Hello my beautiful watchers. You might have  noticed that I’ve forsaken my beloved green screen  

for the more traditional booktube, bookshelf  set up. This is because I’m back in the UK for  

a bit reconnecting with my family after over a  year of pandemic forced exile in the colonies.

I was originally planning to have this review  done and published during pride month but prepping  

for this trip and the 50 thousand mandatory covid  tests I had to arrange really took it out of me so  

I’ve missed yet another deadline. But hey, there's  never a bad time to spotlight LGBTQ authors.

The Lights of Prague is an urban fantasy  story set in the city of Prague in 1868.  

It’s the first published novel of Nicole Jarvis,  a New York based author and self professed lover  

of fan fiction, though thankfully this book  doesn’t bear any of the telltale signs of a  

filing off the serial numbers story. It’s an  original work that started life as a NaNoWriMo  

project that she later expanded upon... Sorry  I’ve never said that abbreviation outloud before.

There are two protagonist POV characters, the  first is Domek Myska, he works as a lamplighter,  

a real life historical profession in the days  before widespread electricity that involves  

traversing a long route of gas powered street  lamps manually lighting each one, every night.

However there's a secondary and much  more important part of his profession.  

In between lighting lamps he stops  to fight horrible and deadly monsters  

that prowl the streets of Prague  at night, feeding on the innocent!

His most common enemy seems to be the Pijavica,  which is the Czech word for leach but….  

yeah, call them what you want,  they’re definitely vampires.

Other notable nasties include  ghosts of various types and  

some really nasty river dwelling  wankers called a Vodník,  

that has the poor form to not only kill you  but traps your soul in a jar afterwards.

The naming convention used in this book kind  of reminds me of the TV show Grimm, which  

I maintain is highly underrated. The first few  seasons at least. If you like intentional slock.

The other main character is a wealthy  multi century old Pijavica called Ora.  

She embodies the classic “the one good vampire”  trope, though refreshingly she doesn’t spend most  

of her time brooding or obsessing about killing  every other monster in the world. For the most  

part she appears to just be trying to live her  best life, attending fancy parties and junk.

She’s as openly bisexual as one could be in  that time period. It's not a huge part of the  

story or her greatest defining character  trait but neither is it insignificant or  

vague enough to be in danger of coming off  as queerbaiting, a surprisingly rare balance  

I suspect Jarvis managed to achieve due to  her experience of being openly bi herself.

Despite horror elements and a decidedly gothic  aesthetic it’s clearly not intended to be a  

scary book. There’s plenty of violence, and  Jarvis was able to write tension into scenes  

in a way you almost never see from a  first time author, but nothing I found  

particularly gratuitous so I would deem it  safe even for the faint of heart like myself.

I’ll give you a vague description of the story:  Both Domek and Ora independently end up trying  

to unravel the mystery behind a group of Pijavica  that have somehow overcome what should be a deadly  

weakness to wooden stakes and daylight, eventually  drawing them together and into bed in the process.

Domek also encounters a Will-O-the-Wisp,  

a tiny entity seemingly made of fire  possessing incredible magical power and a  

bad attitude. The Wisp ends up bound to him like  a genie but the lucky bugger gets infinite wishes.

The first thing that jumps out at you regarding  this book is how surprisingly complex and  

real the 1860s depiction of Prague feels, sans  the ghosty goos and blood suckers of course.

By real I don’t mean in a geographic or historical  accuracy way. It might also be those things,  

I just have no way of personally judging,  not having been to the Czech Republic or  

being particularly knowledgeable of  the history of that part of the world.

What I mean is Jarvis is a  very adept world builder and  

included enough cool little things that gave off  the impression of being historically accurate  

that an average reader like me is left  with a distinct feeling of authenticity.

She’s also very good at writing strong,  detailed visual pictures of people,  

environments and scary ass monsters which  contributes no end to the reading experience.

Alas, this is offset somewhat by the  blandness of the main characters.  

Ora has a marginally more interesting backstory  but a relatively dull plot in the story itself,  

while Domek is basically a plank of wood who’s  entire deal boils down to “a monster killed his  

girlfriend so now he slays them” but gets  the more engaging plotline in the book.

Their romance was also a tad underwhelming. I  know saying a couple lacked chemistry is usually  

used to describe actors, but somehow that sort of  lackluster lust was achieved in written form here.

It certainly doesn't help that their  plots don’t actually converge all that  

often when you stop to think about  it, even after they bump uglies.  

They bump into each other a few times, share  one intense chapter together and team up  

for the climax but otherwise they’re  both kinda off doing their own shit.

