Fiction

Silver Under Nightfall

by Rin Chupeco

Romantasy
503 pages
Finished: 6/29/25

Summary:

"Remy Pendergast is many things: the only son of the Duke of Valenbonne (though his father might wish otherwise), an elite bount hunter of rogue vampires, and an outcast among his fellow Reapers. His mother was the subject of gossip even before she eloped with a vampire, giving rise to the rumors that Remy is half-vampire himself. Though the kingdom of Aluria barely tolerates him, Remy's father has been shaping him into a weapon to fight for the kingdom at an cost.

When a terrifying new breed of vampire is sighted outside the city, Remy prepares to investigate alone. But then he encounters the shockingly warmhearted vampire heiress Xiadan Song and her infuriatingly arrogant fiance, vampire lord Zidan Malekh, who may hold the key to defeating the creatures - though Remy knows associating with them won't do his reputation any favors. When he's offered a spot alongside them to find the truth about the Rot, the mutating virus that's plaguing the kingdom, Remy faces a choice.

It's one he's certain he'll regret.

But as the three face dangerous hardships during their journey, Remy develops fond and complicated feelings for the couple. He begins to question what he holds true about vampires, as well as the story behind his own family legacy. As the Rot continues to spread across the kingdom, Remy must decide where his loyalties lie: with his father and the kingdom he's been trained to defend, or with the vampires who might just be the death of him."

My thoughts:

This was a great book to finish off Pride Month! In addition to centering a poly relationship in the plot, it's heavily implied that Remy is nonbinary. He insists upon being called "Armiger", a neutral title meaning "arms-bearer", rather than Lord or Lady. He's young and foolish, but righteous, and I really enjoyed exploring the world Chupeco created through his eyes. The worldbuilding was excellent - lots of typical fantasy nobility and court intrigue, but incorporated non-Western elements of design. If I understood correctly, Remy's mother came from an island inspired by the Carribean, and Xiaodan's court and country are inspired by East Asian cultures. Xiaodan enjoys inventing new insults in the Alurian language, but reverts to tried and true Qing-Ye insults.

I LOVED Xiaodan's Sunbringer powers, especially that she gained them through fantasy-science. Malekh having a bio-genetic lab, and having the expertise to perform a heart transplant is wild, but so so cool to incorporate into a fantasy setting. I also enjoyed the way forensics were being actively developed in the story. I'm a fan of true crime myself, so it felt a little extreme to go from being able to indentify bloodtypes to identifying specific DNA donors in just a few weeks, but that's where the fantasy suspension of disbelief comes in lol.

There were only a few things I disliked about the story. Xiaodan's character tended to veer into therapy-speak when talking to Remy (who has some major self-esteem issues). It's not completely out of character given Xiaodan's compassion, and I've said similar things to my friends irl, but the jump from vampire-acquaintance to serious-love-interest was very fast and made the conversations jarring, imo. Malekh's conversations (and disagreements) with Remy felt much more natural.

I also could have used a map on the endpages of the book, or perhaps a character list. Those features do tend to scare away readers, but I think they're necessary for a book of this size with so many intricate relationships going on. I was three quarters of the way through the book before I realized "Riones" was not the character's name, but his title (Lord Anthony Castellblanc, Marquess of Riones). Partly my fault for reading quickly and skimming over that introduction, but I think if you're going to have a complex court system there needs to be a directory of some kind.