I had hoped that after the first round of issues with this author and series, the publisher would have stepped up. The racism is still blatantly obvious, poor editing, and the continued SEVERE harassment of reviewers. I couldn’t finish this, at all even as curious as I was and tempted to give the author a second chance. Clearly being white and female means getting away with everything if you cry pretty enough.

All around it’s also plagiarism. That wasn’t fixed either. Nearly 90% of this book is Witcher theft, with other fandoms sprinkled in. It was called out on the first book, and this one is just as awful.

Thank you NetGalley and Bloom Books for the ARC!

In full transparency, there is a lot riding on this book for the author. For every reader lost over the controversy with book one, there will be a new reader interested in the book solely due to the drama. That being said, there is an opportunity here to provide due diligence to the editing of this novel and help put to bed a lot of concerns around bad writing and poorer editing.

The book starts smack dab in the middle of where book one left off. I'd recommend have a preface, prologue, or just context page giving the high level overview of what is what before diving into book two. There is still a lack of character development and the most endearing character attribute for Amaris is her relationship with Gad. Cut out some of the unnecessary melodrama and use this as an opportunity to make the reader love your characters, no matter if they're a little bit evil.

Remember Maleficent? She's got a growing fan base. Readers are not a dichotomy between good and evil; readers love the emotion in books. This story needs a stronger emotion than just the author's redemption.

This series has a lot of promise but the author has a tendency to get in her own way. The first book (The Night and Its Moon) was slow, which is understandable for world building, but finally speeds up towards the end only for us to get to book two and it's slowed back down. This is supposed to be a love story between Nox and Amaris but the only real chemistry here is Amaris and Gadriel. I just need a bit more here because the chemistry isn't adding up. This is a four book series, but each book needs to stand alone and right now it's feeling like this could have been one book if we shaved down the whole lot of nothing that happens on page.

I was really interested in this series as it became so popular on TikTok, and I know not everything recommended on TikTok is worth the hype. I ended up having to DNF book 1 (The Night & It's Moon) but I read enough reviews and skimmed enough that I felt like I was able to dive into book 2.

I didn't enjoy the first book at all; the writing was awful as well as the plot, the characters were dull and felt underdeveloped. Overall, it was a blah book from what I read.

Sadly, I couldn't get into this book either. I was hoping it was better written as it was her second book. But honestly bragging that this book was written in 9 days is 100% reflected in the story. It needs to be refined so much; theres very little story, a lot of senseless filler, and the characters are still dull.

I wouldn't recommend anything by this author, it's not worth it.

Thank you to Netgally and the publishers for providing me with an ARC of this book.

This book was beyond words. I read it immediately after finishing the first book (which I rarely do) and within a day I had managed to finish it, while simultaneously sobbing. The stories of these characters are so compelling. They have not lived easy lives and you can see the toll that their sheltered yet difficult lives have taken on them. The author does an amazing job at highlighting the conflicting emotions that these characters are feeling while also showing that they are human, they make mistakes, but they are learning and growing. Piper CJ does a fabulous job at making you fall in love with the characters and as a reader you feel the joy and pain alongside the narrator. I also have really come to appreciate the speratic chapters that are from the POV of a side character. CJ includes these at the perfect time, and each and every time they come up I am beyond thankful to have that characters perspective in the moment as it provides so much clarity to the situation. I will be anxiously counting down the days until book 3 is published through Bloom as I cannot wait to read it and am sure there will be so many more tears to follow.

Unfortunately, access to a publisher does not make the sequel any better than the first installment. This book suffers from a lot of the same issues—repetitive sentences, awkwardly flowery language, no plot, unnatural characterization, irrelevant info dumping—any of which might be forgivable on their own, but combine to constantly distract from the story. The only reason it gets 2 stars is because the seeds of an interesting story are present, but they are so overshadowed in garbage writing and a desperate need for harsh editing that they have not been given room to blossom. As I received an ARC, I feel that reading this for free was fine as the story was mildly entertaining (as was getting to laugh at some of the phrases used), but the writing is just not up to basic industry standards and is not worth the $18 being charged for it at retailers.

