Today I’m pleased to welcome you to my stop on the blog tour for Equinox an amazing fantasy story featuring night and day brothers. I have really enjoyed this book and you can find out more about it including my review below, but first I’d just like to say a huge than you to Jade and Paige from Head of Zeus for a chance to be a part of the blog tour and for my copy of the book, which looks stunning by the way, especially if you take time to lok at the cover properly and even turn it upside down too! 😀 Anyway, let’s now take a look at why I enjoyed this book so much…
Title: Equinox
Author: David Towsey
Map illustrator: Jamie Whyte
Publisher: Ad Astra (Head of Zeus)
Genre: Fantasy
Book format: Hardback
Sweet Strawberries: 
Description: In this world, two souls inhabit a single body, one by day, one by night. But though they live alongside one another, their ends do not always align. For Special Inspector Morden, whose hunt for a dangerous witch takes him far from home, this will be a problem…
Christophor Morden lives by night. His day-brother, Alexsander, knows only the sun. They are two souls in a single body, in a world where identities change with the rising and setting of the sun. Night-brother or day-sister, one never sees the light, the other knows nothing of the night.
Early one evening, Christophor is roused by a call to the city prison. A prisoner has torn his eyes out and cannot say why. Yet worse: in the sockets that once held his eyes, teeth are growing. The police suspect the supernatural, so Christophor, a member of the king’s special inspectorate, is charged with finding the witch responsible.
Night-by-night, Christophor’s investigation leads him ever further from home, toward a backwards village on the far edge of the kingdom. But the closer he gets to the truth, the more his day-brother’s actions frustrate him. Who is Alexsander protecting? What does he not want Christophor to discover?
And all the while, an ancient and apocalyptic ritual creeps closer to completion…
*Free copy provided by publisher for review…
Review: Oh my goodness what an amazing and exciting adventure! It’s 1712 in the kingdom of Reikova and Christophor is a night-brother, a soul living in his body only during the night time hours, while his day-brother Alexsander lives during the day. Christophor is a special inspector, and he is soon called upon by the king to investigate a very serious case of what looks like witchcraft. Christophor and his day-brother Alexsander soon make their way to the small town of Drekenford, a place where something dark has taken place, but the journey to Drekenford isn’t easy and strange things begin happening even before the brothers arrive.
This is such an amazing fantasy story and so engrossing that I just couldn’t put this down! Christophor and Alexsander both share the same body, two souls, one living during the day while the other during the night. I’ve read stories about night-brothers before, where one character has a night-brother, but this story is so brilliant as everybody has a day and night brother or sister and it’s so interesting how the two sides live. The book begins by following Crhistophor as he narrates his story of his night. Christophor doesn’t want to take on the investigation into what has happened, but he does and has to travel from his home in the city of Esteberg to the small and strange town of Drekenford.
There are no chapters in the book, instead there are dates explaining what day of October it is and a moon or sun to show whether the story is recalling Christophor’s night or Alexsander’s day. I like how Christophor narrates the story of his nights but when he goes to sleep he is able to recall and narrates some what he saw Alexsander do during the day. As the story moves towards Drekenford we meet some interesting characters and it is soon clear that something sinister is happening. I don’t want to give away what happens but it is so exciting and dark. There are a lot of creepy and dark things that happen and it just gets more and more dark and eerie, especially with Christophor’s nightly investigating.
A lot happens in this story but it is never confusing to follow and even though we are introduced to quite a few different characters and their day/night counterparts, I was never confused at any point and instead felt myself more and more engrossed in the story, I just never wanted to put it down! I like what happens a little over half way into the book when the viewpoint switches to Alexsander and his account of his days and observations of what his night-brother does. It’s interesting to see more of the day-brother, you begin to feel more for the character, and I like what happens with both of them and the twists that occur later in the story.
The ending is good, there is a build up to something really dark that happens near the end. There are some moments which could be distressing for some readers, especially some bloody scenes and some violence, but there is no swearing and only one brief mention of sex and nothing that I found unsettling. There are more gory moments toward the end though and some deaths. The ending is so exciting, I couldn’t guess what would happen or how strange thigns become. I love what happens to Christopher and Alexsander, especially in the last few pages. There’s a brilliant twist in what happens during those last dramatic scenes, something I never could have guessed, and I just love how things end up for the brothers and all the characters in general.
I will say that the very last part of the book, the last ‘chapter’, although it had a good ending to the dark stuff that happened and the wider witchcraft story, I had hoped for a slightly longer ending. I wanted to find out what would happen to some of the characters after the dramatic events, and where they would end up, or planned to end up, but the ending was a bit too abrupt for me. I felt a little cheated out of a more satisfying ending, but it’s not enough for me to drop a strawberry for this book.
There is a map at the start of the book of Drekenford which I enjoyed looking at as it really gives you a sense of everything that is happening, and I have to mention the cover of the book which is so brilliant and you might realise the picture isn’t a perfect mirror image when you flip the book upside down. The images reflect things in the book, but you’ll have to read it to find out what exactly! J
I have loved reading this so, so much and it’s now become my favourite book of this year! The story is interesting from the start and the idea that everybody has a day or night brother or sister, and how different they can be was just so interesting and different from any fantasy book I’ve read before. The whole story was so exciting and so engrossing, I just couldn’t put it down and didn’t want the adventure to end. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves a good fantasy especially if you like the concept of night-brothers. This is a book I’ll definitely be re-reading again and again! 🙂
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About the Author
David Towsey is a graduate of the Creative Writing programmes at Bath Spa University and Aberystwyth University. Born in Dorset, he now lives in Cardiff with his girlfriend and their growing board game collection. Together, they write under the pseudonym of D.K. Fields whose Tales of Fenest trilogy is also published by Head of Zeus.
David’s first novel, Your Brother’s Blood, was published by Quercus, and was the first in the Walkin’ Trilogy. He is also one half of the indie games company, Pill Bug Interactive, who have released three titles across PC and Nintendo Switch™.
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I hope you’ve enjoyed my stop on the blog tour for this amazing fantasy book! It’s definitely my new favourite of the year, and please do check out the other stops on the tour on the banner below, to see what other people thought of this book too! 🙂
What do you think of this book? Do you like the concept of night-brothers? Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂
The Strawberry Post 