Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely, #4)

by Melissa Marr

[jeannamichel]

Melissa Marr has once again amazed us by bringing us to the beautiful world called Faerie. Faerie is not well, however. The world is no longer balanced with light and dark and when it comes to the queen- there's something strongly amiss. Faerie needs "radiant shadows" to survive and without it, the faery realm may die.

Melissa Marr starts this novel off with bringing our attention to two new characters.
The Wicked Lovely series has focused on different characters each book, but all placed in the same world. Anyone who has not read Wicked Lovely or the novels before Radiant Shadows: it would be perfectly alright to begin with this novel and then go back to the others as you wish.

Ani- a new kind of faery and daughter of Gabriel- has been bound since birth to Devlin- the Queen's Bloodied Hands- when he was ordered to kill her. Their fates are and will be forever tangled together.


Without giving too much away, I found myself liking this book. I'm not much of a faery-kind-of-person. I mostly read vampire books and "chick-lit" novels so when I opened the first page of Wicked Lovely, I was hesitant. Wicked Lovely was what I fell in love with in the first place. That particular novel was about Keenan and Aislinn. So when I opened the next book, Ink Exchange, I was somewhat disappointed not to return to the same characters. Having said that, I really enjoyed this book, even though Aislinn and Keenan- the two characters I had fallen in love with- were minor characters (barely mentioned at all).

The one thing I love about all Melissa Marr's novels is her style of writing. I love her imagery and descriptions of her world. I see the book as I would a movie, only in my head.

I loved Ani's strength in Radiant Shadows. I know a lot of books these days revolve around what I know as "girl power." That's typically where the girl shows strengths where others couldn't. But I believe that being strong all the time (and some novels do depict characters that way) is very unrealistic for personalities. That's why I think Marr has captured the essence of the traditional "girl power"- being strong all the time- and perfected it into the masterpiece of her character Ani.

This novel's fast-paced flow will keep you on your toes. I couldn't put it down.