Review

Seraphine and her mother live a quiet life on the plains, processing, bottling and smuggling Shade — a powder that confers magical shadow wielding abilities, but is addictive and eventually kills its users. Then one day Sera comes home to find her home ablaze and her mother assassinated by a Dagger: a member of an order of Shade-using assassins. Knowing she could be next, she runs to the city of Fantome and seeks sanctuary with the Cloaks, an order of thieves. Daggers and Cloaks have an uneasy truce, staying out of each other’s way… but not when it comes to Sera. Gaspard du Fort, ruthless leader of the Daggers, has set his protégé Ransom a task: kill Seraphine, quickly and quietly.

But it’s not as easy as Ransom thinks, partly because she has strange protective powers she doesn’t understand, and partly because, well… he just doesn’t want to, for a range of reasons he doesn’t want to look at too closely. Meanwhile, mysterious Shade-fuelled monsters are roaming the city and killing indiscriminately. Fantome is full of dangers and mysteries that Sera needs to unravel to save herself, her new Cloak friends and the city itself.

*

I enjoyed this — gave me Six of Crows vibes, partly I think because of the alternating close third person point of view narration (Seraphine/Ransom). The world building is very well done — rich, entertaining, almost cinematic, and not confusing. Lots of enjoyable and believable romantic tension, and although the novel resolves satisfactorily, the door is definitely left open for a sequel. Lovely evocative description and plenty of action. There were a few moments when I thought it was starting to drag a little, but then it picked up. I can recommend the audiobook, narrated by two lovely British voices.

An evocative & action-packed novel for your senior school romantasy fans.

Length: 512 pp.

Age rating: 16-ish (year 10 & up)

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Fantasy violence (e.g. being choked by shadows) plus some non-fantasy violence (e.g. stabbing, real life choking, etc.); Shade has drug-like properties: addictive and self-destructive; domestic abuse & abusive fathers (backstory); almost all the main characters are either assassins or thieves; occasional scattered f-words; late in the novel (it’s a slow burn) there’s a sex scene on the page: it’s not explicit, but a reasonably good picture is created of what’s going on, which is why my age rating is what it is. Main romance is mlw; minor characters’ relationships are mlw and wlw; found family and close supportive friendships depicted.

*

Doyle, C. (2024). The dagger and the flame (F. Carter & E. Carey, Narr.) [Audiobook]. Simon & Schuster Audio UK.

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