I received a copy of this on Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.
Well, I enjoyed the story I did not enjoy it as much as The Night and its Moon. Instead of the characters moving forward and growing it felt like they were at a stalemate and there wasn't anything new to the character arcs. I'm hoping since there is still more to the series this is why there was not as much growth in the characters as the previous book.

1/5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley and Bloom Books for providing me with an eARC for review.

I unfortunately do not recommend this book in the slightest. The writing is confusing and underdeveloped, the storyline is all over the place, the characters' voices aren't at all distinguished between one another, and overall there are really racist and offensive ideals interwoven into these words. I also didn't like the way that trauma was handled in this book, particularly in the form of consent and the BDSM that is featured, but that's my opinion and I do understand that there will be people who interpret this part differently.

Overall, I wanted to give the author the benefit of the doubt, however, I have not enjoyed any of her books, and I can't, in good conscience, recommend any of her books. I do not recommend this, and whilst I hope that the author takes time to improve her work, I'm pretty sure I won't stick around for it.

I was looking forward to reading this second book in the series, but it felt off to me. Maybe like Piper is drawing things out with quite a bit of filler in the book. Although I did not fully enjoy the book, I am mildly interested to see where the story goes.
Thank you NetGalley and Bloom Books for the opportunity to read this eARC in exchange for a honest review.

Sadly I couldn't get into this book at all. It couldn't pull me into it. I had to dnf this book sadly. I thought it might have been better written than the authors last book but sadly it wasn't. 1 star book.
I don't recommend this book at all

Well, at least the author picked up where they left off. That's always really nice. Sometimes when they leave books off a certain way, you're still left hanging when you pick up the next one.
I couldn't get fully immersed in this storyline. And I'm not sure what didn't work for me.
I guess maybe, for whatever reason this author and this series just isn't for me.

I really had hoped that with the feedback, Piper would have at the very least taken some of it to heart and used it to make this book series amazing. However, that did not happen. At all. Both Nox and Amaris are deeply unlikable as characters. In this book particularly it was hard to distinguish the voices of the two characters because without maybe a few thoughts here and there and different locations, both of them were the same exact character.
Amaris starts a fight for no reason whatsoever with Gadriel because he didn’t refer to her as a friend. Stares at a wall instead of speaking to him. And even spits on him. Which was disgusting even for a book because it was absolutely a stupid addition to the story.
Nox gets hyper fixated on an ax that she lost. Hates the rain. Makes it everyone’s problem. She also has a deep hatred for men. And has a still almost one sided love for Amaris.
There is also the matter of the storytelling in general. It’s too wordy. It doesn’t need ten thousand descriptions to tell you the same exact thing. And the use of certain words here does nothing to help the story. I don’t know if it was to make the story sound more sophisticated or what but it fell flat in every area.
Honestly I don’t think I’m going to continue this book. I struggled to even like either MFC and struggled to understand the story in terms of storytelling. It fell flat. If you liked the first book you’ll love this one too. But I have it a shot hoping it would be better than the first and it wasn’t. In alot of ways it was worse.

Cover is beautiful. Did not enjoy the story or characters this time around. I wanted to love it but I did not. I am not sold on Amaris and Nox together.

thank you to NetGalley for the ARC copy

THERE ARE SPOILERS FOR THE END OF THIS BOOK IN THIS REVIEW

BIG WOOF, YA'LL. I gave up at 40% because I couldn't take it anymore. If you follow my reviews, you know how much it pains me to DNF books, but I'm trying this thing in the new year where I don't torture myself as much with bad books. If it's like dragging my body through shards of glass just to read one chapter, I won't do it. The fact that I made it to 40% is a miracle. Nothing of importance even happened in those over 200 pages.

the writing
I know this is an ARC, so hopefully, these errors will be fixed by the time it's published, but there were a lot of punctuation marks and typos that needed to be corrected. Page one is missing a quotation mark in the very first sentence. The prose is just as overwritten as usual. Piper uses 97 words when she could use 5. It comes off just as pretentious and melodramatic as it did in the last book. Everything is so over the top that I constantly rolled my eyes. She misuses words all the time, has ridiculous metaphors that you have to reread 2 or 3 times just to make sense of. For example; the deer within Amaris tensed to run for the opposing tree line. So there's a deer within Amaris now? How about; It blocked their ascension with the stoic ferocity of an impenetrable sentinel. That was so many words for no reason.

plot/characters
Alright, like I said, I read a little less than half of this book, but I'm going to tell you about what I read, and I'm also going to tell you some things that I've been told by others who have read and finished this book. First, I was expecting this book to be about Amaris going to a medieval magic boarding school and Nox maybe becoming a monster hunter with the help of Malik and Ash. If you were expecting that, too, you would be sorely disappointed. We get some monster hunting from Nox, but Amaris is entirely useless.

