Beg the Night by Emily Blackwood is an enemies-to-lovers romantasy that I discovered somewhere on social media. I knew nothing about this book ahead of time, except for the fact that the author had a convincing pitch on Threads ahead of its release. It’s the first book in an ongoing series with dystopian themes, lots of tension, and a fast-moving plot.
Athena has spent her life in relative isolation, with only her family for company. But after her entire family, except one sister, dies within weeks of each other under mysterious circumstances, there is no one left to keep her safe from the Ministry and the war they are so desperately trying to win.
After she is captured, the Ministry informs her that they believe she is a mystic, someone with powers, and they plan to use a claiming ritual under the next blood moon to harness her power. The problem is, that she’s not a mystic, and even if she was, she has no intention of helping the brutal Ministry with the war they started.
Locked in a dungeon awaiting the next blood moon, Athena is only one of two women in a large group of powerful men. Sinner, the most powerful mystic in the group, is the one nobody fucks with. He’s large, powerful, and terrifying. Despite Athena’s protests, Sinner agrees to perform the claiming with her. It’s their only way out.
Trapped in an impossible situation, weapons in a war they have no desire to fight, Athena and Sinner are left doing whatever they can to survive, which means they need each other, no matter how much they hate it.
Beg the Night is intriguing in its premise, but it all feels very surface-level. I was unable to really sink into the story since it all was rather rushed. The book jumps right into the plot, which is fine, but it never slows down to give the reader time to learn the world or the characters.
It truly reads like a first draft, as though it’s a great idea that just hasn’t been executed to its fullest extent yet. There are some editing issues, like how naval and navel do not at all mean the same thing, but on a deeper level, it just feels unfinished.
There is not a lot of character development. The story is very much driven by the plot, and as a result, the characters come out a bit flat. All we know about them are the tropes they embody, and they don’t connect with the reader.
There are some steamy moments in this book, but there is an element of dubious consent to all of them since the sexual activity takes place entirely in captivity and under duress. The characters clearly had a connection, but again I found myself wishing the author had slowed down and taken the time to explore it.
The second half of the book improved significantly, but this book still would have benefited greatly from a less rushed, deeper approach. By the end of the book, readers still have no idea what this war is really about or why it started. There are tons of unanswered questions about Athena and Sinner, and even though this book ends on a cliffhanger, it’s unlikely that I’ll pick up the next one.
Leave a Reply