a day of fallen night by samantha shannon

My aim is for readers to be able to pick the books up in any order, and to know they’re getting a complete adventure each time. It therefore made sense to me to mostly write standalones in this series, but to have them work together to tell an overarching tale that spans generations. However, because each instalment seems to take me about three years to finish, I need to consider my schedule carefully before I jump into each one, especially since I have other ongoing projects. When I wrote Priory, I originally intended it to be a one-off standalone, but the longer I sat with it, the more I came to realise that this world had a much larger story to tell. Yes, but with no set number of books, at present.

If you prefer to read in chronological order of events and have no spoilers whatsoever, you may want to jump straight into Night. Night is a little longer and more politically complex than Priory, with a larger cast and more settings, so you may find it easiest to build a layer of knowledge with Priory first – but it will mean you have knowledge of the future when you read Night. Theoretically, you can read either book first, though the potential reading orders will both give you a slightly different reading experience. It’s set just shy of five centuries before Priory and covers the period known as the Great Sorrow, or Grief of Ages. After more than three years of research, drafting and revising – mostly in secret – it’s a wonderful and surreal feeling to finally see the title and blurb on here.Īs I'm less active on social media than I used to be, I just thought I'd answer a few questions in advance, to give you a clearer sense of A Day of Fallen Night.Ī Day of Fallen Night is a standalone prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree. I’m so pleased to finally welcome you back to the world of The Priory of the Orange Tree. When the Dreadmount erupts, bringing with it an age of terror and violence, these women must find the strength to protect humankind from a devastating threat. Now someone from her mother's past is coming to upend her fate. Dumai has spent her life in a Seiikinese mountain temple, trying to wake the gods from their long slumber. The dragons of the East have slept for centuries. Their daughter, Glorian, trails in their shadow – exactly where she wants to be. To the north, in the Queendom of Inys, Sabran the Ambitious has married the new King of Hróth, narrowly saving both realms from ruin.

For fifty years, she has trained to slay wyrms – but none have appeared since the Nameless One, and the younger generation is starting to question the Priory's purpose. In A Day of Fallen Night, Samantha Shannon sweeps readers back to the universe of Priory of the Orange Tree and into the lives of four women, showing us a course of events that shaped their world for generations to come.

A day of fallen night by samantha shannon