A few people told me Nevernight was like Harry Potter with assassins, and frankly, that kind of put me off for a while. But never fear, I did give it a go and they were wrong and I loved it! Well, there's a tiny bit that could be Harry Potter-like if you hadn't grown up with other boarding school stories as a reference point.

The story is rich with world-building and there is so much mileage in this world. It took me a while to understand that it was switching between two versions of Mia but this soon became clear. Additional information is included in footnotes (much in the style of Discworld) but if you find these an annoying distraction you can easily skip them and not miss anything crucial to the plot or characters.

Mr Kindly is a shadow creature who appears as a cat with no eyes. It is implied that the Darkin are something to be feared so I love that he has such a benevolent name. Actually, throughout the book, there is very little to suggest that Darkin are in fact evil, other than the, most probably evil, followers of the light don’t like them.

Back to this school of assassins then. I liked that so much of the books revolves around Mia’s backstory and also that it is a huge trial just finding the school. Mia must prove herself again and again, and sometimes she must prove that she is heartless. She finds little kindness in the masters, who want to hone her into one of the finest and detached killing machines. Yet sometimes compassion comes from the most unexpected places.

I cannot wait for the next book, it’s such a multi-layered fantasy and not as grimdark as it might seem at first. Yes, there is sex and swearing, and even the more complex language used means this is definitely not a book aimed for younger teens.