So we start exactly where we left off with little to no recapping of what happened in the last book. You're expected to remember, but it's hard considering how many unnecessary words are jammed between what little plot is actually in these books. Starting with HP rip-off number one, Amaris and Gadriel are dropped from the back of a dragon into/near a lake surrounded by a forest conveniently near this magical academy that happens to have the answers they're searching for. What are the chances?? They get taken to the magic school, and everyone thinks Gadriel is a demon and they want to study him. In some supremely dramatic and ridiculous monologuing, Amaris convinces the masters of the school that he's harmless. Amaris convinces herself Gadriel(now Gad) is her new best friend, but when Gadriel says, 'we fought together in Aubade' in response to being asked ', what does this woman mean to you?' she loses her MIND. She gets so assblasted mad because she thought they were friends, but APPARENTLY NOT. It's pathetic and ridiculous, and like Amaris is so naive and has no idea how the real world works at all. She cannot conceive why Gadriel won't share secrets he was sworn to keep with her even after he explains it could mean his life. Like how is Amaris supposed to be likeable lol?? Because Gadriel said they weren’t friends, and Amaris took that shit personally. Then he blames her for his shredded wings and as usual, Amaris can’t take responsibility much like her author counterpart.

They look at some books for two seconds, find zero answers and guess that this tower of magic has everything they need. They climb 10,000 steps and find the hall of prophecies from the order of the phoenix, otherwise known as the hall of orbs, and Amaris realizes the floor is invisible and there's an illusion cast over it. Gadriel goes to step over it, and instead of warning him, Amaris screams. That's it. Then she starts berating him for not paying attention to his surroundings, even though she should know by now that she can see illusions, but Amaris is too stupid to have this figured out. After all, she's been aware of her powers for three years, and only just started questioning their limitations and capabilities. She is literally an idiot. Gadriel asks Amaris if he can make the jump. She reads WAY too much into this question and is like, "oh my god, Gadriel is putting his LIFE in my HANDS. He TRUSTS me." And I'm like...bitch, you're the only one who can see the distance. Are you for real rn? Anyway, he makes the jump, and Amaris cries in relief. Literally cries. Imagine if Indiana Jones cried in relief every time he solved a booby trap puzzle while searching tombs. He would look like an idiot. Amaris has a full-blown panic attack, considers leaving and becoming a seamstress and then jumps, doesn't make it, and almost dies, and then Gadriel saves her. They touch some magical glowing blue balls, get sucked into a pensieve and see some curses/blessings where faeries explode into golden dust. They meet the oldest man ever who happens to show them the exact thing they needed to see then get tossed from the Tardis Tower.

Gadriel gets some conveniently 'manufactured' wings and can now fly again and then they realize they've learned everything they needed to know and leave. (WHAT? YOU HAVE LEARNED LITERALLY NOTHING) They try to convince Amaris to stay, and she pretends like she's going to and then leaves at night, but it's the most dramatic thing ever. Like they made it into something that apparently is worthy of ballads, but there is no good reason why it would be worthy of ballads. They didn't even do anything there. And that's it. That's all that happens with Amaris' magical boarding school plot, and that's when I realized how much of a waste of time this bullshit book is. You had a whole ass magical boarding school, and you didn't use it at all?? You could've had Amaris attend school, actually learn some things since she is the biggest idiot ever and then solve a whole mystery of how the school is corrupt and experimenting on people with unique magic while also searching for the answers to the curse.

