Ahhhhhhh oh my god this book, this book is everything 😭 I've been freaking out about it on my insta stories and on tiktok for the last two days, I loved it so much

💫 The found family!!! It was done so well and in such a wholesome way, I really really need book two to have more cute moments 😭
💫 The demisexual rep!! I picked up this book because this was mentioned, and please this was done perfectly ❤️
💫 Also, the bisexual rep!! There's a love triangle for this character and that was done so well too!
💫 The ships gave me perfect Kanej and Helnik vibes, I love them sm
💫 Also please, the animals were so cute 😭 if you like the Abraxos/Manon relationship from Throne of Glass, you'll absolutely melt while reading this book <3
💫 Also, that cliffhanger??? It was a multi-pronged shocker, Kalyn, please I need book 2 😭

-- ty to the author, the publisher, and Colored Pages Book Tours for a finished copy!

This Dark Descent is an engaging new series, with an original and complex magic system (inspired by Jewish folklore) morally gray characters, and political drama with intrigues, secrets, balls, and horse races.

Veradell is a dangerous place, it’s the capital of Enderlain, where the crown prince and the nobility reside, and all of them play a game of power. The intrigues reminded me a little of Game of Thrones (YA version) or Peaky Blinders (with the mobster houses) mixing with The Scorpio Races. 

Its dual POV, Mikira and Arielle are the lead ladies but Damien and Reid are as important as them. The characters are morally grey, everyone has hidden motives and reasons to justify their actions.

Mikira's family is in trouble, they are threatened by a stronger house, to save her family Mikira needs to compete in the deadliest horse race ever, and for that, she needs a sponsor; enter Lord Damien Adair, he needs Mikira to win to destroy a rival house; to improve Mikira's chances, Damien will hire Arielle, an artist and magician who can grant skills and tasks to her creations and make magic undetectable. And from Reid to Damien's grumpy but super smart friend.

This is a wonderful cast, everyone wants to win the competition, all for different reasons, when they ally they have their guard up, but soon friendship (or romance) emerges. They are complex characters, they are not perfect and make mistakes or get carried away by their emotions, which makes it easy to love them and worry about them. Even the villains have backstories although they are still villains and you don't root for them.

Also, some characters are demiromantic and bisexual representation. 

The world-building and magic systems are so good, the golems, and the ancient witchcraft books, were so interesting, and the author was inspired by Judaism stories. The pacing was great, it kept you hooked between the horse races, the lush balls, and the enemy attacks.

Overall, I'm completely hooked, there are secrets, alliances, betrayals, magic, and horses, and I can't wait for the sequel.

Read it if you like:
Political fantasy drama
Morally gray characters 
Magical Horses 
Six of Crows

3.75/5 Stars

This book follows a group of people as they do everything they can to help Mikira win the Illnir, a deadly horse race where riders are lucky to finish maimed. There is the morally grey Damien, the mysterious Arielle, the gentle Reid and the brash Mikira, who form tenuous relationships with each other shrouded in secrets and hidden motives.

The story is told in alternating third person point of view following Mikira and Arielle. This allows the user to follow the stories of the entire group as the race unfolds but may leave the reader frustrated at certain cut scenes.

The book was hard for me to get into as I felt like there was a ton of information dumping at the beginning that I had a hard time following and I felt like the ending was a bit abrupt and unsatisfying. I am still interested to see where the story goes but just felt like the ending was underwhelming after all the build up.

The book spent a lot of time world building but not enough time developing the characters for my taste. There were a lot of bits and pieces of each of the characters but not enough for me to grow attached to them and care for them. I didn’t feel like they were fully fleshed out or really changed throughout the story and thought some of their actions didn’t make sense for their personalities.

I would say the comparison to Six of Crows is a bit of a stretch, there is a main cast of a few characters in a world that is full of corruption. However, I did not feel the same bond between the characters and the characters aren’t necessarily morally grey.

Overall, I thought the world the author built was interesting and well thought out, I just wish I had more time to be immersed into it and that she spent a little more time on character development. I would recommend this book to younger readers looking for an interesting magical world inspired by Jewish Folklore or a book about horse racing.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher (Roaring Brook Press) for an advanced readers copy of this book for my honest review!

