night is the type of book that deserves to be savored. However, with its nonstop heat pounding action it became a battle of wills in order to slow myself down to truly appreciate what I was reading. So much was going on that I really wanted to take my time to make sure I didn't miss anything, but the action just would not be denied and I raced through the entire book at a record pace. I'm very much looking forward to a reread in the future to discover everything I missed in my haste to see what happened next. As much as it saddens me to say goodbye to Mira and Danaus, I really felt like the series is ending in a very natural place. There are many reasons for this, that I won't get into to avoid spoilers, but suffice it to say that almost all of the questions and pressing issues will be answered. Burn the Night will leave you with a sense of satisfaction as you bid farewell, making it a fitting final installment in this amazing series.

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