The Shadows Between Us

!!!Spoiler Warning!!! If you haven’t read this book yet, I give away some key spoilers!

The Shadows Between Us

by Tricia Levenseller

Synopsis: Alessandra is not a good girl. She has a plan. Woo the Shadow King, marry him, then kill him and take the kingdom for herself. This is a book in which the main character is very much a villain in her own right. It’s full of court intrigue, romance and evil deeds. The Shadow King has the power to call shadows to his aid. This isn’t going to be an easy plan to carry out.

The Good:

1) I loved this book. The flow of the writing was perfect and the plot was fun and interesting. There was never a dull moment and I couldn’t put it down.
2) Alessandra is a fantastic character. She’s highly complicated, very independent and willing to take the kind of risks most of us only dream of. She’s not a girl trying to do the right thing, but rather, she’s a girl trying to get everything. Beautifully written.
3) The romance was slow building and steamy. It was great to see it blossom into something you’re really rooting for by the end of the book.
4) All the other stuff going on makes for some fun little story arcs. There’s a masked vigilante, a murderer within the castle, an assassin, and various other little love stories, too.
5) Demodocus. What book can’t be made better by the inclusion of a big, useless-but-loyal dog?

The Bad:

1) Page 301. This page focuses on Alessandra telling a couple of her lady friends that their body is theirs. She tells them to wait until they are ready before giving themselves to a man. It’s very empowering. But then, a few sentences later, they all start calling a man ungrateful after he refuses to sleep with one of them until they’re married. I can’t believe the double-standard. It didn’t sit right with me at all. Men have just as much right to decide what they do with their bodies as women.
2) The masked vigilante was a bit pointless. The book would have been exactly the same if the vigilante was omitted completely. This story arc just seemed like a bit of a filler.
3) I would have liked to see more interaction with Alessandra’s family. Her sister is quite a piece of work, but we don’t get to see her directly at all. I think that could have been a fun dynamic.

Conclusion: I loved this book. I’m actually disappointed it was a standalone because I would the hell out of a sequel here. I love books set at court, where people don’t say exactly what they mean and the colour of dresses is the most important decision some people make all day. These sorts of books are my guilty pleasures. But this one knocked it out of the ball park. I absolutely loved it.

Villain Rating

Huge, Huge, Huge Spoiler Warnings Ahead!!! While I had my suspicions, they weren’t confirmed until the end of the book, and I really didn’t see the major twist coming, which is always a nice surprise.

So, it turns out that our villain is none other than Leandros, one of the kings closest friends. Or rather, Xanthos, the kings brother! Dun, dun, duuuuun! Turns out that Xanthos is the eldest brother but he didn’t inherit the Shadows, this disappointed his father who had him beaten and left for dead, preferring to give the throne to Kallias.

When Xanthos was rescued, he returned to the castle in a disguise and murdered the king and queen in cold blood. Can’t really blame him really. Since then he’s been working on getting close enough to Kallias to kill him. That, and steal everything from him, including Alessandra.

He’s a great villain. He’s cheerful and fun to be around, very handsome and full to the brim with romance. It’s a real surprise to find out he could be such a bad guy. Or it he, really? I mean, sure he killed his parents, but they tried to kill him first. And isn’t the throne his by rights as the eldest? With Alessandra and Kallias both being pretty villainous themselves, it could be Xanthos that was the good guy after all. 7/10

Happy Reading,

Claire