CSFF December Blog Tour Day 3 ~ The Shock of Night

Welcome to the Third and Final Day of CSFF's December Tour!

This month we are examining the newest book from 
Patrick W. Carr ~ The Shock of Night.

The Shock of Night
The Darkwater Saga novella
By Patrick W. Carr

Death and darkness have a starring role in The Shock of Night.  But when you look at the world around us this should not come as a shock, but in no way should this be a cause for despair.  Darkness must eventually give way to light.

Willet Dura has an unusual fascination with the moment of death. He serves as a reeve thus he would be expected to examine death in carrying out the the duties of his job.  But Willet sought something else, he sought to discover what lay just beyond the veil of death.

Map from http://www.patrickwcarr.com/the-backstory/

One has to wonder why he has this fascination with death.  Did he always have it?  Was it a byproduct of the war in which he was forced to take the life of his enemies in defense of his home?  Or was it something else - something that first took hold of him when he was forced into the Darkwater Forest?

And then there is the Darkwater Forest - what is the evil that lives within this forest?  How long has it been there?  The Vigil claim that though there is no visible sign of growth that the Darkwater is indeed growing.  I would be interested in the backstory of this forest - was it always this basic area or was it in fact a smaller land area originally?

One can hope that the second book in this series will offer further glimpses into these questions.  Willet Dura is a damaged man.  His life has not unfolded as he had expected.  He was training to be a priest, but war prevented this.  He had few if any true friends.  He was the least noble among the nobility and the court was not about to embrace him.  And if The Shock of Night is any indication Dura may lose even more with his inheritance of the gift of Domere.

I'm interested to see where this series takes and discovering the truth about the darkness that hides within Dura and why it seemingly hasn't effected he as yet.  And I would love more backstory about the Vigil and why they took on the task of guarding the Darkwater.


I was provided a copy of this book by the publisher Bethany House in conjunction with this blog tour in exchange for my honest review and tour participation.

Thank you for joining me for the CSFF December Tour.  If you haven't already you may want to visit the other tour participants who have been posting throughout this 3-day tour.

Thomas Clayton Booher   Keanan Brand   Beckie Burnham   Carol Bruce Collett 

Carol Gehringer   Victor Gentile   Rani Grant   Rebekah Gyger   Bruce Hennigan 

Janeen Ippolito   Carol Keen   Rebekah Loper   Jennette Mbewe 
Shannon McDermott    Meagan @ Blooming with Books (you're here)
Rebecca LuElla Miller   Joan Nienhuis  Nissa  Audrey Sauble
Chawna Schroeder   Jessica Thomas   Robert Treskillard 

Shane Werlinger   Phyllis Wheeler   Nicole White

About the Book:

When one man is brutally murdered and the priest he works for mortally wounded on the streets of Bunard, Willet Dura is called to investigate. Yet the clues to the crime lead to contradictions and questions without answers. As Willet begins to question the dying priest, the man pulls Willet close and screams in a foreign tongue. Then he dies without another word.

Willet returns to the city, no closer to answers than before, but his senses are skewed. People he touches appear to have a subtle shift, a twist seen at the edge of his vision, and it’s as though he can see their deepest thoughts. In a world divided between haves and have-nots, gifted and common, Willet soon learns he’s been passed the rarest gift of all: a gift that’s not supposed to exist.

Now Willet must pursue the murderer still on the loose in Bunard even as he’s pulled into a much more dangerous and epic conflict that threatens not only his city, but his entire world–a conflict that will force him to come to terms with his own tortured past if he wants to survive.