Ok. I tried, but maybe I'm just not in the mood for this type of book. I was a little bored, and it just didn't keep my interest.

Years ago, after reading one of Laini Taylor's books and enjoying the first half and then being left hanging at the end with no resolution, I said I wouldn't "be fooled again". Fast forward to two weeks ago, after having totally forgotten about that, I started listening to this book. And let's just say I'm really happy that I forgot, because this was awesome!

It is YA, there's only one thread going on so it's very linear, but there's a lot of really cool lore, a badass female lead, lots of classical fairy type stuff mixed in with new ideas. It's just really fun, and she left the "teen-romance" part almost completely out of it, it was there but really subtle and not a focus of the story (like many YA novels). The writing is beautiful and made especially so because it's read by Divina Porter, who read Mists of Avalon, one of the first audio books I ever listened to, back around 1995 on a Walkman, it was at least 2 or 3 boxes of cassettes I got from the library. ( )

When the ancient evil of the Blackbringer rises to unmake the world, only one determined faerie stands in its way. However, Magpie Windwitch, granddaughter of the West Wind, is not like other faeries. While her kind live in seclusion deep in the forests of Dreamdark, she's devoted her life to tracking down and recapturing devils escaped from their ancient bottles, just as her hero, the legendary Bellatrix, did 25,000 years ago. With her faithful gang of crows, she travels the world fighting where others would choose to flee. But when a devil escapes from a bottle sealed by the ancient Djinn King himself- the creator of the world- she may be in over her head. How can a single faerie, even with the help of her friends, hope to defeat the impenetrable darkness of the Blackbringer?
At a time when fantasy readers have an embarrassment of riches in choosing new worlds to fall in love with, this first novel by a fresh, original voice is sure to stand out.

3.75 stars, and not as good as her Daughter of Smoke and Bone series. This book follows the adventures of a young faery named Magpie, who along with her companions, a murder of crows, and prince Talon (a faery prince from the protectors of Dreamdark.) Together, they set out to stop a truly evil foe, who has escaped the prison to which he was relegated by the champion faery Bellatrix in days long passed. In order to succeed, she has to enlist the help of an ancient djinn. The novel moves along well, and the characters are likable as is the banter and camraderie among them. Neither Magpie, Talon nor Poppy appreciate their skills and strengths. The nature of the evil foe is fairly interesting and inventive. ( )

3.5

I'm not a huge fairy person, nor did I like [b:Daughter of Smoke & Bone|8490112|Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1)|Laini Taylor|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1461353773s/8490112.jpg|13355552] but I still wanted to see if I could jump aboard the Laini Taylor Hype Train when I found this for less than a dollar at a second hand shop. I can, and I have. I really enjoyed this book and am quite sad the the sequel can only be found used, and is selling for nearly $200. I need to know what happens next!

This book took me a bit to really get into it. Around page 70 is when I decided that this could actually be a great read, and it was. It was super fun well paced and the villain was great. I loved how all the characters has such clear and defined voices and dialects. It sounded so authentic and the banter was very enjoyable. The plot is great as well. It has a few downsides like a chosen one arc and prophecy but it's even done better then most and I really didn't mind it.

Magpie was such a great character. She had a strong personality that just bled through the page. All the characters did. Even the ones we didn't see a lot. I could easily picture what type of person they were and all that jazz. Even the animals and imps were great. They all had interesting motives and personalities and I loved reading about all of them and even felt sad when some of them died.

I'd also like to mentioned that I did enjoy the underlying messages about society and the idea that human killed off the dragons. It wasn't discussed at large which was nice, they were just sort of there, naturally, as characters learnt stuff about our world and their own. It was nice not to have something so heavy-handed.

This was a really great book for a middle grade book as well. It wasn't the writing style I expected after reading [b:Daughter of Smoke & Bone|8490112|Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Daughter of Smoke & Bone, #1)|Laini Taylor|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1461353773s/8490112.jpg|13355552], which was honestly the saving grace of that book, but it wasn't such a step down either.

