Then, there are the puppeteers who send their shadows to carry out certain illicit tasks. These modifications might even give them a confidence boost, hone their talents, or manipulate emotions. Celebrities can get their shadows altered for a price, to have wings or a horn which they can show off like a new tattoo or a cosmetic implant. Thus, over the years, a whole shadow industry has sprung up. Black draws upon the rich folklore surrounding witches’ familiars and homunculi to craft a world where humans can command their shadows to do their bidding.

The book’s fictional universe is founded upon the premise that human shadows have incredible power. Before she knows it, Charlie is embroiled in a conspiracy with a mysterious billionaire, Lionel Salt, at its centre who also happens to be a face from Charlie’s notorious past that she doesn’t wish to cross just yet. Soon, one of her customers is found dead in an alleyway, and she sees a terrifying shadow at the crime scene. The two siblings share the rent for their run-down apartment with Charlie’s steady boyfriend Vince, who doesn’t have a shadow-but that’s not the most extraordinary thing about him, as the later chapters reveal.Ĭharlie’s life is hardly pleasant, but things go quickly downhill when she agrees to use her trickery and charm to track down Adam, a schoolmate’s missing partner. Charlie hopes to gather enough funds so that her younger sister, Posey (who has a side-hustle conducting tarot readings for strangers) can eventually go to college.

She works as a bartender, employed by the dominatrix Odette, who is willing to look the other way as long as Charlie shows up for her shifts. The protagonist, Charlie Hall, is a girl with a blood-spattered past, struggling to learn from her mistakes and turn over a new leaf. Now, with the sinister and shadowy Book of Night, she makes her adult debut, weaving an enthralling story about a con artist, ancient grimoires, and silhouettes having a life of their own, set against a seedy urban backdrop that is rife with treachery, blackmail, and crime.

Like the legendary Scheherazade of the Arabian Nights, bestselling fantasy writer Holly Black has long enchanted children and young adults with her darkly fantastical tales about the Faerie realm.

Charlie hall book of night