From the beginning of the book, the author paints a dark atmosphere that matches the underlying theme of mortality and the afterlife. As I read through, it felt like a black-and-white movie playing through my head. I can certainly see elements from Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Beast, and Hades and Persephone stories, but this book is not just a retelling or combination of those. I found it quite sad because the romantic plot didn't quite work out.

The author used the third person point of view through the eyes of Grace, the main character. I could sense the environment and the scene's atmosphere, but I got easily distracted when Grace dwelled on the past. The sudden shift of timeline made me lose my focus instead of staying engaged with the event currently taking place. It interrupted the story's natural flow.

I had some respect for Grace due to her resilience despite the sorrows in her life. I would have definitely liked to know more about Master La Rosa, the assumed Beast/Patron/Death.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey Books for the ARC of Nocturne in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

Set in 1930s Chicago, Nocturne follows a talented young ballerina who is being pursued by a secretive patron.

Nocturne, at its best, was a sweeping and haunting and occasionally dark fantasy. At its worst, it is often overwrought and shallow, with characters that have plenty of glitz and zero depth. Reading the summary, and being a lifelong Phantom fan, I was expecting something akin to those vibes, and Nocturne did sort of deliver, though in a relatively heavy-handed way as the narrative did directly refer to Hades and Persephone. It's probably for this reason alone -- the vibes lining up with what I was in the mood for -- that this book is getting a 3.5 stars from me. I can see the vision, and I love it, but the execution is off. Perhaps the book suffers from a lack of depth because of its shorter page count, but I personally would still read this book if it was a hundred pages longer to accommodate stronger character and worldbuilding.

Nocturne follows the story of Grace Dragotta, a young orphaned woman living in post WWII Chicago who dreams of being the next prima ballerina. Her dream is granted by a newly arrived patron known as The Master. But Grace is destined to be more than just a great ballerina on stage, and The Master wants to watch her perform on a stage not meant for mortal eyes…

One of my favorite reads at the end of 2022 was Alyssa Wees’ The Waking Forest. When I found she had another book coming out I was instantly interested. This book is a Beauty and the Beast/ Hades and Persephone retelling. And personally, there are too many of these out there and I’m pretty sick of the trope. Wees has a beautiful and lyrical writing style, but this book bored me.

The pacing was an issue. It wasn’t until the 50% point that she meets The Master, before that the story is focused on Grace’s truly tragic life, her journey into dancing, and her love of her best friend Emilia.

Emilia is the true hero of this story to me. I think she is Grace’s soul mate, but as a sister of her soul and not as lovers. I was way more compelled by their relationship than the one with The Master.

Once Grace goes to The Master’s home the plot somehow slows down, when it was already crawling. I had to skim a bit near the last 50 pages. Such a short book should not have felt like it took so long. There are more engaging Beauty and the Beast style stories out there, and I would only recommend this one if you are more interested in lyrical and poetic writing than in plot.

I received an ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I decided to DNF this book at the halfway mark. At first, the writing was very beautiful and lyrical, but the over descriptiveness overshadows the plot. I feel like all of the author’s description felt like mud that we had to wade through to get to the actual point being made. I’m disappointed that I didn’t like this book because the premise was really interesting and the way the author describes the setting feels very tangible and easy to imagine. Also, I felt like the main character Grace was a very flat character. I feel like some of the other secondary characters had more personality than she did so I didn’t feel compelled to sympathize her when she was taken to the master’s house.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Ray for the advanced copy.

Eh…. I got to read an ARC of this book and all I can think is was I not the target audience? It’s not really a fantasy fantasy. More of a literary fiction book with a supernatural plot device thrown in. Times are hard and so the poor pretty orphaned ballerina must find a “patron” to support her studio. Sure, the pretty young dancers in that era, heck probably every era trade their youth and pretty figures for gifts from rich men. Can’t fault a girl for surviving. Only once the patron turns up I found myself a bit confused if this was supposed to be beauty and the beast retelling, or Hades or Death from the Sandman comics…. Maybe for the right reader this would work better.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, Del Rey, and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book.

As a former ballet dancer, I was looking forward to reading this book. I will say, the author was successful in conveying many aspects of ballet life - even with it's differences between the 1930's and now. However, that was the only portion of the book that I really enjoyed. I struggled to connect with the main character, the descriptions seem much too long and unnecessary, and all of the vague allusions frustrated me as I never seemed to get a clear picture of the world around Grace. However, perhaps that was an effect that the author was going for?

I read half of the book and then decided that I did not want to waste any more of my time, so I skipped to the back and read the ending. Knowing how the book ends, portions of the middle of the book made more sense, but the ending was not spectacular enough to justify slogging through the second half of the book.

I'm sure there are readers that will enjoy this book, but I was not one of them.

I really did enjoy this book except for the snail mail speed that is goes at. Like in ballet, the author slowly and with maximum precision, wrote every scene as if you were in ballet practice. Your instructor teaching you a ballet stance, they critique your foot placement, arched back, which angle to position your head, how to hold your arms, all while telling you your eyes should find a mark to center you back.

As a former ballerina I enjoyed that part of the story. But the pacing and thorough detailing became too unbearable.

