A Wish Too Dark and Kind takes place at a dinner party hosted by the immortal "prince of Paris" Arnaud Demeure. The book switches back and forth from revealing Demeure's convoluted backstory and motivation to following his (also immortal) dinner party guests as they try and figure out the dark purpose Demeure truly has for summoning them.

I wasn't too sure about the premise of this book but after the first 50 or so pages I started to really get into it. As other reviewers have mentioned I was really interested in Alex's character and was looking forward to getting invested in other characters but they never seemed to really be fleshed out the same way. There is a lot of really good and interesting stuff here- Alex as I mentioned and also Demeure's "sister" Valentine, a cool magic system and world-building that incorporates mythology and biblical themes, and lots of mystery and complicated family dynamics. Unfortunately the pieces don't really come together and it ends up feeling like the author is trying to do too much in one short book. I liked some of the characterization and the writing so even though I might not recommend this book I would be interested to read other by Blackbird.

I felt this book was for me as soon as I read the blurb. It almost sounded like a murder mystery but, given the eight guests are all immortal, no actual murder.

I was quite gripped early on with my brain absorbing as much as possible, expecting the smallest details to become more important as we reached the crescendo. One of the first characters we meet, Alex, starts off as a teacher in a school for magic when an accident occurs which leaves a deadly creature murdering students. You would be forgiven for feeling like this is going to be an interesting tale but within a handful of pages I still over and she is sent out to party at the demand of the headmaster. It does however build a great first look at this brilliant character so I was exited to see the other party members being fleshed out. Spoiler: they weren’t.

With a premise like this the focus should always be on the characters. The mystery should unfold as you learn more and more about their past, their personalities, and their motives. In this book however I was left feeling a bit short changed. A lot of the characters histories was left unanswered or poorly explained. Timeline jumps are a common occurrence in this story which does help add more details to the relationships between the characters but only the thinnest slivers of information. It felt very much like “Oh by the way ‘x’ sired ‘y’ a century ago. Anyway back to the story...”

This said it wasn’t all bad and as a whole I did enjoy this book. The laws of physics, science and magic are explained beautifully and gave a wonderful depth to the world. And I loved the glimpses into the past more than the main story, although even those left a lot of blanks and unanswered questions.

I wouldn’t really recommend this book personally but I did like a lot of elements. My wish? That this character driven story had a bit more depth to those characters and that we weren’t left quite so in the dark.

Actual rating more like 2.5 stars.

This was a hard book to rate for me, because I kind of enjoyed this story in spite of its quality. In other words, I had a lot of fun reading it, but I probably wouldn't recommend it to a friend.

A Wish Too Dark And Kind was carried by its characters. There were a lot to juggle for the overall length of the story, but they were all so colorful that it almost didn't matter. This book is swimming with villains and morally gray individuals, and it was a blast seeing how they all weaved together despite being so unique, and to try and determine who to root for. Part of what made them so great was the character descriptions: they were vivid and unique really brought all of the oddballs to life.

In general, though, I had mixed feelings about the prose. The character and setting descriptions were most well done, sometimes even great but at some points it went a little too far. It was well balanced at times, but other times felt like the narrative was taking itself too seriously. This also resulted in a bit of mixed messaging from the worldbuilding. It was deep and interesting enough to keep me reading, but at times felt like it was dark just for the sake of being dark. Then at some points that I found funny, I wasn't sure that it was actually meant to be comedic.

What really keeps me from recommending this book however was the dialogue and pacing. For how detailed and elaborate this world and story was, it felt very rushed at times. Since the characters were so interesting, I would've liked more opportunities to get to know them, rather than just being so focused on moving the plot forward. The dialogue also tripped me up a bit: it was stilted at times (not horribly - this is just something that really impacts the quality of a story for me. I want characters to talk like regular people!) and a little inconsistent. (Characters who were supposed to be immortal/centuries years old speaking too casually. I wanna see more old timey-slang from characters that are supposed to be old-timey!)

My overall impression of this book is that I am very interested in reading future works by Blackbird. A lot of the bones are there - the ideas and the characters - and with some more writing experience I think there will be some good books from him in the future.

I think this book could be better. The magic is interesting and the world is unique enough, but not memorable. It was also inconsistent and the characters are mediocre. The language used during the 16th century sounded too modern. The plot progressions felt too slow sometimes and then too fast at other times. The writing was OK, it's not horrible but it's not amazing either. I might still read it upon its release to see if it has improvements because I genuinely think it has the potential to be better.

In 'A Wish Too Dark and Kind,' Demeure takes us on a journey where eight immortals are tested to see what fate awaits them. Speculation arises when true intentions are questioned, leaving those involved trying to unravel the backstories of one another's past.

What Blackbird portrays positively are diverse, intriguing characters that you are able to fully endorse yourself in as the complexities of the mythology of magick, immortals, and dark power captivate your attention. This is done in a way that allows you to believe the magick systems, unlike others that feel less realistic and more far-fetched. Blackbird follows the premise that you have consequences for your actions, which is something that connects you as a reader to the individual characters.

However, the entanglement of different storylines might leave some readers feeling a little lost as they desire more depth and progression from each character. Despite the characters being intriguing, it was somewhat difficult to ascertain at times, who was of dominance to the plot and how they were going to fit in later in the novel.

This horror, fantasy novel has a good rhythm to start with, however you might end up feeling slightly disappointed as the second half felt quite rushed, leaving the reader with more questions than answers. Nevertheless, it is an intriguing, interesting read with dark magic, diaries, and death being a distinguishing factor to the storyline.

A Wish Too Dark and Kind review

Thank you NetGalley for access to this eARC in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book is a genre blend of fantasy, mystery, and horror and it’s full of with murder, mayhem, blood, betrayals, and of course, lots of magic. M. L. Blackbird invites readers to join the colorful cast of characters as they unravel the secrets a mysterious magic-user has in store. The story is at times confusing, but I think it's done in the way of the mystery genre where readers are meant to follow along and try to figure it out for themselves alongside the characters. I didn't love it, but I do think it was intentional. This book was really interesting though. There are multiple points of view which was interesting for world-building because each character has a unique experience with magic and use different magic systems. At different points in the story, these characters explain to each other (and readers) how these magic systems work. I liked this and found it helpful. I like that the story functions as a mystery box of sorts and that's also one of the settings which I thought was fun. I truthfully didn't understand everything (and perhaps I just wasn't reading closely enough) but I found some parts a touch confusing.

The concept of this book is compelling: a strange invitation from an even stranger sender that causes several strangers to meet and must solve a mystery about how they all fit into the puzzle their host has created. Although it was not my favorite, this book is a solid blend of fantasy, mystery, and horror.

3 out of 5 stars

I was so intrigued by the premise of this book and i was excited to get to read it, the stpryline sounded incredible and i expected it to be gothically dark and mysterious, however sadly it fell slightly flat for me, I enjoyed reading it just not as much as i thought that i would.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.

I struggled to get into this book! The storyline at the beginning was quite confusing! I had to re-read the first few pages a couple times to fully understand it!

The cover and description is what pulled me in so was a little disappointed I didn’t end up liking the storyline!