4.5
-
1,676 ratings
A New York Times bestseller
The bestselling sequel—and conclusion—to Victoria Schwab’s instant #1 New York Times bestseller This Savage Song.
Kate Harker is a girl who isn’t afraid of the dark. She’s a girl who hunts monsters. And she’s good at it. August Flynn is a monster who can never be human. No matter how much he once yearned for it. He has a part to play. And he will play it, no matter the cost.
Nearly six months after Kate and August were first thrown together, the war between the monsters and the humans is a terrifying reality. In Verity, August has become the leader he never wished to be, and in Prosperity, Kate has become the ruthless hunter she knew she could be. When a new monster emerges from the shadows—one who feeds on chaos and brings out its victim’s inner demons—it lures Kate home, where she finds more than she bargained for. She’ll face a monster she thought she killed, a boy she thought she knew, and a demon all her own.
A gorgeously written dark fantasy from New York Times–bestselling author Victoria Schwab, and one to hand to fans of Holly Black, Laini Taylor, and Maggie Stiefvater.
“Explosive.”—Brightly
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ISBN-10
0062983407
ISBN-13
978-0062983404
Print length
544 pages
Language
English
Publisher
Greenwillow Books
Publication date
April 27, 2020
Dimensions
5.31 x 1.23 x 8 inches
Item weight
2.31 pounds
ASIN :
B01LX8JE91
File size :
4949 KB
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Enabled
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Supported
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“If This Savage Song was a tense exploration of human nature, this sequel is a reckoning....Schwab folds questions of identity, morality, and judgment into her stunningly crafted narrative. ...readers will be hard-pressed to put this action-driven finale down.” — Booklist (starred review)
“The breakneck packing of the climactic latter half eventually resolves into a poignant ending. ...Schwab’s style is on point, as always. Happily, the many ardent fans waiting for this volume...[will] delight in the feels.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Alternating between [Kate and August’s] immediate, propulsive perspectives, this sequel’s narrative reveals that each is still hunting the violence-created monsters that plague their alternate United States. ...Suspenseful action sequences are well paced, with affecting moments of understanding and tenderness, building to a satisfying ending.” — Horn Book Magazine
“Masterly writing, a fast-moving plot, and just the right amount of bittersweet romance make this book hard to put down. A necessary first purchase for all teen collections.” — School Library Journal
“Explosive . . . Be prepared for a breakneck pace, new monsters, darkness, and all the feels.” — Brightly
PRELUDE
Out in the Waste stood a home, abandoned.
A place where a girl had grown up, and a boy had burned alive, where a violin had been shattered, and a stranger had been shot—
And a new monster had been born.
She stood in the house, the dead man at her feet, stepped over his body, wandered out into the yard, drew in fresh air as the sun went down.
And started walking.
Out in the Waste stood a warehouse, forgotten.
A place where the air was still full of blood and hunger and heat, where the girl had escaped and the boy had fallen, and the monsters were defeated—
All except for one.
He lay on the warehouse floor, a steel bar driven through his back. It scraped his heart with every beat, and black blood spread like a shadow beneath his dark suit.
The monster was dying.
But not dead.
She found him lying there, and pulled the weapon from his back, watching as he spit black blood onto the warehouse floor and rose to meet her.
He knew that his maker was dead.
And she knew that hers was not.
Not yet.
VERSE 1
MONSTER HUNTER
PROSPERITY
Kate Harker hit the ground running.
Blood dripped from a shallow cut on her calf, and her lungs were sore from the blow she’d taken to the chest. Thank God for armor, even if it was makeshift.
“Turn right.”
Her boots slid on the slick pavement as she rounded the corner onto a side street. She swore when she saw it was full of people, restaurant canopies up and tables out despite the brewing storm.
Teo’s voice rose in her ear. “It’s catching up.”
Kate backtracked and took off down the main road. “If you don’t want a mass casualty event, find me somewhere else.”