Honestly the relationships they have  with literally everyone else are WAY  

more interesting than the one they have with each  other. In particular Domek’s relationship with his  

mother who’s recovering emotionally from the abuse  she suffered from his father before he died, and  

Ora’s extremely sexually charged antagonism  with an ex-girlfriend and fellow bloodsucker.

There’s also a very strong, mostly  positive but flawed relationship  

explored between Ora and her aging, human,  sister in law. You really don’t see a lot  

of books that emphasize that particular  connection let alone supernatural ones.

Best of all though is the slow build of  mutual respect between Domek and his Wisp.  

I kid you not it actually plays  out kind of like a buddy cop movie.

I would never have predicted Wil-O-the-Wisp  vs monster hunter debates on the subject of  

morality to be a strong draw for a book  but I props to her for making it work.

“Why are you so determined to work against  me?” Domek asked. “You’re malicious,  

but you don’t seem evil. You could have killed  me in that alley. The more I think about it,  

the more I think you were trying  to scare me into freeing you.  

Why go through all the trouble  when you could just work with me?”

“You? The man who controls my spirit against my  will? I have no reason to trust you. Most men are  

selfish, disgusting creatures ... When they’re  suddenly given the power to change the world,  

nearly all of them immediately use it  for self-gain, no matter the cost.”

“Not all men, though,” Domek said.

… but you’re the same. The  moment you ran into trouble,  

you called me forward to win your battles.”

“I told you that was a test,” Domek pointed out.

“Are you saying that if you ran into trouble again  

that you wouldn’t summon me immediately?  You would die before calling me to aid you?”

“Fine, you’re right. Of course you’re  right. When it comes to life or death,  

I’ll use whatever resources I have.”

“Even if that resource is a slave you got  by killing someone else,” the wisp said.

“You’re not a—” Domek cut  himself off mid-sentence.

What can I say? The Wisp has a point. Even  with an eventual promise of freedom being  

granted after the quest’s completion, for now  it’s still a sapient being owned and Domek is  

intentionally keeping it bonded in servitude  to him, and that will always be wrong on a  

deeply fundamental level….. Aladdin was  a slave owner for 99% of that movie….

These days you’re very unlikely to find a book  that involves vampires and a secret society of  

monster hunters that isn’t somewhat riddled  with cliches and alas this was no exception.  

Honestly I’m MORE surprised when a Vampire hunter  doesn’t fall in love with a vampire these days.

However I don’t think Jarvis wasn’t trying to  reinvent the wheel when it comes to urban fantasy.  

She took a pretty trope heavy  genre and managed to put some  

occasional semi unique spins on it here and there.

For example the design of the vampires is somewhat  non-traditional. They appear normal until they  

enter their feeding state, in which their mouths  slit open impossibly wide and large, their regular  

teeth retract and a second row on needle fang  slides out sooo… Less this, more this. Mmmyes.

There's also a cool addition piece of  

lore regarding them. Once someone is  turned into a creature of the night,  

they develop an utterly irresistible compulsion  to kill anyone directly related to them.  

This puts an even stronger emphasis on how  cruel it is for them to convert a human and  

does a better job at explaining why Ora would  let her various romantic partners die of old age.

As names for secret organizations dedicated  to protecting the world from supernatural  

entities go, The Lamplighters isn’t  bad. It’s got a certain ring to it.

Back in the negatives though, I started  getting certain side characters mixed up  

towards the end which was a little awkward when  they started getting killed and I wasn’t entirely  

sure if I was supposed to be celebrating  or mourning until a protagonist reacted.

The problem was so many of them seemed to speak  with the same voice if you know what I mean.  

They behaved and spoke in such a  similar way they never felt distinct  

from one another. It’s a shame because Jarvis is  able to write quite compelling dialogue overall,  

it just goes to waste when it comes out of  indistinguishable, forgettable characters.

Jarvis paints a very interesting picture of Prague  in decline, but in a way that mostly only bothers  

the vamps that were around to see it in its glory  days, making them come off like grumpy boomers.

I was mildly disappointed that  after the big mystery about the  

super powered vampires was so played up,  the payoff wasn’t that great in my opinion.  

It's not quite “a wizard did  it” but it’s pretty close.

As a sword enthusiast I have  to admit I was mildly offended  

by part of the final climax in which two  Lamplighters face off against each other  

and it was stated that the man duel-wielding  pocket sized stakes had the advantage over the  

guy with a freaking sword just because that was  their usual weapon of choice. Sheer poppycock,  

the massive range difference alone would decide  it even without considering cutting edges.

So all in all I think this particular book is  

ok. It didn’t blow my mind but it left me 100%  certain this author has incredible potential.  

If she can get a handle on writing  more interesting characters and  

maybe improving on the pacing a bit I think the  sequels that were set up are going to be awesome.

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Please take care of yourselves out there  in these troubled times and I will see you  

soon.