The following version of this novel was used in the creation of this study guide: Black, Holly. Book of Night. Tor. 2022. Hardcover. First Edition.

A young child, Remy, feeds his shadow blood, naming it Red and imagining it as his best friend.

An unknown amount of time later, an ex-con-woman named Charlie Hall tries to move away from her past by working as a bartender at Rapture. She lives with her boyfriend Vince and sister Posey, though the sibling relationship is strained. However, Charlie reluctantly agrees to track Doreen’s partner Adam, a fellow thief. That night, she sees the body of a man named Paul Ecco and the Cabal’s Blight hunter known as the Hierophant, but he leaves Charlie alone.

It is eventually revealed that Charlie started lying when she was younger to try and convince her divorced mother that their stepfather was abusive. One of her mother’s friends, Rand, learns of Charlie’s lies and blackmails her into helping him with numerous cons. This eventually leads to Rand’s death when he plans to scam the rich man Lionel Salt, but fails. Charlie escapes Lionel’s home, but Rand’s death is deemed a suicide.

Back in the present, Charlie guesses that Adam is trying to find a rare book known as the Liber Noctem and thinks she could claim it for herself as revenge against Salt. However, when she tries investigating who could have killed Paul, she is attacked by a gloamist named Hermes and saved by Vince who kills the man. This causes Charlie to search through Vince’s things and learn that he is actually Edmund Carver, the grandson of Salt who was found dead. When she confronts him, Vince says he wanted the truth he told her to be real and leaves to keep her safe.

Frustrated by the breakup, Charlie goes through with her plan to find Adam and retrieves journals from a recently killed gloamist named Knight Singh. Later that night, a very drunk Charlie is forced to lunch with Salt and his daughter, Adeline. Salt demands that Charlie retrieve the Liber Noctem from Vince, explaining that he is trying to use a ritual in the book to give a physical form to his shadow. While Charlie does not want to work for Salt, she agrees to protect her family.

After Adam attacks Charlie for stealing the book and telling Doreen his location, she and Posey flee home and visit their mother. However, Charlie is determined to stop Salt and tracks down a metal box at her apartment where Vince left her a note with a code. However, she also finds Adam’s mutilated body, presumably killed by Vince’s shadow, Red.

However, it is revealed in short flashbacks that Remy and Red were forced by Salt to kill those who crossed him. This leads to Red developing a consciousness and complex emotions, and Remy’s feelings of friendship toward his shadow are eventually replaced with disgust for what he has to do.

Eventually, Charlie uses clues left by Vince to find the motel room he was hiding in, but cannot find him or the Liber Noctem. So, Charlie works with her sister Posey to sneak into Salt’s mansion and steal something out the safe she saw the first time she was there with Rand. When she does this, she sees Vince in a cell and realizes that the Vince she knew is actually Red, the shadow of Remy who was killed by Salt before the novel began. As he died, Remy gave Red all of his energy. Red took Remy’s middle name, Vince, and ran away hoping to start a new life. When he met Charlie, he fell in love and hoped he could start over.

Then, after giving her shadow to Posey, Charlie confronts him in front of his party with the Liber Noctem that she stole from his safe. While Salt tries to refute her at every point, he walks into a trap when he opens the safe and finds that Charlie actually stole the Liber Noctem and replaced it with proof of his deadly experiments. Furious that Salt lied to him, the Blight known as the Hierophant escapes and attacks. As Vince intervenes, Charlie cuts off the stolen shadow Salt was using and leaves it to kill him before saving Vince. The Cabal takes him away, but promises Charlie she can see him in a few days.

When Charlie returns, she learns that Vince is going to be bound to Adeline and become the new Hierophant as the Cabal does not trust a Blight. However, Charlie convinces them to bind him to her instead to give him a new future and maintain their relationship. However, Vince’s memories of Charlie are wiped after the transfer and Charlie vows to make him fall in love with her again.