Thank you so much to Angry Robot Books for the finished copy of Night Terrors in exchange for an honest review! This is a perfect Halloween time book.
Quick Facts:
- Title: Night Terrors
- Series: Shadow Watch, #1
- Author: Tim Waggoner
- Publisher & Release: Angry Robot Books – 2014, reissued October, 2020
- Length: 352 pages
- Rate & Recommend: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ yes for Urban Fantasy fans!
Here is the synopsis from Amazon:
When you dream, you visit the Maelstrom. Dream long enough and hard enough, and your dreams can break through into the living world.
So can your nightmares.
And who’s there to catch the dreams and nightmares as they fall into reality?
Meet the Shadow Watch. Pray you never need them…
I am usually not an urban fantasy reader at all, but Night Terrors was an absolutely perfect #Spooktober read. Certain humans are able to dream their nightmares into creation, and then become ideators. No longer needing sleep, the humans and their dreams – called incubus/incubi) – tend to stay together in the real world. With violent tastes at night time and a desire to live freely on Earth, an agency called the Shadow Watch has developed to keep the order in both Earth and Nod, the alternate realm.
This book kept me flying through the pages. There isn’t much info dumping so you get to learn the world while experiencing the action. Audra is a Shadow Watch agent and her partner is her incubus, a delightfully homicidal clown named Mr Jinx. During the day these creations take on normal aspects, and Jinx turns into an art loving papa bear. At night though he wreaks havoc on rogue Incubi with Audra and an arsenal of funny weapons.
Or they try anyway. They completely botch a case and end up going rogue to foil a plot against the two realms. Jinx and Audra are both funny and interesting characters, so are the other host of humans and Incubi in the book. A giant dog and pirate man, some terror being called The Darkness, and a living hearse are some of the other awesome characters. The banter is about as amazing as you’d expect from this group.
Add in some psycho villains, sci fi level weapons, and a Circus Psychosis complete with a group of insane clowns, and you have Night Terrors. It’s probably the most fun I’ve had reading a detective type novel since Men In Black, and oddly enough I was getting some Daughter of Smoke and Bone vibes, in the creation and alternate world aspects as well as ridiculous looking chimaera/Incubi.
I wish the end was a little less easily resolved, but I am 100% on board for book 2 to find out more.
Thank you again so much to Angry Robot Books for the review copy! As always, all opinions are my own 🖤
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