Beautiful Cover. Lyrical prose. Dream-like.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballentine for a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

Nocturne follows an orphan named Grace Dragotta who is save from a life on the streets of Chicago by a woman who runs a ballet company. Now a distinguished ballerina, Grace has caught the eye of a mysterious patron who whisks her away from her home with the ballet company to a mysterious house in Hyde Park where she will dance for him on Sundays. Grace learns though spending time with Master La Rosa that monsters can be beautiful, there can be light in darkness and things are not always what they seem.

I had such high hopes for this book! It promised Beauty and the Beast and Phantom of the Opera vibes but had I not gone into reading this book with that in mind, I would not have gotten those vibes. It is like Phantom in the sense that there is a mysterious benefactor at the ballet, much as the Phantom is to the opera house. It may be Beauty and the Beast in the sense that Grace is a captive and he kind of resembles a monster. I don't know. Vibes aside, what readers go into stories wanting is compelling characters and an interesting plot that makes sense. The characters in this book are extremely flat and boring. The plot has pacing issues: I couldn't even tell you what this book was about until deep in Part 2 and even then, I would struggle to tell you.

What this book does well is prose. In the beginning I was very annoyed with all the purple prose. We don't need long descriptions of frost on windows and sacrificing character development for it should be a cardinal sin of writing. However, as I kept reading this story, I could appreciate the lyrical prose. Anyone who loves a more lyrical prose and who loves to annotate their books will probably love this book.

Overall, this book was not for me, but I can appreciate where someone else would like it. I personally prefer engaging characters and plot over prose.

The story is beautifully told through the eyes of Grace. As Prima Ballerina she steps into a world she didn’t know existed and has to learn to navigate.

I enjoyed the story but thought it could have been less languid in words.

I wanted to love this book. The concept of a ballerina finding beauty in the darkness really spoke to me. Yet the execution of this book did not draw me in. It is a very slow-paced book. It took me way to long to become invested in Grace and her adventure. I love the idea of Death and Sleep trying to win in a battle of love and loss. But even that was drawn out to long. A great idea was there it was just not executed in a way that I personally could get excited for.
Thank you to Random House Publishing Group Ballantine and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this title.

While parts were lovely, this was overall a disjointed and cloyingly descriptive read about characters I tried hard to like. The imagery was just too heavy for my taste, and the plot got lost somewhere along the way.

3 out of 5 Stars

***ARC received from Del Rey Books and NetGalley in exchange for honest review, opinions are all my own. Thank you!***

Nocturne in the sophomore novel from Alyss Wees set in Chicago during the depression era of the 1930s. It follows Grace, a ballet companies newest prima ballerina who must unravel the mysteries of her new patron, Master La Rosa. The books draws inspiration from Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Beast with a sprinkling of the myth of Persephone. Yet for all those inspirations it still does feel like its own story when it wants to.

Grace as a main lead is not strong enough to carry this book on her own. She is consistently being told what to do by others and has little agency as a character. When she does finally come into her own it, feels to abrupt and to close to the end of the book. We don’t really get to follow along with her on that journey because even almost to the end of the book she is still more than willing to do what others want of her and not trust her own heart. What I did like about Grace was when she was interacting with other characters, in particular Emilia and some of the other ballerinas. The friendship between Emilia and Grace is beautiful, Emilia is the supporting family that Grace needs after the loss of her own family. I wish the book had focused more on their friendship as when they are together is a wonderful read. There is a romance but its not really fleshed out enough to root for them. In fact, Emilia’s romance with her fiance felt more fleshed out and realistic than the main romance.

The writing is beautiful but it is heavy. At times it is lovely and lyrical, bringing scenes alive with beautiful descriptions until it becomes convoluted and heavy handed. When the book is going over ballet and taking place in Chicago its great you can feel the authors love for Chicago and brings it alive. Yet in the second part it spends less time in Chicago and starts to get too heavy. There were whole sections that I simply got lost at what the author was trying to do. Its not bad just that the descriptions become so much, the details written in these long over the top sentence that cause the details to get lost, trying to be beautiful and hiding the fact that its not really doing anything.

It was in the third part that the book really lost me, it felt like it was trying to break away from those stories it was drawing inspiration from. I didn’t hate it but I felt like there wasn’t much build up to it because everything is jammed into the end of the book instead of developing over the book. Maybe if the book had been longer or maybe spread out more it would have been better.

Overall its an unbalanced book with a strong start, shaky middle section and overwhelmed ending with beautiful but at times heavy writing.

Overall this book was a really interesting premise to me. I liked the mix of the ballet world with the Greek gods/myth retellings. At times this did feel a bit slow and wordy however which kept me from really loving and being as absorbed as I wanted to be.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ARC. The following review is my honest and voluntary review.

Grace Dragotta had one dream, to be a ballerina. However, life had other plans. Her family was poor and she was orphaned at a young age. She played the violin on the streets until her dreams of becoming a ballerina came true. Eventually, she finds herself at the North Ballet Company. She was allowed to train there and was eventually promoted to prima. Soon after, she discovers that she has a patron. Who is this patron? A mysterious stranger that Grace is determined to meet. The patron then claims her and forces her to live with him and dance with him once a week, on Sunday night at midnight. Grace discovered his true identity, Death. He wants her to become his queen and rule over the kingdom with him, however, she doesn't want to marry him.

