I was not expecting this to be queer, which was delightful to find out while reading.

The Night and it's Moon follows two girls living in an orphanage as they grow up. Nox and Amiris are best friends, but when Amiris escapes with a reveer, Nox is sent in her place to a brothel. As the girls grow into women, they struggle to reunite and grow into their powers.

I mostly enjoyed The Night and It's Moon, the characters were decent and I liked watching them develop. I'm also a sucker for training montages, so this book was great there. However, I think the book needed a lot more world building than it got. There was a lot to dive into in this world that didn't get very fleshed out.

Additionally, the switch from childhood friends to romance was very awkwardly done with no real lead up and it kinda made the whole romance feel uncomfortable, especially since they were described as sisters multiple times early in the book. Also, there was a point in Nox's point of view where oxytocin got mentioned, and I think this is slightly anachronistic for the world Piper CJ was trying to build. There were also a few grammatical errors that I wouldn't expect in a published work.

TLDR: I liked the characters, but a lot of things needed to be fleshed out.

This book was supposedly written in a couple of days during a manic episode and it shows. It is all over the place. I don’t feel like it has any sort of clear direction throughout the story. There are so many issues.
The first hundred pages are slow and boring. They contain an unnecessary amount of backstory of the two main characters. The story itself doesn’t really take off until part two. The reader could have gotten the same information through flashbacks instead. By this time, I was also already sick of hearing Amaris be described. She is compared to snow or moonlight in what felt like every sentence. It was overdone. This type of description carries throughout the whole book (ie. strawberry girl, copper reever, moonlit girl) and it gives me flashbacks to bad fanfiction writing (like “emerald orbs” bad).
The writing in general is overdone. There is an attempt made to make it lush and descriptive but it just drags on and on. There are lines in this book that are just there for the sake of “pretty writing” except it doesn’t hit the mark. Metaphors are dragged out in this book. What should be a one-line, maybe two, descriptor, goes on and on and will be circled back to later in a chapter.
Then we have the plot itself, particularly how it pertains to Nox. Nox is the POC main character in this book and a lot of bad stuff happens to her. She is whipped within the first hundred pages to protect Amaris. She is then sold to a brothel in place of Amaris who just leaves Nox behind in her escape. It then turns out that Nox is a succubus which is discovered when her first patron dies inside of her (it was an uncomfortable scene to read). Nox then spends time learning how to master her powers and accidentally kills a bunch of men before she learns how to not kill them but just suck out their souls and take control of them. Nox almost dies at one point and when she is frozen in her own body, only able to communicate through blinks, the Madame sends a drunken patron in to sexually assault her so that she can feed and get better. It is only addressed in the text by Nox thinking that he deserved to die because he would do that, but the fact that she was assaulted is never addressed.
The brothel in general is a mess. The text can’t seem to make up its mind if it's empowering women or trapping them. Girls are sold into this and have no choice but there is also a bit about how one of the girls refused to take a patron because he called her a whore and she wouldn’t let his shame sully her so…
The madame’s backstory did not sit right with me. She is physically disfigured from birth. Her parents don’t mind and love and nurture her while hiding away her arm so that the village doesn’t know about her strange arm. At first, she can’t use the arm but they encourage her to strengthen it at home until the arm develops and a single touch can cause death. Then the parents are afraid of their daughter and she accidentally kills her mother by giving her a hug. Her father eventually sends her away and then kills himself. I felt like this backstory demonized disability. To me, it seemed like her parents got punished for loving their disabled daughter and it became something that took their “mostly perfect” baby and made her something to fear.
Circling back to Nox, towards the end of the book she goes out with the intent to get the captain of the guard under her control using her succubus powers. It turns out that the Captain is a serial killer who murders women. Nox is able to get him under her control and leaves him aware enough that she can torture him including castration. This encounter makes Nox think about the morality of her own powers and what she does to men. But instead of feeling guilty, this makes her decide to never feel guilty again because she doesn’t intend to kill men and because this guy is so bad she shouldn’t feel guilty for any of them. I don’t know how but this book somehow manages to pull off both misogyny and misandry while also at times coming off as trying to be “woke”.
I honestly would not recommend this book to anyone. I really thought that with it being traditionally published now that the issues that people had talked about would have been fixed at least in some capacity. I’m sad and disappointed because I wanted this to be good; I liked how it was pitched originally on TikTok as a more diverse version of Sarah J Maas books (because I did enjoy those years ago) but it did not deliver. I will not be continuing in this series.

