House of Night

House of Night, Book 1

By: Celia Aaron

Narrated by: Emilia Bauer

Only she knows the secret of what happened that night…

Trapped in an upside-down castle, Georgia is met at every turn by a creature as cruel and vicious as his vampire kin. Valen, the cursed lord of the manor, is the monstrous minotaur lurking at the center of Georgia’s maze. He stalks her steps, his gaze forever on her as she desperately searches for escape. He wants her memories, memories that are just as lost to her as she is to the outside world.

Valen has no intention of ever letting her go, not when she is the key to his ascendency to the vampire throne. He desires nothing more than her secrets. Not her entrancing eyes, her soft skin, her coursing blood. Once he breaks her apart and extracts her memories, he’ll be done with the mortal who haunts his days and nights, who dances just outside his grasp, who defies him at every turn.

But fate looks different in the light of day, and night can’t obscure the truth forever…

House of Night is a full-length dark gothic romance and is the first of the House of Night trilogy. This series is for listeners who enjoy dark, atmospheric elements, horrormance, and an engrossing plot that drags you in and refuses to let you claw your way out.

©2025 Celia Aaron (P)2025 Dreamscape Media

A slow moving mess

It’s enough to use one needlessly convoluted writing style, much less two; the entire book uses both amnesia and flashbacks to draw out a tiny (and obvious) reveal of conspirators, before yanking our chain and expecting us to listen to the real story of how vampires plagued the Earth in “book” 2 (which is even slower and answers even less).

This was lacking in action, personality, chemistry, or point. I only proceeded to “book” 2 because I got them at the same time. The final “book” is half the length of 1 and 2 and I can’t bring myself to get it, even though I’m compulsive about finishing series.

3.75 ⭐️ | 0 🌶️

House of Night was a bit of a struggle for me to fully sink into at first. I don’t know if it was the writing style, the constant shifts between the journal entries and present day, or just the overall pacing, but I found myself rereading sections trying to figure out where exactly we were and what was happening. Once I settled in, though, I could appreciate the atmosphere Celia Aaron was building.

And yes… I can see why people compare this to Alchemised, but let’s be real — the whole vampire takeover and “my sister is literally the president” angle makes this feel like its own chaotic beast entirely.

Georgia was honestly the strongest part for me. She felt raw, messy, and believable. Her desperation to cure whatever is destroying the country actually felt genuine, and I liked that she trusted her sister to make impossible decisions, even when those decisions clearly spiraled into disaster. The memory loss aspect was interesting too… although hearing “I don’t remember” over and over again started to feel a little repetitive after a while.

Now Valen? THAT is where my interest is. I need more information immediately. Are they lovers? Were they married? Is this obsession? Devotion? Stockholm syndrome with longing eye contact? I genuinely could not pin him down, which honestly kept me reading more than the actual plot at times. He has that classic “touch her and die” energy, but for something marketed as a dark gothic romantasy… where exactly was the romance? The tension is there. The vibes are there. But romance? Barely.

The world itself is bleak, violent, and genuinely dark — which fits perfectly for a vampire-ruled society — so Celia Aaron definitely delivered on atmosphere. I just think I wanted a little more emotional connection and a little less confusion.

I’m interested enough to see where book two goes… but I’m not exactly foaming at the mouth to pick it up tomorrow either.

This was too much like Manacled

Felt like a rip off of Manacled to the point it was distracting with all the similarities. Stopped at chapter 5.