Review: The Goodnight Kiss

Title: The Goodnight Kiss (The Unseelie Court #1)

Author: Jennifer L. Hart

Release Date: May 1st, 2018

Genre: Young Adult, Urban Fantasy

Goodreads | Amazon ($4.98)

★★★★★

Synopsis:

A teenage serial killer with a mysterious past. 
The deadly hunter sworn to protect her. 
Secrets, lies and a shot at redemption. 
It all begins with a kiss. 

When 16-year-old Nic Rutherford heads out for a night on the town, she brings a full arsenal. Her best weapon? A deadly kiss that can take down the biggest game around—humans. Two-legged predators don’t stand a chance once she makes lip to skin contact. But her blessing is also a curse, one that Nic fears will inadvertently harm anyone who gets too close—her aunts, her best friend, or the mysterious new boy who possesses strange abilities of his own. 

Aiden Jager has the one thing Nic can’t resist—information. With his help Nic unearths answers about her own murky past along with the key to a hidden world where magic thrives and the impossible becomes reality if one is willing to pay the ultimate price. Beware, for once the door is open, there’s no turning back. 

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Monster, meet your match.

First of all, I have not devoured a book this fast for so long, I thought I was incapable of doing so anymore. That is until I read this book. To be honest, I didn’t have high expectations because I’ve never heard of this before, despite it not being published yet, but holy hell this blew me away! I was hooked from the first chapter.

To give you the gist of it, Nic is a badass teenager who is a judge, jury, and executioner of people who she thinks should be killed, and she does it by her Goodnight Kiss. Then something different happens, a new boy at school, that nobody has a specific memory of, shows up. Now, this isn’t the typical “Oh he’s so handsome, I will now proceed to behave out-of-character as I pine for this hunk of a man all the way through the school year,” because a) Nic doesn’t need no man, b) her senses tell her to be careful, c) this guy knows way too much about her, d) there are more pressing issues at hand, and e) the school storyline ends about 25% along the way.

You can tell that the author, Hart has fleshed this story out very carefully because there are twists, turns, and secrets that are revealed at just the right time. Not too soon to make your thoughts become dense with information, nor too late that you’ve already forgotten you want to know things.

The characters! At first sight, they all seem so perfectly badass. But the more I read, the more I realise they’re not as perfect as they seem, which is how it should be because it makes it all the more fun to see them behave irrationally with emotions instead of being predictable. I especially love how Nic realises she’s not actually a cold-hearted bitch, and that she actually has empathy, how it’s not only mentioned that she’s vegetarian, but she also packed a plant-based soap (love the detail!), and still behaves like a teenager despite her otherworldly powers.

I didn’t just kill them. I’ve damned their immortal souls. 

Hashtag #Stillnotsorry.

I freaking love her. I also love how Aiden is so sneaky about getting away from following commands.

I love the incorporation of Nordic mythology in this book and how there’s no damning cliffhanger that just leaves me angrily waiting for the next one. Instead, it all comes round full circle, with some parts still unresolved, enough for me to feel satisfied but also eager to read the next one! There are some typos, but I’m sure it’ll be fixed by the release of the book this year.

In case you can’t tell, I highly recommend this book. Like, a lot.

I’ve received this book as an ARC from the publisher through NetGalley.

This review is also available on Goodreads.