“Half a block, then cut right,” said Bea, and Kate felt like the avatar in some multiplayer game where a girl was chased by monsters through a massive city. Only this massive city was real—the capital at the heart of Prosperity—and so were the monsters. Well, monster. She’d taken out one, but a second was heading her way.
The shadows wicked around her as she ran. A chill twisted through the damp night and fat drops of rain dripped under her collar and down her back.
“Left up ahead,” instructed Bea, and Kate bolted past a row of shops and down an alley, leaving a trail of fear and blood like bread crumbs in her wake. She reached a narrow lot and a wall, only it wasn’t a wall, but a warehouse door, and for a split second she was back in the abandoned building in the Waste, cuffed to a bar in a blacked-out room while somewhere beyond the door, metal struck bone and someone—
“Left.”
Kate blinked the memory away as Bea repeated her instruction. But she was sick of running, and the door was ajar, so she went straight, out of the rain and into the vacant space.
There were no windows in the warehouse, no light at all save that from the street behind her, which reached only a few feet—the rest of the steel structure was plunged into solid black. Kate’s pulse pounded in her head as she cracked a glorified glow stick—Liam’s idea—and tossed it into the shadows, flooding the warehouse with steady white light.
“Kate . . . ,” chimed in Riley for the first time. “Be careful.”
She snorted. Count on Riley to give useless advice. She scanned the warehouse, spotted crates piled within reach of the steel rafters overhead, and started to climb, hauling herself the last of the way up just as the door rattled on its hinges.
Kate froze.
She held her breath as fingers—not flesh and bone, but something else—curled around the door and slid it open.
Static sounded in her good ear.
“Status?” asked Liam nervously.
“Busy,” she hissed, balancing on the rafters as the monster filled the doorway, and for an instant, Kate imagined Sloan’s red eyes, his shining fangs, his dark suit.
Come out, little Katherine, he’d say. Let’s play a game.
The sweat on her skin chilled, but it was just her mind playing tricks on her—the creature edging forward into the warehouse wasn’t a Malchai. It was something else entirely.
It had a Malchai’s red eyes, yes, and a Corsai’s sharp claws, but its skin was the bluish black of a rotting corpse, and it wasn’t after flesh or blood.
It fed on hearts.
Kate didn’t know why she’d assumed the monsters would be the same. Verity had its triad, but here she had only come across a single kind. So far.
Then again, Verity boasted the highest crime rate of all ten territories—thanks in large part, she was sure, to her father—while Prosperity’s sins were harder to place. On the books, Prosperity was the wealthiest territory by half, but it was a robust economy rotting from the inside out.
If Verity’s sins were knives, quick and vicious, then Prosperity’s were poison. Slow, insidious, but just as deadly. And when the violence began to coalesce into something tangible, something monstrous, it didn’t happen all at once, as in Verity, but in a drip, slow enough that most of the city was still pretending the monsters weren’t real.
The thing in the warehouse suggested otherwise.
The monster inhaled, as though trying to smell her, a chilling reminder of which of them was the predator and which, for the moment, was prey. Fear scraped along her spine as its head swung from side to side. And then it looked up. At her.
Kate didn’t wait.
She dropped down, catching herself on the steel rafter to ease the fall. She landed in a crouch between the monster and the warehouse door, spikes flashing in her hands, each the length of her forearm and filed to a vicious point.
“Looking for me?”
The creature turned, flashing two dozen blue-black teeth in a feral grimace.
“Kate?” pressed Teo. “You see it?”
“Yeah,” she said dryly. “I see it.”
Bea and Liam both started talking, but Kate tapped her ear and the voices dropped out, replaced a second later by a strong beat, a heavy bass. The music filled her head, drowning out her fear and her doubt and her pulse and every other useless thing.
The monster curled its long fingers, and Kate braced herself—the first one had tried to punch right through her chest (she’d have the bruises to prove it). But the attack didn’t come.
“What’s the matter?” she chided, her voice lost beneath the beat. “Is my heart not good enough?”
She had wondered, briefly, in the beginning, if the crimes written on her soul would somehow make her less appetizing.
