Clara’s Verdict
Dark paranormal romance occupies a well-trodden space in contemporary fiction, but Keri Lake does something genuinely distinctive with Nightshade – the first book in her Nightshade Duology. This is not a story content to work through familiar beats with familiar trimmings; it builds its own mythology around angels, fallen beings, and the spaces between damnation and redemption, and it does so with a Gothic seriousness that elevates it above much of its competition. The decaying cliffside cathedral, the raven-winged recluse, the investigative journalist heroine drawn into something she cannot fully comprehend – these are ingredients that appear in countless predecessors, but Lake assembles them with real narrative intelligence and a darkness that feels earned rather than decorative.
What struck me most, after twenty hours and twenty-six minutes with Islay Jacobs’s narration, was how committed Lake is to the internal logic of her world. The forbidden touch, the accumulated centuries of longing and betrayal, the dual timeline weaving past and present – none of it feels arbitrary. This is Book 1 of two, and it ends in a way that makes the second instalment feel genuinely necessary rather than merely commercially inevitable. Rated 4.2 from 8 reviews, with UK readers forming a committed early audience.
About the Audiobook
Farryn is a journalist who has spent her career investigating the inexplicable – the strange cases that don’t resolve neatly, the evidence of another world shrouded in shadow. Her father told her that messengers walk among us; she has spent her life looking for proof and finding mostly the residue of something dark. In the city of Nightshade – a purgatorial urban landscape where depravity hides and girls like her are considered temptation rather than people – she encounters Jericho Van Croix: a raven-winged being living in isolation in a ruined cliffside cathedral, cold, damaged, and concealing centuries of accumulated history and grief.
The novel moves between timelines, gradually revealing the full weight of what connects Farryn and Jericho across lifetimes of separation. The central conceit – that a single touch between them is forbidden, that even a kiss carries the risk of her destruction – generates a sustained and credibly maintained tension. Lake resists the temptation to resolve it quickly, allowing the slow burn to generate real emotional stakes before the plot requires action. The world-building draws on angel and demon mythology while refusing to be constrained by conventional versions of either; Lake has clearly developed her cosmology with care, and the questions it raises about sin, redemption, and whether love can survive both are given the serious treatment they deserve.
The dual-timeline structure – contemporary narrative and flashback sections revealing how these two beings became entangled across centuries – is handled with skill, the movement between timelines adding mystery rather than confusion. At twenty hours and twenty-six minutes, it is a considerable investment, but listeners report that the pacing justifies the length.
The Narration
Islay Jacobs narrates, and it is a strong performance. The Gothic atmosphere of Lake’s prose – which tends toward the ornate – requires a narrator who can sustain mood without tipping into melodrama, and Jacobs manages this consistently throughout. She handles both the contemporary journalistic sections, which require a more grounded tone, and the flashback sequences, which demand something closer to epic romanticism, with appropriate and convincing tonal shifts. The romantic tension between Farryn and Jericho is given the right charge – present and escalating without becoming overwrought. Twenty hours is a long listen, but Jacobs holds the attention throughout without fatigue setting into the performance.
What Readers Say
Rated 4.2 from 8 reviews, with UK readers forming a committed early core. One UK reviewer described it as “deliciously twisted,” praising the blend of “angels, demons, modern day and centuries-old love and hate,” placing it among the finest dark fantasy she had read. Another UK reader loved the dual timeline structure – unusual for them but very effective here – calling the love story “hot, forbidden, and unbreakable.” A third UK reviewer praised the world-building and prose as “immaculate” and Lake’s storytelling imagination as extraordinary. The main note of reservation across several reviews concerns a late story development involving a particular plot element that some found tonally jarring – worth being aware of, though the majority found the overall arc compelling enough to absorb it.
Who Should Listen?
Ideal for listeners who love dark, Gothic paranormal romance with genuine literary ambition and original world-building – particularly those who found A Court of Thorns and Roses a little too clean-edged, or who want their fantasy with a stronger horror undertone. Fans of Anne Rice’s atmospheric density, Nalini Singh’s more supernaturally intense work, or the darker end of JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series will find Nightshade deeply satisfying. Be prepared for a story that demands your full attention – this is not casual background listening, and it rewards patience.
Book 1 of the Nightshade Duology is available on Audible UK via the link below. Also available on Kobo, Scribd, and Storytel.