I think this is a very strong and enjoyable book and I recommend that anyone who can get their hands on a copy read it even if they didn't like her other works. ( )

What could have beena very typical novel about faeries and the potential end of the world becomes a much more complex story due to Taylor's storytelling skills and creative imagination. Generations of faerie lore combine to produce an interesting backdrop to the present-day threat of the Blackbringer, a being formerly of the wind-elemental variety who helped the Djinn shape the world and who has now focused his rage at imprisonment towards the destruction of the world. Taylor's cast of whimsical characters draw on their variety of skills to defeat their foe and bring about a new age, where the old legends have become reality once more. I see great potential in this series, and hope that Taylor keeps writing them! ( )

Fairies! But wait, it gets better: fairies travelling the world with their crow friends! No wait, it still gets better: fairies and their crow friends travelling the world defeating devils and saving existence!
I love this book so much - everything about it is enchanting, like the best fairy stories from when I was a kid. Magpie Windwitch is a delight, tough and funny and sweet and destined to save the world. Fairy culture is lovely. The worldbuilding and mythology is fabulous and, on that note, I love the villain. Not like love him, love him as a villain, because he’s bad enough to send chills down your spine but not in an evil for the sake of being evil way; his motives make sense, but that in no way detracts from the horror. ( )

I’ve gotta say I have a lot of problems with post-Harry Potter YA books — the ones published after that first big boom. They look so fun and enticing, and I know they have a lot of fans — adult fans — who enthuse about them. But when I get to actually reading them, most of the tine I’m… meh. They just don’t deliver on their promise. The ones I have enjoyed, like The Giver, and the Dorothy Must Die series, have other stuff going on under the surface; for the former, it’s allegory and social commentary, for the latter, it’s the author’s in-depth research of L. Frank Baum’s original Oz books. I also enjoyed Tanith Lee’s Claidi series, but that’s more because it was Lee and had her trademark wild invention. So, my review of this YA book cannot be said to be unbiased, as I’m not exactly the intended audience.

Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer, is the first published work by Laini Taylor, who also wrote the highly regarded YA urban fantasy novel A Daughter of Smoke and Bone and its sequels. Here, she posits a secret world of faeries, imps, devils, and sentient animals existing alongside the real one of 19th century Europe. The faeries have their own tribes, ruler, and history… of how ancient genies, more like efreet in this book, created the world and wove the spells that keep it running. In the past, there was a war among the genies and devils, the faeries helping the genies to put the devils — not red-skinned, goat-horned, Christian devils, but beings more like demons — into sealed bottles and threw them in the sea. But now humans have risen to prominence and are fishing up those bottles, setting the devils free. Magpie Windwitch is a teenage faerie who tracks them down and slays them with the help of a group of sentient crows; her parents are faerie ethnologists of a sort, who travel the world researching the magic of distant fairy tribes. She is a fighter and warrior and competent at her task, a literal manic pixie dream girl without the manic.

As such, the story sounds like it should be novel and exciting, but it wasn’t. The plot was not constructed well and a lot of it depended on coincidence and false alarms. Chasing an errant devil to a catacomb in Rome, the heroine just happens to find an ancient, magical knife and an old fairie who tells her about that knife with his dying breath! An evil devil’s lackey just happens to wander into Dreamdark and be discovered at the right moment! A trusted childhood guardian just happens to have a secret power to wander into the land of the dead! A dragon lunges at the heroine, oh noes! Wait, false alarm, he’s really a good guy! The book also had the first-time novelist’s typical problem of unnecessary POV shifts, and, by extension, unnecessary POV characters who have their single cameo, then disappear. A particularly jarring one was where the hero and heroine first meet face to face and the author keeps switching back and forth between them. That’s just not done. Granted I had an ARC and not the published book, but I doubt they would have been straightened out by publication. ARCs, to my knowledge, are just to catch layout errors and the like. The work also could have been edited more strongly; it seemed very long for a borderline MG/YA book, at least 100,000 words. It got tedious and windy for me, and I’m an adult. Perhaps one-third of it could have been cut without losing anything vital. (A subplot involving a pretender Queen of Faerie could have been cut altogether.) I grant that the length might not have mattered to someone younger, who might really want to sink into the world the author created, while for a more widely read adult, there was really nothing new.

