I wasn’t crazy about this book. I really wanted to like it but there was so much happening at once and only some of the plot points wound up contributing to the conclusion. In the end the whole book wound up feeling very jumbled and unfinished.
The narrator did a wonderful job though!

I have been sitting with this one for a while because I found this to be a book that I wasn't too excited to come back to. I will admit I picked it because Bahni Turpin narrated, and she's one of my absolute favorites. But I found this story to be really slow moving, a bit confusing at times, and it felt disjointed at times. I had high hopes, but it just wasn't for me. I hope readers who need it find it.

This was an interesting but a bit hard to follow book to listen to. It took some time to determine what was going on, but the storyline was interesting.

writing style was really heavy-handed and overdone; narrator went into such unnecessary detail about anything it didn't feel like there was any actual story, just the narrator rambling about nothing.

This is a fantastic read! I really enjoyed it! It was eerie and entertaining. A reclusive billionaire on a private island in winter, houseguests with secrets, mental health and trauma, violence and mystery. It definitely kept my attention! The characters were likeable and interesting. It was a fast read at only 300+ pages and the narrator did a great job! I would highly recommend checking it out!
I’ve already suggested it as our book club book for May. Thank you so much for letting me read this as an arc! I will be looking for more from this author!

3.5 A mysterious house with a mysterious owner. Three young women missing from his household. Anna and Charles Fort were actual people, Charles is focused on strange , occurrences that have no known explanation, such as raw meat falling from the sky etc. This though is narrated by Anna and flashes back and forth, from her time as a servant in Charles fathers house, to the present. Invited to the island with another couple by Mr. Arkel, supposedly so Charles could write his book. There is another couple also there and I loved Stella, who would become Anna's wingman, so to speak.

A very strange book, atmospheric and tense. Things, are of course not as they appear. Unexplained happenings and a strange coincidence in regards to King Nyx. Loved the eerie cover.

Audio was terrific.

ARC from Netgalley and RBMedia.

This book was eerie and definitely true to its time. It was set in the winter of 1918 and the characters and themes were perfectly on point. I do not think this is my type of read because at one point in a flashback the main character, Anna, is saying how radical vegetarians are and it just made me sad. She is full of brilliance and beauty and she’s not recognized for it. I know this is the time but I am happy we have come so far that women can be smart and passionate without “hysterics” coming into play.
All that to say and I really think the author did a fantastic job telling this story. If you like mysteries and tales from another era, this is a very well done work to immerse yourself into.

King Nyx is one of the best narrated books I've listened to in a long time. Bahni Turpin excels at her craft. The narration is so strong, after finishing this book. I'm going to find other books Turpin narrated.

As for the story, I thought it was quite entertaining. I was captivated by the mystery. I do wish more were done with the automatons, as I didn't see their necessity other than to hide the disappearances. I liked Anna, and by extension, Stella, as they navigated the island. I'm still unsure what the exact tension was between Mary and her daughter. The atmosphere was creepy, buy I do think the end wrapped up bit too neatly. None of that takes away from the entertainment value of this book.

Thanks NetGalley and Recorded Books for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook.

This was definitely spooky without being horror.
Set in early 1900s at time that SHOULD have been more innocent, but wasn't. We are set up to wonder who will get our protagonists when the get to a private island. It's post-WWI and there's a flu pandemic going on. Will they be infected by the flu? There is a scene early on that makes you think it's a possibility. Will it be the mysterious and pretty creepy owner of the island? Will we ever met him? And just WHO is he and what is HIS issue?

And what's up with children's mechanical toy, named King Nyx? What are these mysterious weather phenomena that Anna's husband Charles is writing about? And what about Stella and her husband? I had immediate trust issues with them.

All in all, a lot of questions that kept me engaged. I could see this happening so clearly, though I listened to it. Would make a fabulous movie.

By the way, the narrator was incredible. I'll have to watch for more of her work.

