Promise of Shadows

by Justina Ireland

"A healthy dose of action, a strong thread of humor and just a touch of romance" (VOYA, starred review).

A teen who is half-god, half-human must own her power whether she likes it or not in this snappy, snarky novel with a serving of smoldering romance that Kirkus Reviews calls "a dark, slyly funny read."

Zephyr Mourning has never been very good at being a Harpy. She'd rather watch reality TV than learn forty-seven ways to kill a man, and she pretty much sucks at wielding magic. Zephyr was ready for a future pretending to be a normal human instead of a half-god assassin. But all that changed when her sister was murdered-and Zephyr used a forbidden dark power to save herself from the same fate.

On the run from a punishment worse than death, an unexpected reunion with a childhood friend upends Zephyr's world-and not only because her old friend has grown surprisingly, extremely hot. It seems that Zephyr might just be the Nyx, a dark goddess that is prophesied to shift the power balance: for hundreds of years the half-gods have lived in fear, and Zephyr is supposed to change that.

But how is she supposed to save everyone else when she can barely take care of herself?

• ISBN10: 1442444657
• ISBN13: 9781442444652
• Publish Date: 13 January 2015 (first published 11 March 2014)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 11 June 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

Characters were flat. Plot was messy. I love Greek mythology and I really thought I would love this but it's just bad.

[Angie]

Promise of Shadows was jam packed with interesting mythology! Zephyr is a harpy, but not a very good one. She can't hide her emotions, she gets scared, and now she's lost her wings because she's been sentenced to Tartarus for killing a god. If the other gods knew how she killed him, they'd put her to death. Instead of being able to use aether, Zephyr's magic is fueled by the shadows, erebos. No one can find out, or she's dead. She might wind up dead anyway, because of a Prophecy that names her as the savior of her kind.

I really liked the way the mythology worked in Promise of Shadows. There's a lot of it! The gods and their offspring are divided into two main groups: those who use aether and those who use erebos. Light and darkness have nothing to do with good or evil, but of course we know how those Greek gods loved to cause chaos and murder people. There's also dragons, Oracles, Fates, sirens, fae, drakans, cerebrus, and I don't even remember what else! They all had their own place in this world. Of course, Zephyr isn't just a harpy who can wield shadows. She's something much more, and I did find her father's identity to be super predictable.

Promise of Shadows also has an exciting plot. There's an escape from hell in the first few pages. Then Zephyr has to kick some ass on a few occasions. Then there's the big show down at the end where anything could happen! There is a giant info-dump in the middle though, which did slow things down quite a bit. It was interesting stuff, but it was literally just the characters sitting down and talking about world-building stuff. Not my favorite way to learn about what's going on.

In the end, I liked Promise of Shadows quite a bit. Other than that middle portion, it was fast paced and fun. I thought the romance was really cute and not over dramatic. Zephyr and Tallon had been friends as kids, and now that they've been reunited there's something more there. The ending is an open one. Zephyr is left with a choice, and I'd like to imagine that she stayed. Which is probably not what the majority will think, but I like those kind of unexpected endings.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.