The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire, #1)

by C.J. Redwine

[ladygrey]

This is a difficult book to review because there were things I liked and things I didn't. So, I'm kind of torn.

On the one hand - I loved the Draconi. Great word, great idea, great metamorphosis and it wove into the plot well and created interesting characters. I pretty much liked all the characters. Lorelai was a little bit "everyone thinks she's so smart" and "she's soooo amazing" though I have to give Redwine credit that the traits everyone raved about were established in the scenes and by the action so it wasn't empty words. But even so, I got a bit tired of everyone marveling at her and everyone marveling over the same traits again and again.

And the litanies! "Fire, blood and death" - "evergreen, snow, and sweet burning wood" - "hurt. punish. kill" Like, I get it but using the exact same words in the exact same order over and over again is tedious. Where's the editor saying, "Why don't we mix this up a little?"

Also, most of the names were too long and too full of consonants, they were just awkward.

And the beginning, again I'm torn. Props for clearly putting in the effort to blend exposition into dialog and rolling it out at relevant times. But it was still so overtly exposition. I think there was a literally an "as you know..." line.

The plot actually worked pretty well, in that in the first half I'd think, 'oh, ok we're headed in this direction' and quite suddenly it would veer entirely. More than once. The last half/third played out a bit more expectedly but by then it's more focused on Lorelai and Kol than the plot and their dynamic kept the story alive well. Though I didn't like how tragic it is. The loss of Kol's family didn't hurt because we never knew them. But Leo HURT. So, well done. But also that sucks. I would have really enjoyed the story with his flare and I think the dynamic between him and Kol would have been interesting. It's one of those deaths that serves the plot and keeping him around might have made a better story.

In the end, I think it's the characters that made it a good book and a very decent read even with it's annoyances.