Darker by Four by June C.L. Tan Review

A vengeful girl. A hollow boy. A missing god.

Rui has one goal in mind—honing her magic to avenge her mother’s death.
 

Yiran is the black sheep of an illustrious family. The world would be at his feet—had he been born with magic.
 

Nikai is a Reaper, serving the Fourth King of Hell. When his master disappears, the underworld begins to crumble… and the human world will be next if the King is not found.
 

When an accident causes Rui’s power to transfer to Yiran, everything turns upside down. Without her magic, Rui has no tool for vengeance. With it, Yiran finally feels like he belongs. That is, until Rui discovers she might hold the key to the missing death god and strikes a dangerous bargain with another King.
 

As darkness takes over, three paths intersect in the shadows. And three lives bound by fate must rise against destiny before the barrier between worlds falls and all Hell breaks loose—literally.
 

Perfect for fans of This Savage Song and Only a Monster, Darker by Four will pull readers into a world of love and desperation and revenge—a world where every deal has a catch, no secret stays buried, and no one is exactly who they say they are.

Part 1 of June C.L Tan’s planned urban fantasy paranormal duology, Darker by Four is pure YA anime/manghwa/donghua inspired goodness. An elite exorcist training academy, flashy magical spells and talismans, dangerous revenant spirits, plus visits with the local reapers and the Ten Gods of the underworld, this book is pure, unadulterated fantasy goodness. High on action, mysterious intrigue, and teenage/young adult angst, where this book may be a little lacking in emotional depth or nuance it more than makes up with consistent entertainment value. As a long-time anime fan, Darker by Four was right up my alley!

Apart from its strong anime feel and presentation which I’ll get into shortly, Darker by Four’s most notable element is its incorporation of traditional Chinese folklore. In Tan’s world, qi serves as the base for one’s magical core, providing the ability to cast spells and wield spiritual weapons in addition to being able to see paranormal entities. Besides general Asian cultural references such as food and family traditions, the book’s story also heavily revolves around the Taoist mythology of the Ten Kings of Hell along with grim reapers who strongly resemble and follow the roles of the Heibai Wuchang. That said, this book is very accessible and can be read with zero knowledge of Chinese folklore courtesy of Tan’s smooth introductions of these concepts. Moreso however, you don’t really notice or get hung up with any of the terminology or references thanks to how much fun and fast-paced the story is.

If the book’s cover design doesn’t already give it away with its characters’ glowing swords, this story feels like the book equivalent of a solid supernatural action anime. Depending on who you ask and their age, this book has similar ideas and feels like some of the best anime titles out there, specifically Noragami, Jujutsu Kaisen, etc. (It reminded me personally of Shakugan no Shana’s blazing sword and its concept of the spiritual afterlife but with that, I’m starting to show my age…). Sharing many of the same strengths as those titles, Darker by Four features strong fantasy action sequences, training school arcs, plus mysterious and nefarious suspects pulling the strings behind the scenes. Clearly incorporating various supernatural and paranormal inspirations into its world-building and magic system mechanics, this book is just a lot of fun to read and is easy to follow. The story is very much a YA novel in terms of content, character logic, feelings, and motivations, but that’s by no means a negative drawback. I still enjoyed this book as a grown adult and would’ve loved it even more had I read this back in middle/high school.

Besides having a cool story involving transferring of magical powers and the disappearance of one of the Kings of Hell, another one of its strengths is its appealing characters. Given its YA classification, Tan’s characters are full of teenage angst, volatility, and conflicted feelings towards their families and backgrounds. The character development and writing across the board is fairly simple, but it’s well done and appropriate for their age and this book’s intended readership. For having a cast of characters that are likely all Asian, this book also has good diversity as well. Featuring split points of view, my personal favorite was Rui who is a great main character protagonist, exhibiting the fiery drive and passion from a difficult upbringing while still being appealing and engaging. The journey her character goes on is not only interesting, but also quite compelling given this is an unorthodox story where the main character doesn’t gain magical powers but instead must navigate the physical and emotional fallout of losing them. Besides Rui, the story also is presented from the shunned normie grandson of the exorcist academy’s head Yiran as well as Nikai, a reaper assigned under the Fourth King of Hell. All three perspectives are varied in tone, character narration, and narrative content, initially starting separately and progressively becoming more intertwined.

While I enjoyed Rui’s perspective a lot, I had some minor nitpicks with the other two. Although Yiran is meant to be Rui’s foil in terms of innate magical power, family history, and personality, I found his perspective to be notably less interesting than the other two. His story and bond with Rui are such that you would expect them to have a lot of overlap or being able to see two different sides of the same experience, but I frequently felt like Yiran’s character and story arc were disconnected and set on the side from the other characters. Yiran’s perspective provides much of the light social commentary and complexities of the revenant/hybrid situation, but both his character and story arc felt less entertaining and mysterious compared to the other two perspectives respectively (though I will say a plot twist involving his relationship with another character was unexpected in a good way). While certainly more eccentric, lovable, and scene-stealing, the freelance and individualistic mage Zizi almost felt like more like the second main character compared to Yiran who likely would’ve made a more interesting perspective; this could not feasibly be done with the story in its current form for the plot twist surprises to properly land. That said, I do also acknowledge that Yiran’s perspective set his character up for a very interesting journey in the upcoming sequel book, the most intense character content likely still to come.

On the flip side, the reaper Nikai had the opposite issue of having a compelling story arc that was lacking in both content and general appearance. His perspective provided crucial insight into the workings of the Underworld along with the checks and balances of the Ten Kings integral to the book’s plot, but it felt like his character kept getting shafted and forgot about; the gap between when he’s first introduced and his latter appearance is so big, you almost forget he’s there. The book’s blurb specifically highlights the three characters and their motivations in the story, but Nikai’s perspective and arc is so brief, it felt like something went missing during the book’s plotting. Particularly in the final chapters, all the main and supporting characters are given important roles to fulfill while Nikai’s last appearance feels almost shoehorned in. I personally enjoyed his character and perspective but there just wasn’t enough of it for me. I also would’ve liked a bit deeper emotional depth or reflection across all three characters, but what it had was more than serviceable for the book’s intent and fast-paced nature.

Flashy, angsty, and featuring many popular narrative elements, Darker by Four is a solid and entertaining book worth picking up for a fun and easy read. Mixing Chinese folklore and mythology with a paranormal urban fantasy action story, this book is a safe recommendation for most SFF readers and has great widespread appeal. While I personally had some nitpicks with some of the character development and structure of the story, I still found it to be a worthwhile read, not to mention also being relieved that the romance element did not overwhelm or detract from the magical warfare content (the romance is light enough to the point that I wouldn’t even consider this a fantasy romance book, romance and romantasy readers do take note). The ending of this book also resolves Rui and Yiran’s magic focal magic incident while still leaving quite a few mysteries unanswered, making the sequel book a required read to get the full picture experience. Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long, I’ll be back soon with Brighter by Nine’s review’s next May! (I’m reading the FairyLoot editions which ship at a later date, for everyone else it’s out next March)