One Dark Window

By: Rachel Gillig

Narrated by: Lisa Cordileone

For fans of Uprooted and For the Wolf comes a dark, lushly gothic fantasy about a maiden who must unleash the monster within to save her kingdom—but the monster in her head isn't the only threat lurking.

Elspeth needs a monster. The monster might be her.

Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom of Blunder—she needs a monster. She calls him the Nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head. He protects her. He keeps her secrets.

But nothing comes for free, especially magic.

When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn. Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure Blunder from the dark magic infecting it. Except the highwayman just so happens to be the King’s own nephew, Captain of the most dangerous men in Blunder…and guilty of high treason.

He and Elspeth have until Solstice to gather twelve Providence Cards—the keys to the cure. But as the stakes heighten and their undeniable attraction intensifies, Elspeth is forced to face her darkest secret yet: the Nightmare is slowly, darkly, taking over her mind. And she might not be able to stop him.

Critic reviews

"One Dark Window is an evocative tale of romance, mystery and alluring monsters, told in beautifully lush prose. Rachel Gillig has created a story which left me entranced."—Lyndall Clipstone, author of Lakesedge

“[T]he steamy romance that emerges between Elspeth and Ravyn delights. Fans of Sarah J. Maas, Naomi Novak, and Hannah Whitten will want to check this out.”—Publishers Weekly

"An enchanting tale with sharp claws and teeth—Gillig’s prose will pull you in and won’t let you sleep. Pulse-pounding, darkly whimsical, and aglow with treacherous magic, One Dark Window is everything I love in fantasy and more"—Allison Saft, author of A Far Wilder Magic

"A beautifully dark fairy tale of blood, rage and bitter choice, that whisked me away to mist-wreathed woods ripe with romance and menace"—Davinia Evans, author of Notorious Sorcerer

Unique magical world with an annoying HEERTH

I'm about half way through and enjoying the unique magical world of Elsbeth. She doesn't seem too whiny to me, and the pacing of the romance makes sense based on the fact that this doesn't seem like an epic tale involving 3+ books of several hundred pages. The reader is also pretty decent, but her mispronunciation of the word "hearth" is kind of maddening. Given the surprisingly frequent use of this word in the story, the mispronunciation of it is absolutely driving me to distraction!

Great story. Meh narrator

I did not enjoy the narrators voice very much. It felt almost robotic but the story is so so so so good that I got over it.

Intriguing Story w/ Welcomed Originality

The story was decent with a plot that involves a unique magical system that reminds me of Yu-Gi -Oh! Thre is also some resemblance to Daughter of No Worlds. Some of the more main characters felt flat to me but I was invested enough to care what was happening to them. There’s way more plot than romance, so don’t read looking for too much of it, but when it happens it’s 🌶️🌶️. The narrator was okay for me.

AMAZING

Gothic and fantastic with dark magic and an EXCELLENTLY written main character- desperate for the sequel

Great Story

What’s to Love: I love the magic system in this series! It’s so creative and different, and the story itself seems very well thought out and executed. The actress did a great job with all of the female characters.

What’s Not to Love: There wasn’t a lot of character development. Somehow I still feel pretty indifferent about almost all of her relationships really (with the exception of her cousin). The romance was extremely forced (“Hmmm, where can we add some spice?? It doesn’t really work here, but let’s do it anyway!”). The acting…well, every villain or questionable character speaks sloooowly and super deeply, like a forced evil villain voice (think Dr. Claw—ok maybe not quite like that). Come to think of it, almost every guy character gets this voice at some point.

Listener Challenge: The word SNARTED is clearly pronounced in place of snorted. I need to see the printed version of this book, because I really hope it says snarted too. I feel like that would make this book 5 stars.