In this final book, Mia is quickly nearing the end of her story. She is extremely close to achieving her vengeance and has reclaimed her long lost brother. Through her quest for vengeances, she has made some amazing and valuable friends who she considers to be her family. Now, her top priority is protecting these people and furthering her bond with them. This book lacks much of the bloody vengeance that fueled her in the previous books, instead focusing on the importance of familial bonds and friendship. For the first time, Mia begins to wonder about what might come after her vengeance is complete. While Mia is just as violent as we’ve come to expect, we finally get a good look at the heart of gold that made us fall in love with her in the first place.
Darkdawn was a satisfying conclusion to the Nevernight Chronicle. Like the previous book, Darkdawn begins with a noninvasive introduction that concisely summarizes all the characters and the revelations of the last book. From there, Darkdawn quickly jumps back into the action with Mia trying to evade the Blades of the Red Church and the soldiers of the Luminatii Legion. The book rarely slows its pacing, opting to accelerate to the end without giving the readers a moment to breathe.
Like Godsgrave, Darkdawn has a very clear focus and direction; however, since the book is about a rescue instead of a detailed and methodical assassination, the plot is given more leeway to meander. The meandering plot allows for the development of more character relationships, more action scenes, and more smut, something that readers will either love or hate depending on how much they care about the characters and their subsequent drama in general.
As can be expected when a former lover is revived from the dead, Mia now finds herself in a love triangle between her first love and the girl who murdered him. This conflict takes up a significant portion of the book and some readers will find the entire mess extremely irritating. Other, less attached readers will find the absurdity of the situation hilarious and enjoy the acerbic banter between the characters.
Thankfully, the book also spends a lot of time developing the relationships between other characters as well. Very few new characters are introduced to the story over the course of the book, allowing the author to focus on the old, familiar characters. Although very few of them have their own character arcs, all of them work hard to provide the emotional heart of this book. There are many portions of this book that can seem outright bleak and depressing, but the fun personalities of all the characters works to create some beautiful spots of happiness in this concluding novel.
Continuing the theme of enhancing great aspects of the series, the world building is finally fully developed and explored in this book. Darkdawn answers every lingering question about the lore and mythology of Itreya. Every single lingering detail about the Crown of Moon, the darkin, and the formation of the Red Church is satisfyingly wrapped up, allowing the world to feel complete.
Once again, the delightful footnotes also play their part in enhancing the world building. While less frequent than in previous books, each one provides both an interesting or tone setting story about Itreya while also containing endless amounts of sarcasm.
I give this 478 page book 4.5 stars.