I received an E-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I give this book 4 stars. It was enjoyable and a very good read that didn’t turn boring. The characters were complex and beautifully written, and reading from each character’s point of view was very interesting.
After being taken from the orphanage, Nox turns into a beautiful, powerful seducer who works for, or better with a woman called Madame Millicent. She’s been told lies as to where Amaris is and lives, the girl she has been in love with all her life. While she likes Emily, another girl working for Millicent, she loves Amaris.
Emily is kind, and caring, and she loves Nox. But Nox doesn’t return her love, and Emily is left in her own tragic story.
Millicent is the cunning and cruel woman who runs the Selkie, but she too was a little girl long ago. While I don’t like her, I also don’t absolutely hate her.
Amaris is a half fae reever and a character I had trouble connecting to at first. Because while Amaris was trained for years to be a reever, the story after her training show her being weak, and unsuccessful in fighting, and without the talent and information she would certainly have gathered there. She acts silly and unprofessional and it doesn’t exactly add to her character. Her unprofessionalism showed for example when she would ‘rather brainwash ever servant in the kingdom’ than be forced to wear a dress, which just seems stupid.
But I don’t only have unkind words for her. She is funny and witty and knows how to shoot back answers.
I don’t just have criticism for this book. It was a very enjoyable read (please be aware that this book is definitely for an audience of at least 16+ since it contains many explicit scenes) and I had a lot of fun reading each character’s point of view. I also found it refreshing to have a chapter from a side character’s point of view every now and then.
My favourite character is Nox, who deserved endlessly better. I love her so much.
I recommend this book for readers who enjoy sapphic books, books with the vibes of Taylor Swift’s folklore and books with strong female main characters.
When I was sent this ARC, I was excited by all means. I’d heard of Piper CJ distinctly before and I’d followed her on TikTok, so it was rather exciting to have this opportunity. Now after a little research, I heard a few of the problems going on with the author and the book which was slightly confusing. However, this book was picked up by a publisher and re-edited, so I decided to go into this without any influences.
Regarding the drama/problems mentioned, I did not find any problematic aspects in the edited version of this book. From someone who has only read this and doesn’t know much about the author, it is definitely something I would recommend to my audience. I can’t wait for the release of ‘The Sun and Its Stars’!

I was so excited for this book 😔

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloom Books for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I had to DNF at %30 percent. The cover is gorgeous, the title is intriguing so I went blindly before looking for anything else. However not every book having a beautiful cover would be a good one. This is a perfect example of it.

I respect to the writers' work so I try not to give a 1 star. However I can't give more to the book I couldn't finish.

It's so slow paced and problematic.. Too problematic that I can't handle it. I can't recommend this book to anyone 😔

[eARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review]

I really wanted to love this book. The cover is gorgeous, the concept sounds like something I'd love...
But it just fell flat.
On a structural level, the book is flawed. The "Parts" don't make sense; Part 2 focuses almost solely on Amaris, and there's this weird section with Nox where it's in the present, then suddenly going *backward* in time to tell about what happened to her during the time skip. Why not just include those chapters?

I found myself getting too bogged down by the constant descriptions of every little thing. A great example of this is in the fight scenes. Dedicating 5 paragraphs to 2 seconds of fighting just really slows down the action. There's no room for the reader to infer anything at all, because there's so much *telling* in this book. Telling you what things look/feel/sound like. Telling you how each character feels. Telling *you* how to feel about each and every subject.

There's also 0 romance between the two lead characters. It's pitched as a bisexual novel, but Nox reads like a lesbian? She literally hates men and isn't attracted to them? That really lends itself to feeling like Amaris is the protagonist, rather than a dual-protagonist book. Nox is there to supplement Amaris' narrative.

Overall, I like the kernel of the idea here, and the world has potential, but the writing of the book just isn't there. I don't know if I'll be able to finish the series purely because the reading experience is unpleasant.