This is one of those books where you think the author can't be American because it's so very, very dark without any gore until the end. Europeans do darkness of the soul so much better than we do. This book took a bit to get me hooked, but once they made it to the island, I was completely focused and full of dread. It's a haunting story with strong and realistic female characters, trapped in an era when they had no power so they did whatever they needed to do to squeeze out as much as possible. Brutal men dominate the landscape, twisted and misogynistic, with Charles being the only exception. Mary, and Stella are very different women with very different motivations, who connect with Anna in different ways, at different times. Interesting arcs for them all. This would be a good fantasy/horror for a book discussion with multiple talking points throughout.

I honestly didn't expect to like this as much as I did. But it was truly a treat to listen to this audiobook.
It was a very engaging story and I was hooked pretty early on. Very interesting story and I loved the writing. It just flowed and I got through it rather quickly.
I enjoyed that the main character in the beginning mostly focusses on her husband and we then mostly learn about him. It matches perfectly her personality and how she has lived the last several decades of her life.
The only downside of the book was the lack of envolvement of this "King Nyx" character. Considering the name being the title, I had hoped for it to have played a much bigger role. Although it was pulled in towards the end in the main confrontation scene, it felt a little... loose and uncoordinated. I wish it had dived much further into that and the role that King Nyx played for the main two characters knowing about them.
It is clear that the King Nyx concept is symbolic of something. But either I'm just very oblivious or it wasn't spelled out enough. I still don't known exactly what the point with King Nyx was.
Despite all that, it was a lovely story and I would definitly recommend.

"King Nyx" is an evocative novel set in 1918 on the secluded Prosper Island, blending gothic mystery and contemporary feminist themes. It explores the enigmatic circumstances surrounding Anna and Charles, married guests of millionaire Claude Arkel, amidst the backdrop of the island's dark secrets, including the mysterious disappearance of three girls.

IRL, I’m learning something new every day with books recently. Part of the narrative in "King Nyx" reimagines the true life of Charles Hoy Fort, an early 20th-century researcher and writer of anomalous phenomena. Until a quick Google search, I figured the book was just poking fun at people who believe, but won’t admit outright, that aliens occasionally shower things at us Earth-bound folk.

I haven’t read Kirsten Bakis’ first novel, "Lives of the Monster Dogs," but "King Nyx" introduced me to her flair for the imaginative and the macabre.

There are moments where I lost the plot a bit and felt that the novel could have benefited from tighter pacing and a more focused narrative arc. Despite these minor detractions, I loved the story's beautifully eerie setting and appreciated the subtle yet poignant feminist commentary.

Stella was by far my favorite character. Honestly, the smartest one among the cast. And I love the cover—definitely what drew me to the book!

Thanks to Netgalley, RB Media, Kirsten Bakis, and Bahni Turpin for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of the audiobook.

I liked that this story was set in the early 1900s and hand many "look back" periods to the 1800s. I enjoy the back and forth. I did find it a little too bizarre for my normal liking. The story started off slow and then was an information dump, which was hard to understand.

Anna feels as though she is always on the edge of fracturing. Her mind is fragile and her husband's eccentricities don't offer much aid. The book is told in the form of a flashback. We start in present time, where Anna's husband has passed and Anna is planning to move to a farm she has secretly owned. However, we flash back in memory to when Anna and her husband Charles were requested as guests to an island of another eccentric man named Mr. Arkle.

A mystery starts to unfold as Anna and Charles wait for the ferry and there are several women with petitions about missing girls. Anna is moved but Charles believes them to be merely run aways . However, once on the island several other anomalies occur as they are quarantined away from their host far from the mansion without meeting their host and Anna believes there are people or ghosts in the woods. She also believes the ghost may be her long lost friend, Mary and is determined to figure out what is going on in the island.

I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to receive an advanced Audiobook of this novel in exchange for an honest review. There are lots of good twists and turns and mysteries to uncover. I enjoy psychological mysteries and this one does give the dark, gothic vibes with the ominous woods, mysterious host, missing girls, murders, and much more.

