Laini Taylor’s style is addictive; she builds her world with finesse and love, and dazzling colour. Her characters are warm, menacing, complex, dangerous, beautiful and capable of wonderful – or terrible – things.

She floated in the air before them, eyes glowing red, flames blooming in her hands, wearing mesarthium armor and wielding lightning like spears, and the godspawn and humans were humbled and appalled.

Muse of Nightmares, Laini Taylor, p336

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Muse of Nightmares is the sequel to Strange the Dreamer, which I read last year and neglected to review. Sometimes it’s difficult to think critically about a book you’ve just read, because you feel bereft when it’s suddenly over. That’s how I felt when I finished Strange the Dreamer a year ago, and how I felt last night, when I closed the cover of Muse of Nightmares. Bereft is the word. Hyperbolic, it may be, but we, my friends, are Book People, so I hope, between us, I will not be judged.

In many ways, Strange the Dreamer is a fairytale. A young man, an orphan, with nothing to his name but a dream of greater things. A young woman, made to feel worthless despite her wondrous potential, trapped in a tower, dreaming of escape. Those same young people, against all the odds, unlock each other’s destinies. But this is a fairytale smuggled inside a fantasy, so think big.

Muse of Nightmares, like Strange the Dreamer, is a fluent, acrobatic, magical silk sleigh ride through the world of Zeru. Zeru is the world of Lazlo Strange, and the blue-skinned orphans of the terrible blue-skinned gods, who left a city without a name, and a tragic legacy of murder and mystery.

The characters all have the unmistakable stamp of Laini Taylor. They are in turns warm and funny, desperately in love, in exquisite pain, hopeful and distraught. Taylor has the ability to convey emotion effortlessly and without hyperbole or falsity, no matter how intense. Her characters and her world envelop you in a warm blanket, and leaves you wishing for a duvet day that would never end.

Taylor’s storytelling is so effortless, full of wonderful imagery and dialogue, that you can flick to almost any page and find something worth reading aloud. But she also achieves perfect clarity continuously, and that is the best compliment I could give.

She gave the words back to him, murmuring, and kept them, too. You could do that: Give them back and keep them. “I love you” is generous that way.

ibid, p166

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The first book in the series sets up many questions that the second endeavours to answer. Muse of Nightmares seeks to not only conclude the epic story of the first book, but to develop the universe, introduce a new collection of characters and tie up all the loose ends – a daunting task. I am not convinced this undertaking was necessary. Why not expand into another book, when there is so much to be told?

Some character arcs were rushed and some scintillating subplots deserved more attention than they received. My favourite arc in Muse of Nightmares revolves around two sisters, Nova and Kora, and the spectral eagle known as Wraith that features in book one. To avoid spoilers, I will just say that this subplot added a whole new dimension to Taylor’s universe, and I wanted more!

I have not read any of Taylor’s previous titles, but she leaves some tidy Easter eggs within Muse of Nightmares, suggesting that her universe is connected in more ways than is evident in Lazlo’s story alone. We are left with the tantalising notion of “The End. (Or is it?)”, but the way things wrap up at the end of this novel, one could be forgiven for thinking there might not be a next. Nevertheless, I live in hope.

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