The prose was fine, if overdone in places. No problems there. It was evocative and fun for the most part, particularly a trip by the faeries to a girls’ boarding school. The world the author seemed spent on portraying is of faerie magic in decline, but, as presented, things were actually pretty chipper. I wouldn’t mind spending the night at a faerie B&B in Dreamdark forest, these faeries’ royal seat of power, for example. After a while, though, the wordiness began to annoy me, particularly the Rule of Threes, wherein three nouns that are used for ornamentation and/or description are given three in a row, like… comfrey, nettles, and rosemary. Bluebells, lungwort and jack-in-the-pulpit. Like that, that, and that.

The other major thing that bothered me about the book was the relationship of human history to faerie history. The fairy wars and other historical events, like the disappearance of the dragons, are referenced by years passed, generally thousands, or tens of thousands. But unless fairy years are longer, they don’t match up with human history, which, by the mentions of Rome, ancient catacombs, dams, and girls’ schools with taxidermy and globes, is this one, which last time I checked was billions of years old, not created whole-cloth by genies a couple hundred thousand years ago. That’s still the last Ice Age. It’s never explained by the author how these two versions co-exist, which is weird. Evolution is mentioned in that the fairies know humans descended from the monkeys in the trees, yet modern-day forest animals are spoke of as being created at the beginning of the world.

OK, it’s just a book for high middle-grade students about faeries. But it bothers me, because it’s also doing a disservice to those young people, who surely are learning about geology, biology, and evolution in school. Or I hope. Anyway, fie on the author for no thought given to the reasoning powers of junior readers.

In the end, would I give this book to any of my nieces? Yes, it’s enjoyable, and the heroine is a good role model: she’s active, plucky, and has a good heart. ( )

This was really cool because it was faeries 'n magic but it was talking about the value of dreams. frienship bravery and magic. Somethings are real but others aren't treasure the gifts you are given, if you fight a devil get addvice from a djinn. And make new friends but save old ones from nothingness. ( )

Did I love Laini Taylor's Blackbringer (Dreamdark, #1) . . why yes, YES I DID!! ( )

You can read my review at http://www.myshelf.com/reviews.htm
( )

There is much to enjoy in this book. Good characters, interesting plot, creative world, but somehow the final product was lacking something. I loved Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone series, but this book feels a little unpolished and the pacing seems uneven, with the story sometimes dragging and the exciting parts seem to skip over some important details. Enjoyable and entertaining, but not captivating. ( )

The lyrical writing style and evocative descriptions make this a delicious and engrossing read. With fun, somewhat quirky characters and a delightful and well conceptualised setting; I fell in love a little with this book and can hardly wait until I next venture into the Dreamdark. A charming delight to read. ( )

Beautifully imagined and told, magical, epic fantasy adventure. I loved this very much. The working of magic through imagined glyphs and their connection with the tapestry of our existence is genius. Magpie is a wonderful presence with a clear voice; a lovable and admirable character. Talon was great. Batch was great. The crows were fantastic. I want to fly and travel with them. Hail the Magruwen's champion. This drew me in like a vortex. After Lips Touch: Three Times, and then this, I will read everything this woman can write. ( )

Laini Taylor is definitely one of my favorite new authors. Her writing is descriptive and beautiful, her plot development and pacing is spot on, and her characters are just . . . lovely. I care about what happens to them, I care about their struggles and their fears and their fights. Long after I've put the book down, I'm thinking about the characters and the stories not told.

I recommend this to anyone who enjoys fantasy and mythology. It's brilliant. ( )

Lush, gorgeous and involving. This is a faery tale that manages to be both classical and modern at the same time. The world-building is excellent, the dialogue brilliantly well-done and the story arc satisfying. I love crows in the real world, and Taylor's anthropomorphized crows delighted me. There's not the sexy, dangerous undercurrent that I adored in [b:Lips Touch: Three Times|6369113|Lips Touch Three Times|Laini Taylor|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1241324858s/6369113.jpg|6556598], but it would be out of place in this book, which has plenty of non-sexy danger and is aimed at a slightly younger audience, I think.