This book was one of the hardest to get through. It was extremely slow and predictable from page one on. Furthermore, it was basically a retelling of The Witcher. The descriptions were unnecessarily long to the point where I felt as if the narrator thought I was dumb.
The author probably intended this novel to be a poetic masterpiece of literature. However, the language used felt forced and unnatural - a poor attempt at mimicking the masters of Fantasy.
What's more, is that the book features racist topics. (please consider reading/listening to what a person of colour has to say about that.)
Lastly, the authors' response to negative reviews/criticism has been and still is. Just because the TikTok videos in question have been removed, does not mean that what has been said, is unsaid.
Now, the author published this book earlier this year, but due to criticism, republishes it in September. And even though I haven't read the book as it was published back then, I can confidently say that the criticism that had been received, was not used to adapt the book. Thus, a lot of potential has gone to waste. Seeing this is sad because I had genuinely thought the author would use this second chance.

Thank you to NetGalley for this copy. I am leaving this honest review voluntarily.

I am not going to comment on any drama surrounding this author, this book, or TikTok. That is not what I’m about but I wanted to make that clear right off the bat.

Moving on… this book is summed up to be about an adventure of linking two women back together, Nox and Amaris. The trials and times and people they see along the way fill up a majority of this book.

I will be whole heartedly honest, I wanted to love this book. The summary and the cover snagged me so fast, I had no idea this was even a trending book on social media. However, the verbiage, the writing, the story it just was all… too much? It seemed like it was trying really heard to be ACOTAR meets LOTR but LGTBQ+. It has so much potential, but it needs to be reworked, slowed down, and spread out. Give some more background on things but don’t be too wordy? I don’t know, perhaps that’s just my personal response but that’s what a review is all about, right?

Maybe I will pick this up another time and reattempt the read when I’m feeling something complex.

This novel follows the journey of Nox and Amaris. After spending most of their lives together in an orphanage, they are separated. The two lovers are determined to reunite however, while they're trying to get back to each other, they both get themselves caught up in a war between the humans and the fae.

I think this novel had a lot of potential. I was intrigued by the plot and I also love reading fantasy novels in general so, I thought this novel seemed right up my alley. However, this novel failed to live up to my expectations.

My main issue was that a lot of plot points, world-building information and some specific details mentioned, had no real purpose nor did they lead to any real development later on in the story. For example, there is misogyny for the sake of having misogyny, there is a lot of filler information that doesn't add to the immediate storyline (especially in the beginning) which consequently made the pacing slow, not to mention the racist undertones throughout the story.

Therefore, I, unfortunately, will not be recommending this novel to anyone.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloom Books for this ARC!

Please note that this review contains some moderate spoilers for Part One through Part Three of The Night and Its Moon so continue with caution.

I really wanted to like this book. Fantasy centered on queer women is my reading niche, and when Piper C.J. popped up on my TikTok feed, I immediately followed her and was excited to read her debut work. I really enjoy C.J.’s content on TikTok, and while I hesitate to post a critical review for this reason, I feel that this book has some significant issues that need to be addressed.

The Night and Its Moon, the first in a series of four novels, follows Nox and Amaris- two girls growing up together in an orphanage that doubles as a trafficking ring. The children living in this orphanage have been sold into the care of the Gray Matron, who in turn sells them for a profit to a variety of buyers and fates. Nox and Amaris are both markedly special from a young age— Nox is noted for her charm, and Amaris for her moon-like appearance. The two of them are set apart from their peers due to their favored status at the orphanage, and they strike up an intensely close friendship with each other as a result. As the years pass and the girls become teens, Nox realizes that she has fallen in love with Amaris; whether Amaris feels anything beyond friendship remains ambiguous. When Amaris discovers she has been promised to a brothel, Nox and Amaris begin plotting their escape. Things go awry, and while Amaris is able to escape with a traveling assassin named Odrin, Nox is left behind and forced to take Amaris’s place in the brothel. From there, the girls’ paths diverge significantly, and the remainder of the book focuses on their struggle to find each other again amid a backdrop of political intrigue and monster fights.

Content warnings abound here— self harm, involuntary sex work, abuse, human trafficking, violence, murder, and coercion, to name a few.. This book doesn’t shy away from difficult topics, which is something I usually really enjoy. I love grimdark fantasy! Regrettably, the way the narrative addresses these topics lead me to tack a pretty significant trigger warning for racist and homophobic themes onto the above list of CWs. More on this to come.


There were some moments in the first act of The Night and Its Moon (TNAIM hereafter) that I genuinely enjoyed. At her best, C.J.’s writing has a sweet, nostalgic quality that reminds me of fantasy novels from the 1980s and early 90s. I was excited to see where TNAIM was going to go. There are some issues with the writing (purple prose, fuzzy timelines, and far too much filler), but since this is a first novel from a new writer (and I did catch a bit of the sample of the original edition a few months ago), I wasn’t expecting perfection. As the story started to pick up, it became clear to me that there were deeper problems.

