Night’s End – Review

Night’s End – Review

Night’s End, Book 3 in the Night’s Champion Series by Richard Parry

Review by Frances Duncan

Night’s End, the final in the Nights Champion trilogy, released the first day of Lexicon. I finished reading it the last day of Lexicon. This feels appropriate as the first two were shortlisted for the Sir Julius Vogel award for Best Novel.

The cast has grown over the series and it’s hard to keep track of everyone. At one point someone appeared and I had no idea who he was till the next scene. There’s someone for everyone; a tough female detective, a powerful young woman, a military woman…do you notice a theme here? There are some guys thrown in too; one of them is even a werewolf (don’t worry there’s a female werewolf too).

Coffee plays a big role in this book. It appears throughout to be argued about, savoured, and at one point it even appears without being ordered. I could bet a lot of coffee was consumed in the writing of this novel.

It’s about the same length as its predecessors but it feels less wordy, more concise. I found two typos (because I’m the sort of person that those things irritate) but I bet you won’t notice.

There are a lot of moving parts, it’s a complex story of a near apocalypse. It went into some interesting religious places which could have been explored more fully and the ending was almost too tidy. It unwittingly stumbles into other genres; there are two occurrences of instalove that trope of romance fiction.

Night’s Favor, the first in the series, was Richard Parry’s first published work. As you’d expect he’s learnt a lot and it shows. I think it’s safe to say that Night’s End will join the rest of the series on the nominee list.

[Book 2 in the Night’s Champion Series, Night’s Fall, was a finalist in the 2017 Sir Julius Vogel Awards.]

Back to Top