layawaydragon
Written on Jul 2, 2016
This is a series I’ve featured on my blog before because it sounds fantastic and I love supporting indie authors. But I hadn’t read any…until now.
Shadow Sight follows Ivy Granger, a touch-phobic (aka haphephobic) psychometric psychic. She’s the typical touch cookie with a nougat center, family issues, a perfect best friend, and money problems. With the standard introduction, it didn’t immediately grab me. I was waiting for something to stand out and shake it up.
And I found it.
The Good:
+Loved the different creatures and beings rare in paranormals
+Solid worldbuilding set up
+Liked the King & supporting cast
+Ivy’s a solid protagonist, clear flaws and strengths
The Bad & The Other:
-Some obvious outcomes
-Annoyed at the repetition in the beginning of how dangerous and bad and screwed everything is
-A few questionable decisions
-Feels like insta-love
-Characters are simple archetypes
While there are the routine inclusions like vamps, witches, and demons, the vast majority are different faeries that I loved learning about. It’s mostly dry research but what book nerd doesn’t love dusty old tomes? The descriptions of the creepy illustrations created a perfect mental image.
The farther it goes into the faerie mythology, the better Shadow Sight became. Not only was I hooked into learning about them, Ivy lost some of her trying-too-hard edgy badass veneer.
It was obvious where the story was going but I didn’t know exactly how they were going to make it work. I like how Ivy’s smart and tough. Her powers might be special with her heritage but she’s not some perfect unstoppable badass.
She’d be nothing without the great team behind her and she knows it. Her best friend is an assistant extraordinaire who is perfect besides her taste in men. The closest thing to a mentor is an old, odd, powerful witch who comes with a brownie and troll to round out the squad.
Everything was pretty standard for the genre but it’s a solid, quick paranormal romance jaunt.
There’s action, romance, and mystery. The carnage was pretty good, especially since my first thought was how the fuck do water horse fairies fight. If you’re looking for steamy or sexy though, Shadow Sight isn’t the right series. Ivy is a virgin since she’s touch-phobic and simply touching without two pairs of gloves on (her hands, you naughty minds) is a huge step.
If you know your faerie lore, you’ll figure out the baddies behind the scenes quick, but I didn’t, which worked out.
There’s one plot point that doesn’t sit right with me though and it has far-flung repercussions. See, Ivy has a memory problem and someone decides to renew it instead of reveal it. Ivy’s ignorance leads to stupid decisions that will come back to bite her and paves the way for the romance to start, Part of me wishes it was handled differently because why the hell did you do that, FFS and the other part can’t figure out how the romance would work out if it was different. So I’m at an impasse and just rolling with it as is.
If you only read this genre occasionally, there are better series to spend your time on.
If you’re a connoisseur of the genre and always hunting for more, Shadow Sight can scratch your itch. As long as you can get lost in the adventure, you can’t go wrong trying it. Check out the preview on Goodreads or Amazon.
