Crock Around the Clock
Lightfall: Ed Crocker's debut high fantasy novel
IT IS PUB DAY! *taps mic* Is this thing on? … okay, good. I wanted to make a confession to you all: I love a good fantasy story. I know, I know, the unstable one likes fantasy? So, when Ed offered to send me an ARC of his debut fantasy novel, Lightfall, I said yes quick as a whip.
What is Lightfall about and why read this book? Let’s talk about it … this tale contains no humans. The entire world consists of vampires, werewolves and sorcerers (oh my). These classes all lived in relative peace until one day a mysterious group labeled “the Grays” came along and lay waste to the creatures and the land. Lightfall is the last remaining vampire city, where your class determines the quality of blood you have access too and you can never leave the city gates.
We follow several POV’s, but my favorite is Sam. Sam is a palace maid who has had enough. She wants to be free of the city and its classism. She ends up working at the home of the city’s ruler, cleaning his recently murdered son’s quarters. She finds a singular clue as to what really happened to him and plans to blackmail her way out of the city.
She falls in with a sorcerer, who is more sleuth than magic, and a deady as heck werewolf assassin, a badass if I have ever read one. Sam also comes into contact with “The Leeches”, rebel maids who have a network of eyes and ears across the entire city.
I don’t want to say a whole lot more but shit hits the FAN. Things get MESSY and UGLY. I loved it. Loved. It. First of all, this is a DEBUT. Um, where? I don’t see her?? This was excellent writing. And as is my style, I am going to Short Story Long this: despite my love of fantasy, and it being the genre that really got me into reading, sometimes it can feel so heavy and overwhelming. I love me a good A Game of Thrones or The Simarillion, but those stories are ripe with names and legacies and lore. Lightfall gave me all of this, and yet, it moves. It keeps you hooked from the very start and builds while you read. The actual skill here needs to be acknowledged.
Ed, thank you for letting me read this early and I swear, if I am not the first one to get book 2, I will riot. Yes folks, Lightfall is book 1 of a trilogy, so keep your eye out for the next installment. I am gnawing at the bars of my enclosure awaiting to hear what is next for Sam and her crew. You have cured me of my series’ aversion (see my previous Substack about The Dark Tower for more on this phobia).
Ed Crocker is an editor. He also writes reviews and interviews authors for FanFiAddict.com. He lives in Manchester, UK. You can find him here on Substack -
and across social media as @edcrockerbooks.