Six months ago, Ivy stumbled into the deal of a lifetime – great rent in a posh Dublin neighborhood and a flatmate, Demi, who was only a little weird. It didn’t matter that their flat is packed with exotic plants or that her flatmate does all her shopping on-line but refuses to meet the delivery man at the door?
Now, though, Demi’s gone missing, there are strange men hiding in the flower boxes, and a lot of strangers have suddenly taken interest in the whereabouts of her peculiar flatmate. When the police won’t help, Ivy knows she’s going to have to solve this mystery on her own.
Ivy dives headfirst into a secret Dublin, hidden in plain sight, and discovers that the longer she stays in, the more she risks losing the world she always knew. Can she save Demi without losing herself?
Court of Twilight combines urban fantasy with something akin to murder mystery, all packaged in modern-day Dublin with a cast of characters who are odd, unusual, and in some cases just plain nice.
Demi’s odd – or at least her fascination for multiple plants makes her, in Ivy’s eyes, a little different from the people she’s met before. But she’s got a really nice flat with a low rent, and it’s not like Ivy’s life as a call-center drone really has anything else going for it…and even the occasional strange man with strange warnings hiding in the flowerbeds can’t really spoil it.
But when Demi vanishes, Ivy finds strange advertisments on her computer, and no one else seems interested. It’s up to Ivy to investigate – and she finds that the strange world she’s stepped in to may extend even further than she realised.
The story centers around Ivy, a normal person plunged into a strange world – and it all felt realistic, even after things get strange! We follow her as she investigates the threads, suspicious and determined – and pulled by her care for her flatmate, which I loved. Everyone we meet in the story has their own unique personalities, and they’re all very well brought out – and their motivations are wonderfully varied! No-one’s exactly evil, but I love the way I ended up second-guessing everyone through Ivy’s eyes.
The plot itself is quite complex, or at least it takes a little time for Ivy to understand the intricacies of the motivations. It did keep me reading, although I found the end a little unsatisfying – I wanted the next section, really, as while one plot arc did end, there are definitely threads that aren’t tied up; Griffith is currently working on a sequel, which will continue the story. I always find it a little frustrating to read a story that ends without any definite continuation; I know the publishing world doesn’t work like this, but I want to know that the next one is (or will shortly) be available, damnit! So that was honestly a general black mark, although not through any fault of the book – it just feels like the story isn’t finished, so it’s hard to judge the book. But hey ho, it’s a feeling I’m sure that a lot of GRRM’s readers know all too well!
In summary, Court of Twilight‘s a pleasant story with some darker undertones; full of mystery and a modern-day take on the Fae world, and a heroine who simply wants to know what’s happened to her friend. I enjoyed it a lot.