An absolute masterclass in fantasy—and so incredibly Jewish! Jews are frequently left out of magical alternate worlds, but here, Jewish themes, folklore, and culture are integral parts of the narrative and Ari’s perspective. In this world, the Kinnish people parallel the Jewish experience, which I loved and think is a great way to include Jewish characters in fantasy world where Jewish people might not technically exist. I really felt so seen in Ari’s experiences. And there are a handful of major Jewish characters as well, Damien the most prominent among them (after Ari, of course!)

Another thing I loved dearly is that both of the main characters are aspec! The specific words/labels aren’t used, but their experiences are described and shown throughout the story, and the author has confirmed online that both Arielle and Mikira are aspec. The world is very queer normative, and if any kind of queerphobia exists, we don’t see it.

The magic system is very unique, I’ve never read anything like it and I really enjoyed the new perspective. This book is a total page-turner too, always left me wanting to know more and figure out what was going on. The characters and their arcs are fantastic and just so compelling—it’s impossible not to love and root for our core four, if you will. Ari is a young woman who’s been systemically forced into powerlessness her entire life who is finally given the opportunity to grasp onto safety and unleash and grow the power within herself she’s been denied. Mikira and her family have been barely scraping by under the thumb of the powerful Kelbra family who take whatever they want, when they want it—even lives. Mikira
will do anything to protect her family and is seeking power in her own right to free her family from the Kelbras’ tyrannical rule altogether. She is impulsive with nothing but the best intentions, and yet it always seems whatever she does is wrong and ends up hurting the ones she loves. I see so much of myself in them both. (Personally I also think Mikira and Damien are adhd coded!)

There’s political intrigue, mystery, Judaism, magic, gay people—what more could a person want! I seriously need the sequel STAT.

“I will never tell you to not be angry. When the world has taken so much from you, sometimes anger is all you have left. But if you do nothing with it, it will consume you.”

I’m always so excited to see more contemporary books that incorporate Jewish folklore! I still have a lot of research to do on my own, but This Dark Descent did a great job of introducing various aspects of this tradition, namely golems, to new readers.

The plot moved at a breakneck pace—much like the series of horse races, the Illinir, around which the story is centered. The side plots of magic and political intrigue filled in the periods between races and heightened the tension of the event itself. Each character dealt with their own families, legacies, and flaws, which allowed each one to develop over the course of the novel.

As main characters, Mikira and Arielle’s alternating chapters complemented each other nicely. Mikira is easy to root for due to her strong sense of loyalty and righteousness. Ari was a more tortured soul, though her uncertainty and rough demeanor satisfyingly gives way as she receives encouragement and comfort. Mikira’s switch in character at the end startled me, though I look forward to her and others confronting the “new her” in the sequel.

This is the perfect time to start The Dark Descent since it’s Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New year! Shana tovah and happy reading!

Thank you Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, Roaring Brook Press/Netgalley for the eARC!

I really enjoyed the author's previous series, THE STORM CROW, so I was looking forward to picking this up. I enjoyed it quite a bit, maybe even more than her previous books. It's clear that her skill has only grown. However, while I mention her skill growth, I'm not sure it's ENOUGH to keep up with the completion currently in YA fantasy. My biggest issues with this book were similar in fashion to THE STORM CROW: it's undeveloped. This book needed more time, more development, and more words to really delve deeply into the rich world I believe the author intended. I'll likely read more, but ultimately, I think this book suffers from the YA high fantasy curse: a too-short book where it requires something meatier to really flourish.

Amazing! The built up of this world, it’s belief, and magic system integrated into a race with high stakes was a thrilling embarkment.

Deals were made. Four people brought together to win the Illinir race. A girl who dreams to race and save her family. Another girl with a magic gift to form golems and a mystery to untold magic. A boy with ambition and secrets. And another a Jack of all trades. The dynamic between these characters were amusing to read and the progression to the end kept me at the edge!

The ending to book one was satisfying. Fear and omitting information lead to a change in the group’s dynamic. What will happen next?

I enjoyed the prose of this story very much. Great flow and structure and revealing hints of the magic history little by little kept me intrigued and guessing.

Each character was very flushed out well. Unique and with their own struggles and worries. The actions and path they chose were a tad predictable but based on their attribute makes sense. Mikira was the reckless one. Trusting. Law abiding. And such anger with the unjust of the system. Arielle, is the magic user. Struggled to hide her hidden gift as an unregistered enchanted as well as her cultural difference. Afraid at first but growing into her power as she gains self confidence. Then Damien - ambitious with lots of connections and goals - very political mindset with visions of change to the system. Reid, Damien’s best friend, Jack of all trade - Mr Grumpy with a hidden soft heart.

