𝑆𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑁𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡. Megan Jauregui Eccles. 2026.
Debut. Young adult, dark fantasy—arguably a gothic romantasy—set in a highly imaginative and uniquely theatrical world inspired by Phantom of the Opera.
A young woman enlists the help of a devastatingly beautiful man imprisoned beneath an opera house in order to win a competition and honor the legacy of her father.
The book has, to my ears at least, a unique voice. Much of it is constructed with a musical vocabulary. Hearts beat pressando, accelerando, or più mosso. Minds stitch together arias. Voices lift, become entangled, and work in tandem to create something (a timbral blend?) that is greater than themselves.
The vibe of this production is elegant, cultured, artistic. One magic system is visual and theatrical. The other is dark and dangerous. The opera house where they train and the palace where major scenes occur are riddled with secret passages and haunted by bittersweet memories. There are ghosts and hidden rooms and magic mirrors scattered everywhere in these pages.
The end result is a novel with the soul of an opera.
AUTHORS – I write short book reviews that focus on voice and vibe. They are useful to querying authors searching for comp titles. There are more like this on my website.
REMINDER – If you follow my reviews, you already know this. I have a policy about reviewing debut novels. Provided I finish them, I always rate debut novels with maximum stars, regardless. When I don’t finish a debut novel, I don’t review it. No exceptions. And I don’t review books I don’t pay full price for.