# A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon

### A Day of Fallen Night

**Samantha Shannon** · The Roots of Chaos, book 2 (ongoing) · [https://houseofareader.com/books/a-day-of-fallen-night](https://houseofareader.com/books/a-day-of-fallen-night)

A prequel to Priory set five centuries earlier, following four women as the wyrms wake. Longer, sadder and better constructed than the book it precedes, and readable first without losing anything.

- Spice: 2/5 — Warm. Occasional and brief. The relationships matter far more than the scenes do.
- Romance prominence: 3/5
- Plot: 5/5
- Worldbuilding: 5/5
- Darkness: 4/5
- Writing craft: 5/5
- Burn: slow
- Tropes: found-family, forbidden-romance, slow-burn, chosen-one
- Creatures: dragons, witches, humans
- Setting: The same two hemispheres, five hundred years earlier
- POV: third person, dual
- Ending: happy ever after
- Audience: adult
- Content warnings: childbirth, plague, war, grief, death of a child
- Best for: Readers who want the most ambitious dragon worldbuilding currently in print.
- Last verified: 2026-08-28

## Sources

- https://openlibrary.org/search?q=A+Day+of+Fallen+Night+Samantha+Shannon

## What to read next

- [The Priory of the Orange Tree](https://houseofareader.com/books/the-priory-of-the-orange-tree) by Samantha Shannon — spice 2/5. Fourth Wing readers who want dragons with far more worldbuilding and far less spice.
- [Spinning Silver](https://houseofareader.com/books/spinning-silver) by Naomi Novik — spice 1/5. Readers who want a fae bargain plot with essentially no spice and exceptional writing.
- [His Majesty's Dragon](https://houseofareader.com/books/his-majestys-dragon) by Naomi Novik — spice 0/5. Readers who want the best dragon characterisation in the genre and no romance.
- [Six of Crows](https://houseofareader.com/books/six-of-crows) by Leigh Bardugo — spice 1/5. Readers who want found family and yearning with no spice whatsoever.

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Ratings are editorial judgements applied against a published scale at
https://houseofareader.com/lessons/spice, not aggregated reader scores. Editorial policy:
https://houseofareader.com/lessons/how-we-choose. No affiliate links, no sponsored placements.