I can’t wait to see where this series takes everyone and their journey

Much recommended!

Thank you MCG for this earc from Netgalley for an honest review!

This Dark Descent follow Mikira, a girl trying to save her family and their horse ranch from a greedy and antagonistic noble and Arielle, an enchanter unregistered with the crown and forbidden, powerful magic. The girls are brought together by a young man, Damien, who makes a deal with both that will give them all something they desperately want.

Arielle and Mikira were both great characters and I'm torn on which one was my favorite. I loved Ari for her connection (and disconnection) to the Jewish religion of this book. I loved Mikira for the love of her horses and her sisters and her desire to protect her family.

There was also a lot of casual queerness (and no homophobia) amongst the background characters and the implication of demisexuality and bisexuality/pansexuality with Ari and Mikira.

The thing I found most interesting about this book was its approach to Judaism. There are so many books that take Christianity and create a fantasy religion based on it, but I've never seen that done with Judaism. And even though this was fantasy Judaism, it was still implicitly Jewish, the way Ari and Damien talked about the foundations of it in their world and the different traditions, was so Jewish. The way golems were used was my favorite. I feel like often in media, golems are used to be scary, but golems are meant to protect and that's a big part of the golems that Ari makes.

Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review!

An action-packed fantasy adventure filled with forbidden magic and enchanted horses. Throw in a little romance and you have all the elements of a great story.

This book was honestly one of the best I’ve read this year. It was so good. I’m still trying to process the last few chapters. I really hope everything works out in the sequel because I am awed. Love, betrayal, friendships old and new tested to their limits, and enchanted horses rest at the heart of this novel. I’m not familiar with Jewish mythology, but I feel like a learned a lot here and I loved it.

Damien and Reid were my favorite characters with Reid being in the lead. I loved how sweet and grumpy he was. While I appreciated the relationships the book tried to set up, I didn’t see slot of chemistry with Damien and Ari. I felt like there was a lot with Reid and Kira. He stayed with her a lot and helped her with her training. He was always around her. Damien just liked Ari because she was there? It seemed random. I also appreciated Ari saying she was demi, but again it felt random and didn’t really go anywhere or mean anything in the end.

Those last few chapters were CRAZY. Everything just popped off and hit the fan. I’m so ready for the second book to come out. This was a brilliant fantasy with moments that tugged at my heart and moments my blood boiled. I never thought id be interested in the world of competitive horse racing, but here we are!

"Jewish mobster Mariokart book" SAY NO MORE!!

If you've been craving to fill your Six of Crows hole in your life, look no further! This book needs to be on your 2023 TBR. Every turn of this story will have your heart racing as fast and as strong as Atara. This is another finish at 3am book because you will not be able to put it down as we weave between steadfast, but a bit naïve Mikira, our desperate jockey, and our illegal enchanter, Ari, who may just have a monster lurking beneath the surface. Say nothing of Peaky Blinder Thomas Shelby-esque young lord, Damien, and his standoffish "fixer" of a bestie, Reid. Add a VERY ILLEGAL golem of a horse to the mix, and we're off to the races!

For my own sanity, y'all better make this book pop because I need the sequel tomorrow and I'm gonna give Kalyn Josephson all my money to have it! ALSO HOW CAN YOU SAY NO TO THAT AMAZING COVER?

I received a free ebook edition from Netgalley and am never paid for my opinions. (I might need to be since I'm about to be out of so much money this Fall release season!!!)

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an advanced copy of this book for an honest review.

If you like morally grey characters then This Dark Descent is the book for you!

This book is told from dual POVs. It follows Mikira and Ari. Both girls are trying to fix problems that they have in their lives. The fantasy world in this book has a very interesting magical system. The world building was also fantastic.

This books is a little dark, but very entertaining. I loved the found family aspect of the story. Also, Reid is perfection 😍 and I will fight anyone who says otherwise! I really loved Ari’s character and I liked Makira, but she got on my nerves a few times. She never fully realized what it required to fight back in the world she lived in and judged others for doing what they needed to in order to survive.

