Night Owls

• Author: A.R. Vishny
• Genre: Fantasy
• Publication Date: September 17, 2024
• Publisher: HarperCollins

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In this thrilling paranormal YA romance debut steeped in folklore, two estries—owl-shifting female vampires from Jewish tradition—face New York’s monstrous underworld to save the girl one of them loves with help from the boy one of them fears before they are, all of them, lost forever.

Clara loves rules. Rules are what have kept her and her sister, Molly, alive—or, rather, undead—for over a century. Work their historic movie theater by day. Shift into an owl under the cover of night. Feed on men in secret. And never fall in love.

Molly is in love. And she’s tired of keeping her girlfriend, Anat, a secret. If Clara won’t agree to bend their rules a little, then she will bend them herself.

Boaz is cursed. He can’t walk two city blocks without being cornered by something undead. At least at work at the theater, he gets to flirt with Clara, wishing she would like him back.

When Anat vanishes, and New York’s monstrous underworld emerges from the shadows, Clara suspects Boaz, their annoyingly cute box office attendant, might be behind it all.

But if they are to find Anat, they will need to work together to face demons and the hungers they would sooner bury. Clara will have to break all her rules—of love, of life, and of death itself—before her rules break everyone she loves.

In this standalone debut, A. R. Vishny interweaves mystery, romance, and lore to create an unputdownable story about those who have kept to the shadows for far too long.

I first heard about this book through Jewish Instagram (Jinsta) and it sounded incredible. The merging of Jewish folklore and urban fantasy is a combination that I can’t resist, and this was done so well. I couldn’t have asked for a book to better suit my preferences than this one.

To start with, the writing is beautiful. I loved Vishny’s way of telling a story while avoiding too much purple prose. Her characters are well-rounded and fully developed, creating an intriguing dynamic between all of the major players in the story, and demonstrate growth and change as they move through the plot points.

The story is told through the eyes of each of the major characters—Clara, Molly, and Boaz. Clara and Molly are estries, female vampires who can shapeshift into owls drawn from Jewish folklore. Naturally, there are also some demons scattered through the story, because how could it be a Jewish fantasy without sheydim. But in this story, Clara and Molly follow strict rules that were set forth by their maker. No feeding on non-Jews, because that could lead to disastrous consequences for the Jewish community in the form of massacres justified by claims of blood libel, or that Jews drain the blood of Christian children to make Passover Matzoh. 

One of my favorite aspects of this book is that it was so overwhelmingly Jewish. I especially loved that it included Ashkenazi representation (Jews who spent diaspora in Central or Eastern Europe) as well as Mizrahi representation (Jews who spent diaspora in Arab countries), since so many books focus on one branch of Jews rather than multiple branches. Despite the way that each of them are Jewish, there are differences in languages spoken, dress, and cultural practices. For example, we often associate Yiddish (a Jewish language that falls under the West Germanic languages, but is written in Hebrew letters) with Jews, but Sephardic Jews were more likely to speak Spanish, Portuguese, and Ladino (a Jewish language that derives from Old Spanish, but is written using the Hebrew alphabet.) Clara and Molly come from Eastern Europe, while Boaz is descended from Yemeni Jews, and Anat is Israeli. Seeing so many different facets of Jewish life and culture was an incredible feeling, because not only was I able to identify with Jews who hail from the same regions in which my family resided, but also to learn more about other kinds of Jews. Yiddish is featured prominently in this story, because of the estries, but Anat and Boaz don’t speak a word of it, leading to some humorous dialogue.

The plot is heavy on romance, both sapphic and hetero, with an enemies to lovers trope being written perfectly, although it is very much an urban fantasy. As a reader who primarily reads fantasy, this one was done wonderfully and I couldn’t find any fault with it. The romance is a little on the clean side, since this is considered a YA book despite characters leaning more towards NA territory. There’s also elements of mystery, especially in finding out what is happening to Anat, and seeing the characters set their differences aside and work together to help save her was so compelling that I flew through this book despite not wanting it to ever end. 

Overall, I can’t recommend this book highly enough. I listened to part of this on audiobook as well, and the narrators were outstanding. Gilli Messer and Josh Bloomberg both handled speaking in various accents and languages, including speaking Yiddish, Israeli English with a very heavy accent, and the more commonly found New York melting pot. The plot was fantastic and the kind I couldn’t wait to read more of, the characters practically jumped off the page, and I was just about ready to get tickets to see shows in Yiddish with my mom. Unfortunately, the Yiddish Broadway has declined from its heyday in the early 20th century, but the Yiddish Walk of Fame can still be seen at 156 2nd Avenue in Manhattan. I know I’ll be heading there on my next trip to the city to view some major history. If, after reading this, you are still intrigued by the idea of Yiddish theater, there is still one operating in NYC called National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene. Either way, this is a debut that doesn’t read like a debut, and I loved literally every second of it. If you like reading urban fantasy, stories involving folklore or vampires, and slow-burn enemies to lovers clean romance, this is the book for you.

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