Apparently not.
A second later, the monster lunged.
Kate was always surprised to discover that monsters were fast.
No matter how big.
No matter how ugly.
She dodged back, quick on her feet.
Five years’ and six private schools’ worth of self-defense had given her a head start, but the last six months hunting down things that went bump in Prosperity—that had been the real education.
She danced between blows, trying to avoid the monster’s claws and get under its guard.
Nails raked the air above Kate’s head as she ducked and slashed the iron spike across the creature’s outstretched hand.
It snarled and swung at her, recoiling only after its claws bit into her sleeve and hit copper mesh beneath. The armor absorbed most of the damage, but Kate still hissed as somewhere on her arm the skin parted and blood welled up.
She let out a curse and drove her boot into the creature’s chest.
It was twice her size, made of hunger and gore and God knew what else, but the sole of her shoe was plated with iron, and the creature went staggering backward, clawing at itself as the pure metal burned away a stretch of mottled flesh, exposing the thick membrane that shielded its heart.
Bull’s-eye.
Kate launched herself forward, aiming for the still-sizzling mark. The spike punched through cartilage and muscle before sinking easily into that vital core.
Funny, she thought, that even monsters had fragile hearts.
Her momentum carried her forward, and the monster fell back, and they went down together, its body collapsing beneath her into a mound of gore and rot. Kate staggered to her feet, holding her breath against the noxious fumes until she reached the warehouse door. She slumped against it, pressing a palm to the gash on her arm.
The song was ending in her ear, and she switched the feed back to Control.
“How long has it been?”
“We have to do something.”
“Shut up,” she said. “I’m here.”
A string of profanity.
A few stock lines of relief.
“Status?” asked Bea.
Kate pulled the cell from her pocket, snapped a photo of the gory slick on the concrete, and hit SEND.
“Jesus,” answered Bea.
“Wicked,” said Liam.
“Looks fake,” offered Teo.
Riley sounded queasy. “Do they always . . . fall apart?”
The litany in her ear was just another reminder that these people had no business being on this end of the fight. They had their purpose, but they weren’t like her. Weren’t hunters.
“How about you, Kate?” asked Riley. “You okay?”
Blood soaked her calf and dripped from her fingers, and truth be told, she felt a little dizzy, but Riley was human—she didn’t have to tell him the truth.
“Peachy,” she said, killing the call before any of them could hear the catch in her breath. The glow stick flickered and faded, plunging her back into the dark.
But she didn’t mind.
It was empty now.
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V. E. Schwab
VICTORIA “V. E.” SCHWAB is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, including the acclaimed Shades of Magic series, the Villains series, the Cassidy Blake series and the international bestseller The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Her work has received critical acclaim, translated into over two dozen languages, and optioned for television and film. First Kill – a YA vampire series based on Schwab’s short story of the same name – is currently in the works at Netflix with Emma Roberts’ Belletrist Productions producing. When she's not haunting Paris streets or trudging up English hillsides, she lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is usually tucked in the corner of a coffee shop, dreaming up monsters.
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Customer reviews
4.5 out of 5
1,676 global ratings
David Maldonado
5
Dark actions produce even darker consequences!
Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2017
Verified Purchase
Our Dark Duet picks up several months later after the events of the first book, This Savage Song. While the first book explored the taut levels of human nature and what it means to be human, Our Dark Duet seems to be a reckoning of sorts. It very much deals with consequences of one's actions and how a person must deal with those consequences. Kate and August have been irrevocably changed on a fundamental level, the latter changing the most. August consumes himself with his vile duty to Verity--- the reaping of souls of those who've committed heinous acts of violence. As August immerses himself in his deadly deeds, we find that Kate has joined a small group of people who's mission is to help keep the monster population low by fighting and killing them---Kate being their leader and executioner.