Pretty much every main character in this story was morally grey which I loved. This book has a little romance, but it really takes a back seat to the rest of the plot. The book ended on a pretty big cliff hanger so be aware of that. I will definitely be reading the next book in the series when it comes out!

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
I hadn’t read anything by Kalyn Josephson before, but my attention was piqued by the premise of This Dark Descent. It promised to be a mix of some cool elements, from Jewish mythology to horse breeding and racing, and a blood feud among noble families. I’m happy to say it delivered pretty much on all counts.
I enjoyed seeing all these elements come together, especially in how the magic and mythological elements influenced the races themselves. And while the races form a great avenue to present the world and magic, I like how they also present a vehicle to foreshadow the deeper implications and higher stakes of the situation for the characters.
As far as the characters are concerned, there are two POV characters, Mikira and Arielle, and a third major character, Damien. Mikira is competing the races in order to save her horse-breeder family from debt, and she has the most compelling arc throughout, as she spends the book being generally morally upright, although her character takes a turn towards the end of the book. Ari, who crosses paths with Mikira, and ends up helping her with the races, is a refugee who is hiding her powers and has yet to fully come into her own in that regard. And while Damien isn’t a POV character, he’s pretty compelling in his own right, being that he’s rather dark and mysterious, keeping a lot of secrets. All of them are morally gray to varying degrees, and it definitely kept me on my toes trying to figure out what they’d do next.
That and the general intrigue of the races and the wider world politics made this book a pretty consistently immersive read. It’s fairly fast-paced, and there’s no real lull in the action, with it being balanced fairly well with character depth and world building.
This is an intriguing first installment, and I’d recommend it to fans of YA fantasy.

Really loved this one! Comparable to The Scorpio Races, This Dark Descent was a wild ride from start to finish. I especially enjoyed the racing scenes. The incorporation of Jewish mythology isn’t something we see a lot of in YA, and I was excited to learn more about it. All 4 main characters were well fleshed out and had satisfying arcs. The only thing I wish we had gotten more on is the magic system as it could be a bit confusing at times. I’ll definitely be reading the second one to find out what happens next!

This Dark Descent is a Jewish-inspired high fantasy that’s pitched as The Shadows Between Us meets Six of Crows meets The Scorpio Races.
I can see the Scorpio Races comp, but the other two… not so much.

From the very first chapter, this books weaknesses were apparent—not enough development, not enough depth.
The inciting incident of this book happens during the second scene. This is the moment where Mikira makes the decision that sets the plot in motion, the moment of no return. She wagers everything she has to save her father. But because this happens so early on, it packs no emotional punch. We’ve had maybe 5 pages to get to know Mikira, and this scene is the first time we’ve seen or even heard mention of her father. There hasn’t been any development to make the reader care about Mikira or her father, so I couldn’t connect with the emotion of that scene. I wasn’t convinced by Mikira’s supposed desperation to save him. The dramatics of the moment rang hollow to me. Not to mention the fact that the bargain that Mikira makes…doesn’t make sense. She makes a deal that she objectively knows that she cannot possibly win. If she wins, she gets her father back, but if she loses, she and all her siblings are as good as dead. If she wins, yes, she’s better off, but Mikira does not think she can win.

The weak start aside, for the next 30% of the book, I was enjoying myself. The reason why this was happening still didn’t make sense, but as long as I didn’t think about that aspect, I was able to get sucked into what was happening. I enjoyed getting to learn a little about the lore and getting to meet our cast of characters. I especially enjoyed Arielle’s narration in these earlier chapters and getting to know her. I was interested in the race, the building of the golem-horse, and the plot surrounding that.

But at about 30-35%, several new plotlines were added—politics, demonic possession, romantic subplots, war/antiwar, and more. None of it was fleshed out, and none of it meshed together. We jumped from plotline to plotline, nothing really progressing on page, never diving deep into any of them. There was suddenly so much going on, in so few pages, that the story only ever brushed across the surface of these events and aspects of the worldbuilding.
It’s about this point that the romances start to kick in. I really appreciated the LGBTQ+ representation—Mikira is bi and Ari is demisexual/demiromantic. I love seeing rep like that in fantasy, and I really appreciated the inclusion of a discussion about demisexuality/demiromanticism, but the actual conversation was very dry to read. It was like reading the dictionary definition word for word.
I also found it kind of ironic how Ari was like, “now that I’m really getting to know him and connect with him emotionally, I’m starting to be able to fall for him romantically!” because my #1 complaint with the romance in this book is that we never see them interact, and when they do there’s no real depth to it. It’s emotionless. Damien says some pretty words, but they’re just words and because there’s no accompanying depth to the actual interactions, actions, descriptions of feelings, etc, it rings hollow and the words just seem manipulative. There was not a single spark of chemistry between Ari and Damien—or between Mikira and either or her love interests—but it was especially painful to read because Damien and Ari were constantly like, verbally professing their love for each other and I was so completely unconvinced.