Highly recommended. ( )

Cute, and looks like the series is going to be about 6 or 7 books long. The dialogue is written with sort of an accent, all "ach!" and "aye" and "lassie" and "lad." ( )

By now, I pretty much feel that if I'm picking up a Laini Taylor book, I should just sketch out enough time to finish it straight off. Even things I don't think I'll be that interested in - like this tale of fallen faeries facing some sort of doom (a bit overplayed, right?) is fresh and fascinating and filled with wonderful, amazing characters in her hands. The mythology here is great, Magpie is an /awesome/ heroine, and the adventure is tons of fun. Read it. ( )

I enjoyed "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" so much, I immediately ordered more books by the author to satisfy my craving until the inevitable sequel. Since DOSB was technically YA lit, I didn't hesitate when I saw that Blackbringer was also, especially since it has so many glowing reviews. However, it leans more heavily toward the younger crowd than toward adults. But, like the first Harry Potter, there is so much potential here.

Taylor excels as vivid description. Her fairy world comes alive as I have rarely seen before. What this lacks in comparison to DOSB is that element of mystery surrounding the heroine. Magpie has an unknown destiny, but it didn't feel urgent until more than halfway through the book. It took me a month to read the first half as I put it down to read other books. Yet, the second half was so exciting, action-packed, and entertaining that I finished it in about an hour and started the sequel! Since this was the debut work of the author, I can understand why it doesn't hold up to the power of DOSB. Still, it was an enjoyable story with a classic storyline of good and evil, and a strong heroine.

Overall, a recommended read that has me eager for the sequel, but expectations should be kept in line with a debut novel and not the more accomplished DOSB. ( )

I loved this book. I am a fan of Laini Taylor. Although I really enjoyed "Daughter of Smoke and Bone", I wasn't really drawn in by the concept of this story at first. I am so glad I gave it a chance. The audio version of this book was masterfully narrated by Davina Porter. She added layers to each character that surpassed even my imagination. I would have enjoyed this story either way, but whoever hired this narrator should get a raise. She is fabulous. I was disappointed to learn that the publishers have no intention of continuing the series. There is one sequel, "Silksinger", which I just finished and also enjoyed very much. I hope that the publishers will decide the series deserves another chance. I am impressed with Ms. Taylor's imagination and cannot wait to read whatever she comes up with next. ( )

Blackbringer has everything a book should have: Action, faeries and an innocent budding romance. I liked the characters and the writing; even the fairy slang was fine. The only beef I had was with the execution of the story. It's always a plus point to have alternating POVs in books for better understanding but sadly, it only made Blackbringer all the more confusing. Well, maybe it's just not my cup of tea since this book seems to have great ratings. -No sarcasm intended- ( )

Aside from a very slow beginning, I really enjoyed Blackbringer. I loved the world the faeries lived in, and I loved all the main characters. The plot was sound and solid from beginning to end, and I honestly can't wait for the next book!

Blackbringer may not be the best book I've ever read, but it is thoroughly enjoyable and left me with a smile. ( )

I can see where someone could easily dismiss this book. Just look at it and think, "YA fantasy about tiny fairies? Too cutesy - pass." And this hypothetical person would be wrong.

This book is well-written, the characters are engaging, and I very much enjoyed the story itself. If you like fairy tales, you'll probably love this book, too. I recommend it.

And I really should get on ordering the sequel, since my local bookstores never carry it for some reason. ( )

This book tells a great tale of faeries, imps, crows, and other creatures who inhabit the world. The book, I thought that it had a slow start as I was introduced to the characters and how they lived, but once that was past the story became full of adventure, mystery, and intrigue. A great read, I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel. ( )

Well-paced story with dense action, while language is kept simple and accessible. ( )