Nights Of Sin

The Ballad Of Kirin Widowmaker #2

by Matthew Cook

The besieged Imperial City lies inside the massive wall of the Armitage; outside, the attacking Mor have laid waste to most of the land. The Imperial Court seems unaware of their peril, but Kirin and Lia -- who have barely survived the Mor and made their way to the City -- know the danger all too well! When Kirin discovers a necromancer who seems to possess her power over blood, she hopes he can help her understand her strange magic. Meanwhile, the deadly Mor are assaulting the walls of the city that shelters them.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Paranormal

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2008

About the author

Matthew Cook is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he specialized in printmaking, photography and ceramics.

Matt's first Kirin novel, Blood Magic, was released in September 2007 from Juno Books. The sequel, Nights of Sin, was released in August of 2008. Both Blood Magic and Nights of Sin have been nominated for the 2009 Gaylactic Spectrum Award.

Matt lives and works in Columbus, Ohio, where he shares his home with the love of his life, Amy, Grayson, his wild-haired son, a talking African Gray parrot, Zoe (the Scardiest Cat In The World), three Mini Coopers, numerous computers and countless books.

Reviews

[Raye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok this is the second book to the kirin widow maker trilogy. And well I'm very hooked. His approach to dark tales and deep chatarters pulls you in and on the edge of your sea. The emotional right is just as great as the action ,people who love both of these elements or either or will still love his book. However the third book is still waiting for its moment. The publishing company Juno that he had was bought out and want to publish nothing but paranormal romance. Ugh!! So the book for all we know is finished he's just waiting for a publisher to let all of us read it. With that in mind I woukd still say read the first two. Neither will disappoint. He can really tell a dark tale that sucks you in and makes you prisoner until the last page is read. You won't regret it.

[Nicole Bunge · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the first book a lot more. Maybe because it was gritty and 'on the road,' maybe because it didn't have a contrived lesbian love angle. It just, isn't written well or believable. It's more, 'gratuitous sex scene for the sake of throwing in erotica - and hey! lets show how edgy she is and non-conformist by hooking her up with a girl this time!' The whole thing smacked of 'going through the motions' which dragged down the whole book. Seriously, by the third time, I was like 'great, she's going to have sex with Lia again, guess I'll skip a few pages.'

It kind of dragged down the whole necromancer plot (and dragged this book out an extra 100 pages it didn't need) and frankly, the whole thing doesn't resolve well. I respect that the world is not black and white, and no one gets a happy ending, but that no one bothers to try to understand the Mor (or just fling Kirin and Rath over the wall at the Mor to stop the whole war when they find out the connection) is beyond me. The cliches of bigotry and religious zeal affecting ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE - war or no war - just stretches credibility. It was hard to care about anyone besides Kirin, and frankly I didn't care if anyone died or not because they were all one-dimensional jerks. I was really rooting for the Mor to overrun the city. Seriously, a single sentence or two "we've tried to communicate with them, sent our best linguists and behaviorists to spend time with prisoners for years" would have resolved a lot of my apathy and belief that everyone deserved to die because their excuse was 'They hit me first! They don't talk like us! We're just defending our land!' BS. (Especially when there are all the 'rumors of ancient tech in the city no one but the emperor and his advisers see - but the only thing we can work is the alarm siren' throws hints of sci-fi into magicland. Which is a totally wasted angle.)

Despite all this, I hope there is a sequel, so there's some resolution to all the weird questions this book leaves unanswered. There aren't enough strong female antiheroes out there.

[Corinne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Much worse than the prequel and I'm really thankful that there will not be a third book (as previously mentioned). The plot basically eradicated Kirin's final resultion of the 1st book never to use her dark power over the dead again and - let's face it - that is not a surprise at all! The war against the inhuman race is still on and Kirin needs to use her powers in order to save the people and herself (as expected)! Still illogical actions and Kirin changes her mood between playing the martyr or acting as a self-assured woman. That simply doesn't work for me!

[Rhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our zombie making necromancer's story comes to an end, an unexpected end! Even though its not exactly what I wanted for her I was pleased with the refreshing feeling of reading something unpredictable.
These were supposed to be part of a trilogy, so fingers crossed we see another installment soon!