This fought hard to keep my attention but it just wasn't there for me. I didn't find myself particularly attached to the characters. They and the story didn't feel tangible enough for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC of this book.

This book got better as it progressed through the story. The atmosphere is very gothic and has a big theme of patriarchy throughout and shows how women were thought of by men in the early 20th century. I thought the mystery was good and liked that the environment was confined to one place.

A big thank you to RB Media and Net Galley for allowing me to listen to an advanced copy of the audio book.

All I can think is Wow!

I know that this was supposed to be a mystery but it felt more like a dark story with mysterious elements.

The women in this book were so unbelievably interesting. Anna was a complex character that just kept evolving through out the story. You start off with thinking that she is just a good wife, but there is so much more to her past. The same with Stella you think she is just an eccentric lonely drunk that does not like her husband but she was so much more.

This book gave off the same vibes as the Maidens by Alex Michaelides. Anna Seemed broken like Mariana. Anna had though she had hurt and lost someone close to her, but her memory became distorted because so many things had happened to her.

Side note: can we talk about the fact that so many people in the 1900s went to sanitoriums all the time? Like it seems to be a crazy amount, or I am just reading a lot of similar books.

The set up of the island, the influenza pandemic, and the missing girls sure did make this book have a very eerie vibe. While they were waiting to get on the boat to get to the island I was thinking of the Series of Unfortunate events movie. Everything dark and bleak, and all the characters wear dark drab colors.

The flow of the story was great. Most of it was predictable after you realized that Anna wasn't actually crazy like everyone thought she was.
It also ended. There was no open ended question, it was just an ending and a good one at that.

It is really nice to see a writer has still got it even though they have not published a book in many years.

King Nyx by Kirsten Bakis drew me in when I did not initially expect it to. We meet Anna Fort, supportive wife to quirky Charles. Charles is studying strange meteorological occurrences with supposed scientific backing. Wealthy Claude Arkel is now sponsoring the couple in an attempt to support Charles' work. While on the secluded island, Anna learns of missing girls and tries to help.

I loved how Anna began to question her sanity. Creepy and gothic, the ending was espectially wonderful. Bahni Turpin is a goddess, and her narration was spectacular. Thank you so much to @netgalley for the chance to review this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

It is 1918 Anna and her husband Charles are at the end of their rope financially when a mysterious benefactor invites them to his island for the winter so that Charles can work on his writing and hopefully be inspired by the reclusive millionaire. Anna insists on bringing her 2 favorite birds with her despite the harsh weather conditions they will face in getting there. Things start to get a bit suspicious when they arrive in the town across the water from the island. 2 women approach the couple asking them to sign a petition about the mysterious circumstances of young women on the island. Anna and Charles push through, but the spark of wariness has been lit inside Anna. She has her own past that gives her reason to be suspicious of nefarious tidings.

I did not know what to expect from this book but I was oh so pleasantly surprised. I thought that the characters were well developed and others are intentionally vague. I enjoyed the mystery and suspicion throughout the story. I would highly recommend this book for old-fashioned mystery lovers and anyone who enjoys piecing a puzzle together throughout the story.

This is one of those books that's nearly impossible for me to review. Not because I don't want to but simply because I just don't know how. It's such a strange and ... indescribable ... book that a review is nearly meaningless.

I can't tell you the things I loved about the book because they'll be spoilers, and I can't really tell you the (VERY FEW) things I didn't like about it for the same reason.

Let me just say that if you enjoy a good gothic horror/thriller, then you'll probably appreciate this book. My only real complaint with it -- without getting into too much detail -- is that the ending could have been stronger.

Still, it's easily a four-star book that I would gladly recommend to people who enjoy these kinds of things.

As for the audio component, it was great. The narrator was excellent and the pacing was perfect. Actually, I'd go so far as to say that this narrator was BORN to narrate this book. Haha. Her sweet, unassuming "Mrs. Manners" voice was perfect for narrating what turns out to be a dark and somewhat surprisingly twisted tale.