The beginning of the book is bogged down with a lot of introversion. August's thoughts are dark and critical of himself. He struggles with doing his duty to Verity because he feels his actions are wrong. His dead brother's voice plagues his thoughts, haunting him at every turn. Kate deals with her own mental endeavors, fighting both inner and outer demons. Kate is battling the loneliness she's feeling now that she's left Verity, August, and everything else behind. Like August, she hunts monsters to combat the inner turmoil going on in her head. Everything seems to fit the status quo at the beginning.
A new monster comes to town. One no one, monster and human alike have ever seen before.
"The air smelled like blood and panic as she forced herself toward the restaurant, toward the massacre, toward the chaos. And there, in the middle of it all, so still she almost didn’t see it, stood a monster."
This monster goes beyond the realm of what monsters have been capable of before. It's not a Corsai, Malchai, nor is it a Sunai. It's something else entirely. Worse, it seems to be connected to Kate in a way that put both her life and those she loves in danger. Kate, ever so determined to track it down finds herself on a one way track back to the place that she both reviles and loves---Verity.
Schwab introduces some new characters that create an interesting dynamic to the story. Alice is a monster created by the violent act Kate committed in book one. For spoiler purposes, I won't reveal what. Alice teams up with Sloan, in order to hunt down Kate and kill her. Like Sloan, Alice has very sadistic tendencies and loves to play mind games with her prey. Sloan loves to keep Alice around because she resembles Kate. He's become obsessed with finding Kate and he will stop at nothing until he finds her. Alice takes great liberties when it comes to following Sloan's commands, and we see that their relationship is tenuous at best. Sloan often is forced to tighten his leash on his new minion Alice, because she loves to do things her way. She has a taste for human blood that is insatiable, which brings unwanted attention to Sloan and his operation. In addition to Alice, Schwab introduces us to another unique character that goes by the name of Soro. He's written to be genderless which I found fascinating and very progressive on Schwab's end. It's always refreshing to see an author push the envelope and test those boundaries.
Victoria Schwab compacts her fast-moving plot masterfully with issues about morality, identity, and judgement for one's own actions. The quote that encompasses the themes of this sequel, which is also my favorite quote is,
"People were messy. They were defined not only by what they’d done, but by what they would have done, under different circumstances, molded as much by their regrets as their actions, choices they stood by and those they wished they could undo. Of course, there was no going back—time only moved forward—but people could change. For worse. And for better."
Kate and August contend with their past actions and they see how those actions generate dark consequences. Schwab takes her readers on a journey and the latter half of the book is one you DO NOT want to miss. Victoria Schwab broke me to pieces with the ending to this duology. I believe she's evil and secretly writes with the sole purposes of torturing her readers. I still haven't recovered, as I'm sure you won't either. Be sure to pick up This Savage Song as well as Our Dark Duet for one emotionally dark ride.
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4 people found this helpful
HelloJennyReviews
5
Wonderful ending to the duology
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2017
Verified Purchase
In 2016 I devoured This Savage Song. I loved it. SO MUCH. It was such a refreshing book. There was no romance to drive the plot. There was no pointless bullcrap. It was just a fricken fantastic book. I have really loved every book I have read by Victoria Schwab but... after reading this one, I realized I do have a problem with her writing and I will explain that at the end of the review.
In This Savage Song we left off with Henry and Kate parting ways. Kate ended up going to Prosperity(don't you just love these town names?) in search of a new beginning. It was rumored that Prosperity was not touched by monsters. And, while it definitely didn't have the infestation problem that Verity has, that was proven to be false. Kate ends up working with a small group of people as their personal monster killer. But then, something new pops up and that sends Kate running back to her home in order to warn the one person she still loved and cared for. August...
August was no longer August. Killing his brother and seeing everything he saw in This Savage Song changed him. And not for the better. He decided to completely undergo a transformation. He turned into the monster Verity needed to defeat the Corsai and the Malachai. Her turned into... Leo.
So August is now the leader of a military squad with his fancy new violin. He wields his newfound inability to care, like a deadly weapon. And that is exactly what he has become. That is until Kate comes back. Everyone is weary of Kate but August trusts her wholeheartedly and that trust is what ended up saving a lot of people in the end of the book.
