Lightfall (The Everlands Trilogy #1), by Ed Crocker

25 Jan 2025

The Book

Lightfall
Series: The Everlands Trilogy
Pages: 384
Age Group: Adult
Published on 15 Jan 2025
Publisher: St Martin Press
Genres:
Epic Fantasy

Synopsis:

An epic fantasy of vampires, werewolves and sorcerers, Lightfall is the debut novel of Ed Crocker, for fans of Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire and Richard Swan’s The Justice of Kings.

No humans here. Just immortals: their politics, their feuds—and their long buried secrets.

For centuries, vampires freely roamed the land until the Grays came out of nowhere, wiping out half the population in a night. The survivors fled to the last vampire city of First Light, where the rules are simple. If you’re poor, you drink weak blood. If you’re nobility, you get the good stuff. And you can never, ever leave.

Palace maid Sam has had enough of these rules, and she’s definitely had enough of cleaning the bedpans of the lords who enforce them. When the son of the city’s ruler is murdered and she finds the only clue to his death, she seizes the chance to blackmail her way into a better class and better blood. She falls in with the Leeches, a group of rebel maids who rein in the worst of the Lords. Soon she’s in league with a sorcerer whose deductive skills make up for his lack of magic, a deadly werewolf assassin and a countess who knows a city’s worth of secrets.

There’s just one problem. What began as a murder investigation has uncovered a vast conspiracy by the ruling elite, and now Sam must find the truth before she becomes another victim. If she can avoid getting murdered, she might just live forever.  

My Review

Lightfall is the first novel in the epic fantasy series The Everlands Trilogy, written by Ed Crocker, and published by St. Martin Press. A story full of intrigue, politics, dark humour and intrigue, in what is a human free fantasy, with only immortal races as the cast, woven around a murder mystery, and that reveals a lot about the Everlands and the complex equilibrium established between the races.

After the Grays apparition a century ago, vampires fled to the city of First Light, a place controlled by the nobility; they are confined to its walls, and your class determines the strength of the blood you drink. Sam, a palace maid, is tired of being part of the Worns, as the commoners are called; when the only clue to the murder of the son of the city's rule lands on her hands, she takes it as the opportunity to blackmail her way into a better class. This path will take her to become part of the Leeches, a rebel group, and putting her in league with Sage, a sorcerer which compensates his lack of magic with his deductive skills, a werewolf assassin and a countess with a city worth of secrets; however, when the investigation starts uncovering a bigger conspiracy that implies the city elites, they will be running against time if they want to find the truth before becoming the next targets.

Great part of why Lightfall is an excellent book is how well fleshed the cast is; not only we have the rebellious and brave Sam, but each one of the characters that appear during the narration leaves a big impression: from the psychopathic lord's son to the handy Sage, one of the few believers of human existence, all are part of a bigger, character focused story. Crocker chose to tell the story using multiple 3rd person POVs, which also tend to change in the middle of the chapter, something that can feel a bit confusing at the start; however, it is excellent to keep flowing the plot.

While there is a vast world contained in this novel, Crocker manages to avoid info dumps, opting for a style that only gives us the information needed to understand the story and the motivations between our characters' actions; interestingly, a fantasy woven around immortals gravitate around themes such as mortality, the duality between history and memory, and classism. Throwing together vampires, werewolves and sorcerers ends creating a world like the Everlands, complex and with many secrets that are slowly unraveled. From the start, the pacing is agile, making you devour the book, as you need to know more about our characters and the conspiracy they are fighting against.

Lightfall is an excellent dark fantasy, perfect if you like well fleshed characters, plenty of banters, and a complex plot that seems to have much more for us in the second book of the Everlands Trilogy. Crocker's debut put him in that list of authors I want to continue reading in the future, because I need more of this human free fantasy.

The Author/s

Ed Crocker

Ed Crocker

Ed was born in Manchester and has managed to stay there ever since. He studied Law at Oxford University, then bounced around careers, including training as a journalist and teaching secondary school English, before becoming a freelance editor. This allows him to spend time on his first love: sitting at home on his laptop writing horror and fantasy stories. 

He is currently writing an epic fantasy trilogy, The Everlands, set in a dystopian world of immortals: vampires, werewolves and sorcerers - but no humans. It's being published in North America by St Martin's Press, and also being published in Italy and Hungary.

The first book, Lightfall, takes place in the last vampire city, where the blood you drink determines your class. It's being released in North America on Jan 14, 2025. His agent is Harry Illingworth of DHH Literary.

As a book editor, he was worked with authors in SFF, horror, literary and other genres, including Sunday Times Bestselling authors and award-winning indie authors.

He's also a keen book reviewer, and you can read his SFF and horror  reviews on FanFiAddict.com. You can also subscribe to his Substack newsletter GET CROCKED, where as well as author news you get an extensive SFF & horror news and release round up every month as well as a monthly short story, a giveaway and publishing articles. He spends a lot of time on it. It's a thing. Give it a try.

His other interests range from horror films, football, politics, graphic novels, murder mystery and all things fantasy. He’s also a keen video gamer, and gets a bit ranty when people ask him if that’s childish. He’s currently learning Italian. Slowly.