On the other hand, Nox is now a Yes Man and likes Malik and Ash and is probably gonna fuck Malik, which I think is bullshit considering she was coded as a lesbian. Call her bisexual all you want, and I won't believe you. She was repulsed by the touch of men, only sought comfort from other women and was OBSESSED with her 'precious little snowflake'. Having her bone a dude in this is a bad call because it nullifies the fact that she fought her way free from having to fuck men just to get to the woman she loves.

I think it's weird that the northern fae is all known to have 'bronze skin'; their powers are associated with 'night life', and their colors are 'black and copper', and they are considered the 'dark fae' aka the 'evil demons'. Like....girl... do you not see how deeply fucked up that is? Like, what are you doing? lmao.

Now, some things I was told. Amaris was immaculately conceived by a black woman. I repeat. The perfect white, special snowflake was immaculately conceived by a black woman. The precious perfect too pure for this world white woman who had her 'bronze-skinned succubus friend' whipped on her behalf. Oh, and Nox is the princess of both countries; the grey matron who made Nox her serving girl was aware of this and allowed Nox to be whipped and sold to a brothel. Also, Nox was named Nox so that she wouldn't forget she was a 'dark fae'.....What the fuck??

Also, the 'consensual breath play' is not consensual, jsyk. You can't consent when you're asleep, and someone starts choking you. You're fucking asleep. Good god.

currently reading

This is what happens when you write a book in 9 days and don’t accept constructive criticism. You get sentences like this.

“She knew she was about to watch the head of a man as it was gnawed from where it connected to his shoulders.”

The whole book is like this. How did this pass the beta reading process?? This is not ready for publication.

pre-review

ya'll remember that time that Piper said that TNAIM wasn't even inspired by the witcher and then she went ahead and dedicated this book to Henry Cavill as Geralt? Yeah, me too.

0/5 stars! How is this book being published and what did I just read? Hats off to this book for being my worst read of 2023 and I've read a bunch of tiny indie books rather than this more mainstream publisher book. All of the failings of the first book are still here. I was really hoping the author had learned and grown and wanted to do better but she doesn't seem to have at all. This book read like a racist fan-fiction of the Witcher. I just can't. Unless you wanna read confusing, disconnected books with a blatantly racist message, I would not recommend this book. (Goodreads won't let me give it zero stars, so it'll have to be 1; ugh).

I received an advance review copy for free through NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily

While the writing has improved, the overall plot and story very much has not. There's a distinct lack of coherent plot, inconsistent characterization and worldbuilding, and worst of all, a scene that relies so heavily on racist imagery I cannot believe this was sensitivity read at all. The scene of Amaris, the whitest of the white, being immaculately conceived and birthed by a black woman who is described with skin the color of "obsidian" is wildly inappropriate. Anyone reading for anti-black stereotypes should be able to discern that. I understand it was done for shock value at the contrast between black and white, but the usage of a black woman's body to birth children will always carry with it the image of the horrors black women faced during slavery in America.

While I was looking forward to what this series could have been if given the time/resources it needed for editing, Bloom does not seem interested in investing said editors or sensitivity readers. This book is a mess in more ways than one, and I cannot believe it is being published in this state.

It took me quite a while to fully feel immersed into the story. I wanted more from Amaris and Nox, and definitely at a much faster pace. But, nonetheless I love the world and all of its dark and beautiful creatures and people.

The Sun and Its Shade by Piper CJ is a direct sequel to The Night and its Moon.
What I liked
1.Further development of the world and characters I have grown attached to.
2.Piper's lyrical writing style has continued to develop in a poetic direction that I can't help but appreciate.
What Didn't Work as well for me
1. Chemistry between our romantic leads still feels unbalanced in an odd way.
2.now I have to wait for more.
Who I recommend this book for
The Sun and Its Shade is an excellent continuation of the story begun in The Night and its Moon and as such should be a good read for those who enjoyed book one but would not work well for readers who are new to Piper's world.

surprisingly, I enjoyed The Sun and its Shade more than the first in the series and found there to be overall improvements to the quality of plot and the writing across the board. I found myself more engaged in the story and interested in the characters, who actually seem to have worthwhile development this time around. If you are someone who enjoyed the first one I highly recommend picking this up as well!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a wonderful sequel and it kept me engaged. This was a great and fun read.