Nox is a woman of color. It’s a bit ambiguous, but I think it’s fairly safe to call her a Black woman. Amaris is white and very pale, with white hair, silver lashes, and purple eyes. Their relationship, and the text itself, has racist tones. In an early chapter, Nox is beaten with a leather belt for protecting Amaris. Just a few chapters later she helps Amaris escape only to be trafficked into non-consensual sex work in Amaris’s stead. Nox’s storyline is brutal and isolating, and she’s repeatedly used as a sacrifice for Amaris’s benefit. The narrative places an uncomfortable amount of emphasis on how pale and special Amaris is, while it fetishizes Nox’s dark skin.

Nox and Amaris’s relationship and experiences are incredibly uneven, and weighted in favor of Amaris. Amaris flees, and it takes her four chapters to even think about Nox and what might have happened to her, while Nox thinks of little else as she’s taken away to the Selkie. Amaris gains a community, the ability to fight and defend herself, new love interests, and a father figure. She’s allowed to think romantically about other characters. She has agency and an abundance of choices. She discovers her voice in a very literal sense— she learns she has a magical ability to persuade people to do her bidding by speaking commands.

While Amaris is thriving, Nox is forced into sex work and is unable to move on from the loss of Amaris. (Note: while my review is very critical of Nox and Emily’s circumstances, I want to be clear that I am very much in support of real life sex workers.) Her only real companion is Emily, another girl from the orphanage. The narrative does not permit Nox to love Emily or ever consider her a viable romantic partner. While they have a sexual relationship, Nox is fairly cold to Emily— because she still loves Amaris and Amaris alone. Even years later, Nox is described as empty without Amaris. She seems to exist solely in relation to Amaris. Denying Nox any real intimacy with Emily (Notably, Nox’s only sexual partner that she chooses for herself!) further dehumanizes and disempowers her.

While this book has been marketed as an explicitly bi fantasy, Nox is stated to have no interest in men: “She’d known since childhood that she had no taste for men, but her first true experience with one cast any doubts to the shadows.” (Ch 21). TNAIM doesn’t use labels like queer, bisexual, or lesbian, but it feels reasonable to infer from the above quote that Nox is a lesbian. Now, lesbian sex workers exist, but Nox doesn’t choose sex work of her own volition. She’s sold into it, and her clientele are men. Instead of exploring this complex experience with any weight, Nox’s scenes with men are eroticized. There is no discussion of the impact this work has on her as a gay woman. In fact, the scenes between Nox and her male clients lean pretty explicit, while her scene with Emily is a quick fade to black. As a lesbian reader I found this incredibly alienating. Frankly, it felt cruel to use scenes where a lesbian is forced to have sex with men to up the titillation factor of the book. It’s possible that this is a continuity error and Nox is genuinely intended to be bi, which would improve the situation somewhat but doesn’t fully ameliorate it. To add insult to injury, Nox is revealed to be a succubus, invoking racist stereotypes in which Black women are objectified and hyper-sexualized.

About 65% of the way through the book, Emily is killed. It’s directly stated that she’s been killed because she loves Nox. This twist didn’t really make sense to me from a plot perspective, given that Nox’s relationship with Emily was so emotionally stunted. This felt like a cheap Bury Your Gays moment, and like TNAIM was just heaping more punishment on Nox for no discernible reason. To be fully transparent, I DNF’d at this point. I wanted to give this book a fair shot and read it in its entirety, but the experience was alienating and uncomfortable in a way that overrode the aspects that I enjoyed.

I don’t get the sense that TNAIM was intentionally written with racist and homophobic themes. There’s a lot of unconscious bias and a lack of sensitivity here that should have been flagged at some point in the publishing process. However, regardless of intent, I cannot recommend this book. This is disappointing, because I know this book has been highly anticipated and I think it could’ve been a really fun addition to the genre. At the end of the day, the issues were too significant to overlook for me. I hope to see more thoughtful work from this author in the future.

Thank you NetGalley, SOURCEBOOKS Bloom Books for this arc!

