The Helm of Midnight Book Review
Spoiler Warning: some of what is discussed may be seen as spoilers, read with caution.
“Defeat your fear. Rule your emotions, don’t let them rule you.”
Autumnal reading is in full swing around here and I have another fantastically spooky book for you to add to your TBR. The Helm of Midnight has been blurbed by almost all of my favorite BookTuber’s recently. It has been marketed as fantasy meets horror, which just so happens to be two of my favorite genres. This one has been on my personal TBR for awhile and after finishing Ninth House, I was excited to pick this up.
The set up for this book is pretty straightforward. Our main character Krona is part of a special police force/detective squad known as the Regulators. While working at an event, a gemstone, known as the Despairstone, and a death mask were stolen. The death mask belongs to the community’s most notorious serial killer, Louis Charbon, who was actively killing 10 years previously. Killings mimicking the same techniques as Charbon's have since start popping up again it’s Krona’s job, along with her sister and their Regulator squad to solve the mystery and stop the killer.
“Magic isn’t ours, not really. We don’t make it, we don’t control it. We harvest it and refine it and pretend to master it. But it’s a feral power that wants to turn on us.”
This is one of the most interesting fantasy worlds I’ve read in awhile. In this world, time is a literal currency, it is bottled and used to pay for goods or services in small increments like seconds and larger increments like minutes. A “time tax” is also taken from children once they hit a certain age and that tax is paid to the government. Emotions are also highly regulated in this world and can be used to enchant certain objects like gemstones, wood, metals, and sand—which are magical elements—to create things like the stolen Despairstone or death masks. Gemstones enchanted with emotions like bravery, joy, courage, etc. can be worn on clothing or in pieces of jewelry to influence the wearer’s emotions. When a person wears the Despairstone for example, they are filled with the most agonizing despair, which makes it extremely dangerous. Masks, such as the stolen death mask of Louis Charbon, are a large part of this world. When a person dies, a death mask is constructed and it holds their echo—their memories, their intelligence, their knowledge about the world and their field of work, etc. When another person wears someone’s death mask, that person can fully experience the echo of the person it was made from. These three elements—time as currency, regulation of emotions, enchanted objects like the death masks—made for an extremely compelling book. It’s evident that Lostetter put a lot of time and energy into the details of this society.
“Because real time is worth more than bottled time.” Melanie’s heart fluttered. “Life is always worth more when it’s lived.”
This book is told from the perspective of three main characters:
Krona: a Regulator and person tasked with finding the killer and retrieving the stolen death mask and Despairstone. She works alongside her sister De-Lia, who is also the captain of their Regulator Squad, to find the killer.
Melanie: Another woman who’s storyline is separate from Krona’s storyline and is told from 2 years previous to Krona’s storyline.
Louis Charbon: The now deceased serial killer. His perspective is told from 10 years previous to Krona’s storyline and during his active killing spree.
I really liked all three of these main characters. Krona’s connection with her sister De-Lia plays a big role in her perspective and I thought Lestetter did a great job exploring their relationship. Melanie’s perspective was much less interesting to me at first. She is attempting to help her ailing mother and gets into trouble along the way. I struggled to care about her character to the extent I cared about Krona and Charbon, but she was still likable. Lostetter’s decision to include Charbon’s perspective was ingenious. If you’ve ever talked with me about books, you know I love a villain. I’m sure I’ve written about it before, but some of my very favorite characters are villains. There is something so interesting to me about what makes a person turn villainous and one writing device I love is hearing directly from the villains. I love when writers bring them into the story as visible characters rather than leaving them as invisible characters that are only talked about. Seeing things from their perspective forces the reader to question whether the villain is truly villainous or if their actions might be justified in some way.
Another element I really liked about this world is that gender is not something that is assumed in this society. People don’t assume that because a person presents as a stereotypical cis woman that they identify as a cis woman. Pronouns are used in a thoughtful and respectful way throughout this book and I think Lostetter does an incredible job of demonstrating how using preferred pronouns is not a challenging feat that some claim it to be. Using a person’s preferred pronouns is respectfully acknowledging their human existence, honoring their agency over their own being.
This book read like a perfect blend of both character driven and plot driven. We get a lot of internal dialogue from our main characters while also experiencing gruesome and thrilling action scenes. I wasn’t bored at all during my reading of this book. I thought it was perfectly paced and engaging the entire way through.
There is a specific scene in this book where Krona is discussing her phobia of Varger, a type of monster that inhabits this world. The character explains how an intense fear of something, like a phobia, is essentially a piece of that thing you fear being stuck in your skin like a splinter. Here’s a quote of the character explaining this to Krona:
“But now, whenever you encounter varger, or think of varger, or see images of the creatures, what have you—that little shard of bile-and-varg vibrates. It resonates with its kin—both the memories and the realities—drawn to its own kind. The sliver pulses through the hardened bile, reminding you of the first terror. It repeats the moment for you, again and again, keeping your past your present.”
I believe Lostetter is exploring how trauma manifests in one’s life in this conversation between Krona and this other character. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a more thought provoking analogy.
Fear and how we face it and how we respond to it seems to play a big role in this book as well as taking back our power over our pain and having agency over ourselves.
The ending of this book was quite satisfying, in my opinion. I thought Lostetter did an incredible job from start to finish and overall, I loved this book. The world, the magic, the characters were all so fascinating and thought provoking. The serial killer mystery was gruesome and gory and thrilling and being able to read Louis Charbon’s perspective added so much to this story. This book was very well written and executed and I cannot wait for the next installment in this series.
I would highly recommend this book if you:
are looking for the perfect spooky fall read
enjoy compelling thrillers
enjoy an interesting fantasy world that is easy to understand
love gruesome and gory books
I would not recommend this book to:
sensitive readers
readers who do not like death, gore, violence
I’m giving this book 5 beautifully murderous stars.
