Night Study

*****

5 Stars/5

Thanks to Netgalley and Harlequin (UK) Limited for giving me this book to review.

Since losing her Soulfinding abilities Yelena has never been more vulnerable and now, nowhere is safe, especially with the growing discord between Ixia and Sitia. Valek is determined to protect Yelena but finds his loyalties conflicted as the Commander is acting usually stern and is keeping things form Valek. As Valek and Yelena try and find out more about what is happening they discover a plan that is far more sinister than they could have imagined.

Night Study is the brilliant 2^nd/5^th book in this series as it is just as good, and better than some of the Study Novels and does not suffer from middle book syndrome. It has romance a complex story and many twists which I did not see coming. The POV was from Yelena, Valek, Janco and Leif, which I felt helped tell the story and what was happening. Every chapter ended on a cliff-hanger which made it hard to put down and very fast paced.

Yelena is struggling without her magic and with so many unknowns in her life, but like in all of the books I admire her loyalty and inner strength but I do wish in one book she wouldn’t be the target. Valek is struggling with his loyalties and learning more about himself and who he wants to be, and unlike Shadow Study I preferred his POV as we got to see how he handled many changes and surprises in his life.

While Yelena and Valek were together more in this book than most of the others I wish they did not always separate as they work really well together and are such a brilliant couple. I also liked Leif’s chapters and getting to know how his mind worked but, like other reviewers have mentioned, this chapters did make me hungry with all his descriptions of food.

Fans of the Study series will not be disappointed as it is one of Maria’s strongest books to date. I am really looking forward to reading Dawn Study as I can’t wait to see how this series ends (please be nice Maria V Snyder). I would recommend Night Study to fans of Maria V Snyder’s books, especially those set in the Ixia/Sitia universe.