The writing style is very descriptive and read like a non-fantasy historical fiction novel for the first third. Sometimes the descriptions were a little much and sometimes (in my opinion) unneeded. I found myself skimming ahead to read through the long descriptions because I was bored. This became less frequent in last 2/3 of the book, but I still caught myself doing it. The last 2/3 of the book is where the fantasy aspect comes into play. Death takes Grace to Noctem, the city of the dead essentially, every night, but Grace is not allowed to enter until she dies. This section of the story went the fastest for me in terms of reading, but I still had to power through in some parts.

The story itself gives Phantom of the Opera/Hades and Persephone/Beauty and the Beast vibes, but also not. Death was the mysterious patron of the ballet and claimed Grace, but we never find out why. He fell in love with "her death" but no other explanation is given. The "deaths" are seen in the living in different locations, but that is all the information that is given and can cause some confusion while reading.

Overall, I give this story 3.5 because it sounded very interesting, but the plot could flow better and add more elements to it to make it less confusing in some places. I was bored at times and sometimes the flow of the story would stop or jump.

2.5 stars | Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

This would have been an enthralling tale of love and death if the writing wasn’t so exhaustive. When used sparingly, extensive descriptions can be a heart-gripping method of building up to something big. They lost their magic in Nocture because they were used so excessively. Not everything needs to be described in poetic detail. The book would be half its length if the prose was removed - there was no real meat to the story because of it.

“What are you doing here?”
A voice at my back, dry and deep, like a black patch of soil where a rosebush once thrived but then died in an unexpected drought, and now nothing will grow there again. Stripped of softness, shorn of beauty, abandoned by light and life.


You got that from five words? The language is pretty, but c’mon.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House for this eARC of what can only be described as an aria in book form. The blurb promises a lyrical fantasy-- and it fantastically delivers with prose that will take your breath away and send you into Chicago in the midst of the Great Depression. It is a retelling of stories like Beauty and the Beast and Phantom of the Opera, but it holds so much historical significance-- especially in the first chunk of the novel-- that it feels like something that could have actually occurred instead of being firmly rooted in an imaginary world.

We meet Grace Dragotta, one dancer in a sea of other pointed toes, as she receives news that those days will be far behind her. She has been chosen as the company's prima ballerina, which has been her lifelong dream. Grace was orphaned when a plague took her family, and she had been living at the Near North Ballet Company ever since. Her life is turned upside down when she attracts the attention of a patron named Master LaRosa, who invites her to live with him at his mansion. In return for being housed and clothed and otherwise cared for-- she is expected only to waltz with him every Sunday at midnight. Grace longs for freedom, but the magic her benefactor provides gives her pause. Should she give up on who she is for what someone wants her to be?

I feel like there is so much in Grace that will speak to readers and inspire them. I know I personally found a light within her tenacity. She acknowledged that she was scared all throughout her life-- but that she made the decisions that got her to where she is anyway. Her family died, and she found her way to the ballet. She was given up as a gift to a wealthy man, and she made the most of it. Grace's journey of finding herself is interlaced with an escape from the cold and deadly Chicago streets into a gateway into the land of the dead where loved ones can be reconnected with and the boon of life brought into focus. This is a beautiful story that will leave you breathless-- and I recommend it to all of those with the beat of their own drum inside of their heart.

An interesting look into the world of a ballerina, however very descriptive.
Many thanks to Random House and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

Thanks to #Netgalley and #RandomHouseBallantine for the advance copy. The opinions are my own.

I struggled with this story. Verbose, overly descriptive and not in a pretty way, confusing motivations - I found it challenging to stay engaged with the story. A story of a young girl's survival of a difficult childhood, orphaned young, taken in at a small ballet school, eventually becoming a prima ballerina, finding a patron who ends up being 'Death'. Sounds like it should be interesting, but it mostly wasn't. I found a few nuggets of well turned phrases, but to me that isn't enough to pull the book out of the average range.
Ultimately, the book isn't for me.

Review will appear on my blog and Amazon on 2/21.

I have read the book, I have read the summaries and blurs, I have read the reviews. I cannot for the life of me tell you what the author’s purpose is with this book. This reads like a 1950s translation of an 1800s French novel and I do not mean that positively. The first person POV actually makes it all worse?? It’s one thing to read a book that’s overwrought but it’s something entirely different when it’s first person narration. It’s like sitting at dinner with your friend’s insufferable boyfriend who took a sommelier class that he bought off Groupon and is now trying to teach you about tannins only he keeps pronouncing Merlot wrong.

Don’t trust the five star reviews. They’re lying.

Thank you/I’m sorry @ Del Rey for the eARC. This was one of my biggest wishlist books of the year and I’m so thoroughly disappointed. 1.5 rounded up because I was at least able to finish it.

No longer interested in reviewing. Sounds interesting, but the writing style isn’t really my cup of tea.