It also drove me absolutely mad how this one character is like, so blatantly possessed and either no one cared or no one could figure it out. She’s like “There’s this voice in my head and it’s maybe influencing my thoughts and also I’m starting to lose time.” But she doesn’t like, do anything about it. And neither does the person she tells. Like, THAT FEELS PRETTY FREAKING IMPORTANT TO ME!
Honestly, by the end of this book I could not stand a single one of these characters. They were annoying and their actions and thoughts constantly contradicted themselves and just… made no sense.

The last thing I want to touch on is the worldbuilding. The book takes place in the empirical kingdom of Enderlain (or something like that), but Ari is Kinnish, and the Kinnish people are based on Jewish people. Their religion and magic (Kinnism) are based on Jewish folklore and myths. The development and representation of these people was beautiful. It was so clearly an ode to the author’s love of her religion and culture. The discussions had on this topic were phenomenal and real and had true resonance in a way that… pretty much nothing else in the book had. If everything in the book was executed to that level, it could’ve been a 5 star read. Unfortunately, I think that the level of care, development, and detail that the Kinnish aspects of worldbuilding had made the surface level, bare bones development of all the other aspects of worldbuilding and character even more obvious.
If it still interests you, give it a try, but I don’t personally recommend this book, and I won’t be continuing with the series.

I gotta tell you, this is a wild ride! Mikira's family is in deep trouble, and winning the deadly Illinir horse race is the only way out. But this race is no joke, riders often end up injured or worse. Mikira teams up with Arielle, who's got some crazy forbidden magic going on, and Damien, a mysterious noble caught in a power struggle. Their mission is intense, filled with secrets, and vengeance is on the menu. The characters are fantastic, especially Mikira and Arielle getting closer. Plus, there's excellent LGBTQIA+ representation. The enchantment-based magic system with Jewish folklore is aces. Overall, this is a rollercoaster of emotions and a recommendation for fantasy fans.

Wow! So unexpected! In a great way!

The Lgbtq rep (yes!!!), the excitement, the nonstop action but with staggering emotions and character development! Really fun read.

I enjoyed this immensely. I feel like this is a great book to pick up if anybody is ever in a book slump. This has everything needed to take a person's (at least mine!) mind off the real world. Basically, this just delivered and hit me in a good way.

Definitely recommend this!

Out September 26, 2023!

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!

This one was great and it kept me wanting to know what was going on. I devoured it in a day! It is a complex story with twists and turns. There’s intrigue, betrayal, politics, murder, love, a deadly race, golems, magic, darkness and morally gray characters..

The good:
- Dual point of view (magic wielder & horse jockey) which helps you see everything that’s going on.
- Very well defined characters.
- Fast pacing
- Keeps you guessing as to the characters true intentions.

The Bad:
- Characters don’t really take responsibility for their bad actions.
- Torture.

Overall it’s a great story and can’t wait to read the next installment.

I received this book from NetGalley, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group and Roaring Brook Press as as an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

I think this book just wasn't for me. I liked the writing style but I didn't feel connected to the characters and the worldbuilding felt a little underdeveloped for my liking. But I think it's a book that a lot of other people will like, especially if they like horses and high-stakes competition-based stories, which isn't really my thing.

Josephson has crafted an engaging fantasy read full of interesting characters. Switching back and forth between two character point of views serves this story line really well as it allows us to follow both the magical descent and the horse race in full. The inclusion of Jewish folklore within the magical system was particularly engaging and allowed for some great world building, though many readers might look for more detail.s. Many of Josephson's characters reflected other YA with morally grey characterization, though Josephson's characters always seemed to avoid the blame or consequences of their more problematic choices. Hopefully in a follow-up, readers will see a more satisfying characterization. Fans of Six of Crows and Holly Black will appreciate.