I love reading queer fantasy but this was just not it. despite being newly revised and edited it is very similar to the original draft. The opening chapters were slow and hard to get through, and the overall pace of the book felt off. The too wordy descriptions and the repetition made it seem forced. Also was that drawn out backstory really necessary? no. The adjectives used to describe the characters made me uncomfortable, and in my opinion, the representation just wasn't enough.

This has the potential but at this rate it's not going to get anywhere. The characters need to be given more depth, the story needs more structure, and the romance? well it can't be described as slow burn, there was literally no burn whatsoever. So basically it needs a LOT of fixing.

Not a fan of this one, it seems overhyped, and now hearing about the author & editor’s bullying, I’m even more disappointed….

While I liked the characters overall and the idea of a queer/ bisexual story, I felt the author didn’t really dive into the complex emotions/emotional scenes and left her characters one dimensional at times.

The plot was slow and parts of it unnecessary. I’m someone who does like a lot of back ground info, explanations, but this was excessive and overwritten at times.

The world building was decent, and could be improved in forthcoming sequels.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloom Books for a copy.

This book was not as good as I had hoped it would be. The writing felt repetitive and the pace of the plot felt too slow for my taste. While I enjoyed reading about the characters and their journeys to reunite with one another, their romance felt forced and too quick for my liking.

I freaking loved this book everything single thing about it. It was amazing, it had everything I love I couldn't put it down and read it in one sitting definitely be purchasing.

Thank you to NetGalley for the arc!
I couldn't finish this book, since it was very slow-paced, therefore it became boring to me. I also couldn't relate to the characters. I'm disappointed, I had high expectations of this book.

DNf around where the POC character takes a whipping for the perfect blonde one.

This book is FULL of racist tropes. I am truly shocked that this book is even considering being republished after it’s failed launch. I have worked for my library system for 9 years and and currently select stock for my states oldest independent bookstore. I have given many books a try, even if its hard. But with this book? I cannot go on.
The writing is perhaps the worst I’ve ever encountered. That coupled with the constant racist tropes made it one of the worst reading experiences of my life.

Obviously, I will not be recommending this book to anyone. I seriously hope the publisher takes another look at this book. It is a racist mess.

I finished this book a few days ago and really wanted to let it marinate in my brain before I gave my opinion. I have come to the conclusion that I would give the first half of the book a 3, but the second half would be a solid 4 for me. I really struggled with the density and pacing of the beginning of the book and I think it could have benefited with more time spent on editing. However, once the action picked up it was thoroughly enjoyable, and I am curious to see what comes next in this series.

Thank you to Bloom Books and NetGalley for allowing me use of this ARC.

For me, the story is very predictable and lacking in originality. The overuse of excessive, unnecessary details distracts from the story. Too much backstory into their lives as children.

I am disappointed by this book. It took every bit of me to finish. Through the entire book I found myself seeing how many more hours Kindle Unlimited said I had left. This felt like a draft that someone would write in their high school English class. It could be so much better.

It felt cumbersome to read. The writing was heavy, clunky, and just too much. Less is more.

So I read a copy of this novel when it first came out and purchased the e-book straight from the author's site. I enjoyed the plot but it was definitely a little rough. As much as I love supporting indie authors, you could tell it was self-published. That being said, I really loved this new and improved version.

The editors really put in the work to take this diamond out of the rough and make it a much more enjoyable read. The pacing felt better and the grammatical/spelling errors previously present were fixed. I'm glad the author connected with a publisher to put out this new and improved book.

I enjoyed the pacing of the novel and the dual perspective. Really interesting to see the details of both Nox and Amaris' lives after leaving the orphanage. This book is a beautifully bisexual fantasy novel. This sort of representation is really important for people to see in the media. I particularly like how it doesn't highlight gay trauma or issues like that. I'm always perplexed with novels that do that since it's a made-up fantasy world, why would you choose to include homophobia? Similar to how Schitt's Creek tackles it, in this novel some people like people of the same gender and that just is how it is. I love it.

Gorgeous world-building and storytelling. The sheer amount of description is astounding, you truly feel immersed in their world as you should be in any good fantasy novel.

The battles and conflicts are also well written. I love a good battle scene and this book does not disappoint. The romance is also 11/10, there is something for everyone. Definitely excited to read the rest of the series and see what happens next for Nox and Amaris. This is a book you will not want to put down!

Thank you Net Galley, Piper CJ and Bloom Books for the ARC of this book.

DNFed at 33%

Sorry but i just simply couldn't finish this book. It was very slow and it had too many issues