Shadows of Fire (The Shadow Realms, Book 1‪)‬

Interesting plot & characters/chemistry. Excited to see how the series develops.

This book has potential, but needs better writing.

This goes back and forth between the two main characters PoV, but with zero indication of whose PoV you’re reading from. It is written from a third person point of view (using she/he him/her) instead of a first person point of view (using I/me), which makes it impossible to determine where you’re reading from. There was several times where I felt like I would need to reread entire paragraphs because I didn’t know whose PoV I was reading from. It made it especially confusing when the same thoughts/ideas/sentences were repeated multiple times from different points of view.

I honestly felt that this was not the first book, either. Things were referenced and characters were named without any explanation for it. Like Cole’s father, who was never named by the PoV character, but his name was said and you were left to wonder who the heck that guy was until you figured it out several paragraphs later when it was mentioned again. And this “Lord” person? He wasn’t really explained either, just hinted at by every character in the book that he was the bad guy…from the very beginning. It was super confusing being told about this Lord guy, then being introduced to Princes and Kings and left wondering what this Lord was if there was a monarchy in place.

Aside from that, the characters were essentially in a heated romance before they even spoke to each other. There was ZERO love building. They did not fall in love over time or even have a chance to get to know one another. It was just instant lust that felt like it should have waited until book 2 to come around. I really felt like the author just wanted to write smut scenes, so she gave bad writing between those scenes just to get there.

The storyline has great potential though, as I said. The whole vampire/human/lycan/fae/dragon/witch thing was very interesting. Each race has their own special traits and I love that. I would love to learn more about them and what they can do.

I’m interested to know what happens to Cole in the further stories, but I’m not willing to buy the next book, even if it only costs $4.99. Read this at your own discretion, but be warned that it can be hard to follow until you figure out the PoV you’re reading from.

The narrative keeps flipping back and forth between third and first person. Also almost every sentence is saying who did what, it just keeps repeating. I was soo lost and had to put it down .