There truly isn't much else I can say without it being a massive spoiler but lets just say Kate's past comes back to bite her in the ass, in more than on form. Someone that she thought was dead ends up not being so dead and Kate has to figure out how to eliminate all of these threats to the world.
I really want to know what happened with the whole Henry situation. I really don't think August could put up with Henry, as well. There was so much loss in this book. I just keep thinking that some of this never would have happened if Kate wouldn't have pulled that trigger in the last book.
I gave the book a full star rating because I truly do love Victoria Schwab's writing. However, I have found a flaw, at least for me, with her books. I never feel satisfied with how the books/series end. I felt VERY unfinished with the The Archived books and that is exactly how I felt when Our Dark Duet finished. I want more. I can't fault the author for that because I knew Our Dark Duet was the final book but I still feel so unsatisfied with the ending. But I also know it is the end because there is no coming back from what happened. So I will sit here and silently wish for more books that won't happen and sulk and pity myself.
In the end, I was heartbroken. I still am. I cannot believe it's over. If anyone needs me, don't.
Overall, I gave the book 5/5 stars.
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Dreaming_Book_Witch
5
And she’s good at it
Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2018
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Rating: 4.5/5 Stars Title: Our Dark Duet Author: Victoria Schwab
Synopsis: Kate Harker is a girl who isn’t afraid of the dark. She’s a girl who hunts monsters. And she’s good at it. August Flynn is a monster who can never be human. No matter how much he once yearned for it. He has a part to play. And he will play it, no matter the cost. Nearly six months after Kate and August were first thrown together, the war between the monsters and the humans is a terrifying reality. In Verity, August has become the leader he never wished to be, and in Prosperity, Kate has become the ruthless hunter she knew she could be. When a new monster emerges from the shadows—one who feeds on chaos and brings out its victim’s inner demons—it lures Kate home, where she finds more than she bargained for. She’ll face a monster she thought she killed, a boy she thought she knew, and a demon all her own. Initial thoughts: After reading the first book in this series, I hurried and picked up a copy of the second book. I was really excited to see how Verity was going to hold up after everything that had happened and the cliffhanger that was left at the end of book 1. I was also very excited to see how the characters had changed after six months. The cover of the book is stunning (I love both the US and UK versions so of course I had to get a copy of both). Again this series really pulled me because of the author as well as the concept and now the concept had changed to the monsters within our own heads and I loved the change.
Plot: What I liked: The characters were really dynamic and there was a lot of action throughout the entire book. I really liked how every time the new monster (the Chaos Eater) came into play, the style of writing changed to that of a free verse poem. The execution of the work was well played and worked hand in hand with what we had learned in the previous book. I still love the dynamic between Kate and August, and the questions that came along with them. The instruments were weapons and that was so cool, but it made me wonder how much more difficult it would be to actually play them after battling monsters all day.
What I didn't like: Something that I wish Victoria would have done with this book was explain more about the actual phenomena that caused monsters to be created in Verity and not in other regions of the world. I also found myself rereading the same phrases over and over again. I feel like this was done for a stylistic effect, but it still had me feeling as though I had read the lines more than once.
Characters: Kate Harker: Still a kick butt girl who has a very strong will and was able to fight back against her own human urges to keep moving. August Flynn: This kid needed a break, but never wanted to take one. He was very conflicted through the entire book until Kate showed up. Ilsa Flynn: I love her to death and I just wanted to see her happy throughout the entire book after everything that happened from the last book. Soro Flynn: They made me want to cosplay them so badly. Seriously I am getting my flute together and I am going to do this. But in all seriousness, I really enjoyed Soro’s character. They were a lot like Leo, but they were more willing to listen and work with others. Alpha Team: Even after being pushed away by August they were very supportive and a good team. Alice: I loved her. She was a fantastic villain and I thought it was interesting in the way that she worked a lot like Kate, but wasn’t her at the same time. Sloan: Still thought he was very cunning and calculating much like in the first book. I loved being able to read things more from his POV.
