just finished my annual night world reread so i really want to talk about it... this is like half a review post half a rec post for my favourite ya series ever. NIGHT WORLD by lj smith is a ya supernatural romance series based on the premise that magical beings (vampires, shifters and witches) live alongside but separate from humans in a secret society known as the night world. every book is a loosely-interconnected standalone focusing on a different couple's forbidden romance when their soulmate connection kicks in, while in the background the prophesied apocalypse looms closer and closer, so you can pretty much read in any order, and they are all quite short and mindless.
this series is for guys who like TROPES... like i am not a soulmate trope liker but the night world take on it is soooooo delicious to me because so many of the soulmate couples are ENEMIES and even the ones that are not usually try to resist the fated connection!! and the soulmate thing only kicks in when skin-to-skin contact happens so there's a great element of physicality as well. there is a nice balance between friends to lovers soulmates and enemies to lovers soulmates so i truly believe there is a night world book for everyone. lj smith mostly writes 2 kinds of heroines (Determined Shoujo Heroine Girl and Jaded Battle-Hardened Girl), and 2~3 kinds of love interests (Genuinely Nice Guy and Bad Boy With Secret Heart Of Gold and Bad Boy Subtype: Cold Uptight CEO) and it slaps every time just trust me. i love repression and denial of feelings... i love enemies... i love elaborate cliquey social structures... i love magic... i love doom... and i love love.
unfortunately the series is a permawip, the last book has been pending for like 20 years so i don't think we're ever going to see how exactly the apocalypse plays out. other than the plot cliffhanger it's also a shame because from the previously released previews it seems that the last book's central romance would have been a girl with two soulmates, the guy who brought about the apocalypse and the guy prophesied to stop the apocalypse And They Were All Classmates which would have been very fun to see.
i will try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible!!
( one from the twilight to be one with the dark )