Shadowed Blade (Colbana Files, #5)

by J C Daniels

[Melanie]

3.5 stars

Review originally posted at RabidReads.com.

I’m a huge fan of the Colbana Files. I’ve listed as one of my favorite UF series. I’ve also frequently touted it as one of the most underappreciated series in the UF genre. This book though didn’t live up to those statements. I still enjoyed it, but there are some issues that kept me from enjoying this book as much as previous books in the series.

To start, the beginning of this story was a bit confusing. It kinda read like it might have been flashbacks, but I wasn’t sure. The whole story about the druid and Frankie was confusing to me. As I kept reading, I did eventually figure out what was going on. There are parts that overlap with the novella, Misery’s Way, which is included at the end. I highly recommend you read it first, you can find it in the table of contents.

As per usual in this series, it is full of great characters. I love Kit. She is a wonderful character. She is very strong, no matter how many times she has been broken. She puts herself back together, though that is not an easy process for her. She surrounds herself with great friends who have finally become the family that she’s never had with her actual blood relation. I loved seeing Damon, Chang, Justin, Colleen, Doyle and Nova. There is even a new addition who I expect to have a large part to the story going forward.

I can’t really go into much about this story without giving away series spoilers. I’ll just say that this story follows a lot of Kit and Justin the most as they are working for a very mysterious “client” of Kit’s. You can see throughout the story that there is still some issues between humans and non-humans, also known as NH, though there are people who are willing to serve anyone who is willing to pay. It is also hard to tell who is the good guys and who are the bad guys, but other times, it is very obvious who the bad guys are and they are very bad.

This story did have everything that I love in a great Urban Fantasy. Great characters. An excellent world. A ton of action. Romance. Wonderful characters, yes, I know I said that already, but I love these characters, a lot. Overall, I enjoyed this story, but I have to call out the weak beginning. I also need to call out the lack of editing. Normally, that is not an issue with this series, but there was a lot of editing issues in this one. It would not be fair to future reader to recommend this book without calling that out. I had a purchased copy from Amazon, not an ARC. This is the first book by Ms. Daniels that I’ve had editing issues. I would still recommend this book, but I would recommend that you start with book one, as I would with pretty much all UF series.