Unable to fight the conscience-stealing night magic anymore, protagonist Becket returns in this sequel (Nightstruck, 2016), fully enjoying a dark life unburdened by feelings and remorse. However, she feels stuck with supernatural bad boy Aleric, who calls himself king of the city and wants her to be his queen. Looting stores for expensive clothes, and houses for alcohol and junk food is fun at first, but Becket begins to wonder if she has free will at all under Aleric's rule, and fears what happens when the daytime comes and she just disappears. She still has friends from her human life, but reconnecting with them is a daunting task, and Becket may be better off Nightstruck and alone spite the consequences this will have on the world. The rampant violence, language, and bad habits of the Nightstruck make this book probably better suited to older readers. The beginning drags somewhat, making this a necessary purchase only if Black's other novels are already a draw.

The city of Philadelphia continues to turn wild after dark in this sequel to Nightstruck (2016).When the sun goes down on the quarantined city, chaos reigns while innocents huddle safely inside. Vandals and hoodlums calling themselves "the Nightstruck" roam the streets doing whatever they please, and now 17-year-old white teen Becket is one of them. The devastatingly handsome—and inhuman—leader of the Nightstruck, Aleric, wants Becket for himself, but Becket can't quite give herself over to him. Meanwhile, the rest of the world tries to figure out what to do with the cursed city. The first half of the novel submerges Becket in the devil-may-care world of the Nightstruck, but the chaos overstays its welcome. There are plenty of mysteries surrounding this nightly curse, but spending all this time with burglars and sex fiends does little to illuminate them. The characters remain stagnant for this entry, and, in a classic middle-volume sag, the story concludes with characters right back where they were at the end of the last book. Most disappointing is the absence of scares. The previous entry was filled with bumps and thumps in the night, but now that entire scenes are set with monsters in the background, the spark is gone. The remains are a plodding mystery that characters are barely interested in. If the characters don't care, why should readers? A disappointing follow-up to a promising first chapter. (Thriller. 12-16)