I chose to review A Name in the Dark as part of Booksirens.
Do you ever read a book that’s so good, you regret giving five star reviews to other books? That’s how I felt when I finished A Name in the Dark.
Although I read a broad range of genres now, though I am biased towards darker and fantasy elements, I actually went through a phase at around fourteen of just reading crime novels. This phase lasted about two years. I started with Scottish crime and gradually branched out. All crime novels follow pretty much the same formula, even the ones about private detectives, and I got so bored of reading this formula that I practically dropped crime novels completely, save for the new Stuart MacBride releases.
A Name in the Dark blew almost every crime novel I’ve ever read straight out of the water. For the first four or five pages, it seems like it might follow the usual crime formula – and then we discover the narrator is possessed by a demon she has very little control over. Suddenly, we’re not reading a crime novel anymore. We’re reading religious crime, and that’s a whole other ballpark entirely. There are saints and cults and an entirely new system of limitations for the main character, Darcy. She can’t set foot in a church or touch a priest, but she can see entities others can’t and this brings a completely new set of problems for her.
At first, I was a little wary of Darcy. She’s the kind of main character that speaks to the reader, and initially I thought she was going to be the usual loner type that somehow always manages to come up with a clever retort. And then Paige is introduced; Darcy’s best friend/flatmate and their relationship is wonderful. They balance each other out perfectly. After the second chapter, Darcy speaks directly to the reader in a subtler way that doesn’t take the attention away from the action. The rest of the characters are equally enchanting. Fortis makes us care about characters that have been mentioned only briefly before. Every subplot is neatly tied up, except one, which leads on to a potential sequel I am already so excited for.
Without spoiling anything, the ending of this book was utterly fantastic. I was amazed to discover this is G. S. Fortis’s debut novel. He’s done a brilliant job with it, and I eagerly anticipate his second.
A Name in the Dark will be released on the 5th of April, 2020.
Writing Werewolf 
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