Overall: I would highly recommend this series to just about everyone who is over the age of 15. It is a little darker for younger audiences and has its fair share of violence and gore in it. I did lower my rating on this book though due to the fact that there were some plot holes from both books that hadn’t been addressed, but if Victoria ever wanted to write a third book for this series focusing on my two favorite Sunai I wouldn’t complain at all.
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S. de Freitas
5
Lots of brilliant action, beautiful writing and tears
Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2017
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I have, so far, loved every one if Victoria Schwab's novels. But I might love the Monsters of Verity series the most. Schwab is an incredibly talented writer and an amazing storyteller which combined creates an author to treasure. I marvel at the worlds she builds and the complicated and dynamic characters she populates them with. Still I've never been as emotionally invested in any characters as I was with August and Kate.
This book is obviously the sequel and finale to the Verity series and it was, in a word, perfection. I definitely wish I could see this one as a movie. Not just because the action and intensity would translate that well to film (but it would) but also for those who wouldn't for whatever reason pick up this book or don't have time to read, a film would allow this tale to be shared with a broader audience and I believe it deserves that.
Now to take a break from blubbering over how in love I am with this story, a few words about the actual plot: the sequel takes place 6 months after Kate and August part ways. The traumatic events that concluded the first novel has changed them both, for better and worse and they have both grown up and grown harder. Naturally there is unfinished business that must be addressed as the first book suggested in the form of Sloan and Alice... but there is also a new terrifying monster to deal with and hunt. And just like the first novel, the specter of war and destruction looms over Verity. Again as hinted by the first book, through Kate, we get to read about a new city, Prosperity, which, on surface, seems to be the antithesis of Verity - safe and "normal" - but as usual, our hero Kate can always suss out a rotting core.
Kate's adventures lead her to return to Verity where she reunites with August and they both attempt to resolve the new trouble together as well as the dangers that still stalk the night from their past.
Schwab pulls no punches when writing about violence and death so if you're squeamish you should avoid this book. We get to meet a new Sunai in this novel which is interesting and fascinating. Overall, themes ubiquitous to this sequel revolve around: (1) questions about how humanity can secure a future paved with hard decisions in a post apocalyptic world (2) contemplating morality, particularly sin and forgiveness, choices and change and (3) do the benefits outweigh the cost of being more human, or more monster?
I'm sad this series is over, but it ended with both beauty and pain and hope. And like the title of this review implies, I totally cried, but this story is worth it.
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3 people found this helpful
Courtney
5
it was really amazing to get to see the world from their angle
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2017
Verified Purchase
This is the sequel to this savage song by Victoria Schwab, so if you have not read it yet i suggest you click off this review or you will be spoiled for the first book.
You have your two main characters August and Kate. Kate as been gone from Verity for the last six months until a mystery monster comes out to play. This monster is later called the Chaos Eater, it feeds off violence and can make humans turn against each other. The monster manages to get a link inside of Kate’s head and so she tracks it back to Verity. Where she is reunited to August and the Flynn family. They are soon thrown back in to the monsters and forced to hunt the Chaos Eater and Kate’s own monster down.
They also have to hunt down sloan, who has somehow managed to survive. He now has all the monsters in the city working for him, including Kate’s monster. They are both hell bent on killing Kate and ruling over the hole city. Interestingly enough, you do get to read a handful of chapters from Sloan’s point of view. The first book you didn’t really get the monsters point of view, it was really amazing to get to see the world from their angle.
The writing is fantastic in this book, it had me hooked through every chapter. You think you have the book figured out then BOOM, another twist. I constantly thought I could predict where the book was going, but I didn’t. The words were so descriptive and you could easily imagine the compound, the buildings in North City, The waste.
I was heart broken at the ending, I cried. It was such a great ending though to a fabulous, well-written series. This is a duology, so I’m not sure whether or not Victoria will write a novella or a third book in the series. If she doesn’t the second book did a great wrap up to the series and had a great, but sad ending.
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2 people found this helpful
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