Name: Nightshade
Series: Sorrowsong University #1
Author: Autumn Woods
Publisher: Macmillan
Format: Kindle / Paperback
Genres: Adult, Dark Romance, Dark Academia, Mystery
Spice Rating: 🌶️🌶️🌶️
Rating:
Synopsis: Goodreads
He’d burn the world down for her . . . but she plans to burn his to the ground.
Isolated in the Scottish Highlands, Sorrowsong University only welcomes students from the most powerful families. Ophelia Winters doesn’t belong, but a rare scholarship grants her the perfect opportunity to investigate her parents’ “accidental” death near the castle grounds.
Things get off to a rocky start when she runs afoul of the mysterious Alex Corbeau-Green – son of her prime suspect. As far as she’s concerned, he is just a younger version of his billionaire father. A monster hiding beneath a beautiful façade.
When an unknown tormentor begins to stalk Ophelia, she realizes she may not be able to survive Sorrowsong on her own. Alex becomes her unexpected ally – and alibi for murder. And as she begins to fall for the soft heart that hides beneath his hard exterior, her hunger for revenge wavers for the first time.
Can she really bring herself to destroy everything he’s ever known?
Review:
I think, like a lot of people, when I picked up Nightshade (being someone who rarely ever reads blurbs) I assumed it was a fantasy romance. Instead what I got was a romance mystery? I think that’s probably the best way to describe it. And I loved it! We follow Ophelia as she’s journeying into Sorrowsong University kind of out of necessity, but mostly out of a need to find out what happened to her parents four years prior when they died in the University’s staff helicopter.
She quickly meets Alex, our MMC and also the son of one of the wealthiest men who also is her prime suspect for causing the death of her parents… Awkward! However, personally I adored their meeting. There was some excellent early back and forth banter that had me giggling and really set the scene for what to expect between these two as the book went on. That being said, I got so much more.
Given that Ophelia is trying to find out what happened to her parents, naturally she finds herself getting into positions she shouldn’t be caught in, just trying to find some answers – not to mention is put into some situations that are definitely difficult to get out of alone. And Alex, shockingly (to Ophelia, not to me!) ends up being her Alibi! I simply love these two and their relationship – I am not a huge lover of the ‘he falls first’ trope if it’s unrequited because on occassion it can come across as really posessive or obsessive and that can just feel wrong… But with Alex I loved it.
THESE TWO FLIRT USING EMAILS AND CROSSWORD PUZZLE CLUES!
I cannot overstate how much I love them, and even when Ophelia is having to have an inner battle with herself over the fact that Alex is the son of the person she thinks is responsible for killing her parents… they find themselves together over and over again – almost like fate is pulling them together (thank you fate!).
I absolutely loved this. Like I said, I thought I was getting a fantasy, and I wasn’t, but I was as hooked on this romance mystery from the get go. If time and work had allowed it (and another book hadn’t released right after I picked this up that I was absolutely desperate to read) I genuinely think this could have been a read in one sitting kind of a read. I loved it.
The mystery element wasn’t anything too deep, I had figured out who put the hit out pretty quickly (which I’m impressed about) but the STALKER element! Now that is something I’m still not 100% sure is solved, and if you delve into my spoiler territory then you’ll see why I think this! But I low-key LOVED the stalker element. Perhaps it’s because of how much I love the Stranger in Blood and Betrayals, maybe I need to read another stalker book… But regardless, I felt like it added a really clever edge to this mystery!
I’m going to talk about the main reason that I dropped half a star now! And, the unspoiler version is that the ending didn’t quite match for me. I felt like it is simultaneously suggesting somethings that feel impossible, and also suggesting that book two is going to be book one just with a different name… And that does make me nervous. So into the spoiler territory we go!
Ophelia’s presumed stalker is dead. VERY dead. Vin’s made sure of that by cutting him up into pieces and burying them separately – I know I said there is no fantasy here, but this felt very ‘we don’t want anything to bring him back to life!’ and I love that paranoia (given Vin’s character, I am putting this paranoia on him, but it feels fitting!!). But then she gets another message from another Stalker essentially saying it won’t be that easy to get rid of me….
So does that mean he was not her stalker? And it was just a coincidence that he wanted to kill her? Because honestly, this is the only way I’m excited for book 2. IF there is just ANOTHER stalker (or somehow they killed the wrong guy and HE is still alive (though like I said, very impossible) then I am not sure I’m as excited for the second book as I was… So I am really hoping it’s option A – it was a coincidence he wanted her dead….
So a 4.5 rating feels really fitting for Nightshade – I don’t know if this is Autumn Wood’s debut (a quick google confirms this) but I loved her writing style and not only did I preorder Daybreak the moment I finished Nightshade, but I am also adding her to my ‘to watch’ list because I have a feeling I’m going to want to read whatever she works on after she’s finished the Sorrowsong University duology!!
“I can’t stay away from you, Ophelia. I’ve never pretended I can.”
Reading With Tyler 
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