Empire Of Shadows (Bhinian Empire, #2)

by Miriam Forster

[KitsuneBae]

I love the cover. That’s the only positive thing that I can think of about Empire of Shadows. Although it’s already the second book of the Bhinian Empire Series, it’s actually a prequel of book 1, A City of A Thousand Dolls. It tells the story of Mara and Emil Arvi, the deceased parents of our protagonist in book 1, Nisha Arvi. While I don’t have any issues with that, I still can’t understand why it was necessary for this book to exist other than vex the readers maybe or milk the cow some more.

Book 1 was already crystal clear and the readers can already use their imagination as to what happened before Nisha’s time. Empire of Shadows didn’t offer anything interesting or new unless you count instalove and haphazardly woven plot as interesting. And the main characters, let me just tell you that I didn’t care about them in a City of a Thousand Dolls. In Empire of Shadows, that feeling just increased three-fold. Mara and Emil Arvi are one of the worst parents a child could have. Their lives are in danger (but the book didn’t really convince me that they are important enough to be in such situation) so they abandoned their child to a non-relative only for that child to be raised in a place abound with political feuds and conspiracies. The very place that actually endangered the lives of Mara and Emil. Why?

And there’s the romance that didn’t make sense at all. They only met twice (first was only for a few minutes and the second time was for a few hours) and the third meeting, they’re already dying to spout declarations of love and I-cant-do-this-without-you stuff.

I understand what the author is trying to do here but this book just failed to deliver. A City of a Thousand Dolls was more grounded and has a more interesting plot. I could relate to Nisha and her struggles. But with Empire of Shadows, there’s only detachment.