"I think this story was phenomenal.. except..." This is the writing style of the book. Have you ever read a really good book that at the same time didn't really make sense?.. yea me either until now. The writing was rich and detailed in the world building and the characters had great depth. The story however seemed to be intentionally super vague and contradictory with multiple phrases that made sense and didn't, or where a character would understand something and not understand it. Never did it explain what was understood or not understood. There was a poetic, almost prophetic qualities to some of the conversations in the scenes that walked all around some information but never actually gave any information.

Take a look at this made up example:
FMC: "What is going on" MC: "You know the answer.." FMC "Yes, I do know the answer," END SCENE
It was geared up to be a big revelation as the FMC reaches into herself and finds answers the only problem as the reader I never saw the answer, it was never explained. I could make some assumptions about what was happening but in all actuality and truth that may or may not be what is really happening. Of course everyone knows what is happening except the FMC for most of the book and no one will really tell her anything. "Your keeping something from me" "Yes I am.. " and that's how most of the conversations go..

Kaylin our FMC, comes from a past on the streets. Now a member of the "hawks" a supernatural order bent on solving crimes in the world. Kaylin, has her secrets, she keeps buried so deep that they will never see the light of day, that is until her past starts coming back to haunt her. Crimes she though long since over and done begin repeating and though she has no knowledge of what is happening, she must now team up with those she thought to forget forever, in order to prevent destruction.. maybe even by her own hand.

It was a super complex and great supernatural world here and the supernatural races were described so in depth even with their own languages that fit so nicely their supernatural qualities. I seemed to be able to follow everything in this book but the story line. It wasn't the main plot points but all the little details leading up to them or lack of details that just kept spinning me off. I have so many questions here at the end.. I have questions that have birthed questions that have begat even more questions. Who knows if these questions are even relevant to the actual story line but that is what happens when you let an OCD reader go off on an assumption tangent.. You get generations of questions and one really lost and spazzy reader lol.

Elianne was an orphaned child of the fiefs, scraping out a living in the fiefdom of Nightshade with an older boy, Severn, and two other little girls. Then one day strange markings appeared on her arms and legs, and the killings began. Thirty-eight children are found murdered with markings like hers carved into their skin - and she knew all of them - until they suddenly stopped the same day she ran away from the fiefs, from Severn, from the horror of what she'd seen.

Now, seven years later, her name has changed to Kaylin and she's a member of the Hawks, one of the three Lords of Law of the city of Elantra. She practices her healing magic in secret and under the protection of the Hawklord, a rare magic that would see her sent to the Emperor if it were discovered. But the killings have started again, closer together this time, and the Hawklord has put her on the case. He's teamed her with a Dragon, Tiamaris, and Severn, who's transferred from the Wolves.

It's an uneasy alliance between Kaylin and Severn. To complicate matters, the Lord of Nightshade has marked her, and the marks on her body are changing again. To find the source of the kidnappings and ritualistic killings, Kaylin must understand what is happening to her and what the connection is, before more children she personally knows are taken.

This is a book I wanted to throw at the wall every second sentence. And rip into bits. I started reading it late last year and only now decided I should finish it - all the time with a frown on my face. The only reason it gets two stars is because the plot is actually very intriguing.

There are seven races in Elantra: the immortal Dragons, including the Emperor, and the austere, magical Barrani; the winged Aerians, the snarling Leontines, the telepathic Tha'alani, humans and one other that's not revealed apart from a brief aside about their agoraphobia. It's quite the busy patchwork, and a world that you're launched into suddenly. This has always been something I've appreciated in fantasy, because it makes the world feel more real and accepted, like it's always been there and you're just late to the party - but, as with everything in this book, the writing style is so atrociously bad that it spoils everything.

Written in the third person but almost always from Kaylin's point of view, it has a modern, "sassy" voice and tries to be smart. Even though it's not technically Kaylin's voice, it is her voice, and it gets very annoying very quickly. The book is littered with those "climactic" stand-alone sentences that always lose their impact by being constantly used - something that made me put down the third Kushiel book before finishing it, though Jacqueline Carey wasn't half as bad as Sagara.

Not only that - as if that weren't enough - very little actually makes sense. It is full of these little quippy sentences that are supposed to be meaningful - are written with meaning and intent, it's obvious - but mean nothing because they just don't make sense. Which means a great deal of the plot and motivations and characters don't make sense either. There are so many little mysteries, things alluded to but kept secret in some kind of attempt to keep tension and the reader's interest - it was complete overkill and drove me mental.

Sometimes you can't even tell who's speaking, or who's present in a scene, because Sagara doesn't tell us and it's impossible to guess - when their name suddenly appears, you have to backtrack and correct your mental image of what's just been happening in order to include them.

The style is very obtuse, deliberately mysterious in the worst possible way, vague at the best of times and confusing at others. Sentences often lack connections to the sentences before and after them - these ones are written to sound profound but if they lack context or relevance they're just dead space.

Conversations are just as obtuse, the dialogue meant to be realistic but instead creating bigger and bigger gaps and more and more confusion. And it makes me want to scream, how many times the characters around Kaylin act all mysterious and won't answer questions, or give answers that make no sense.

I know I should highlight the positives after ranting on about the bad, bad writing - but I've already mentioned the positive: the overall storyline. Oh, and the Lord of Nightshade, I liked him. He had an excuse to be enigmatic! For the sake of those two elements, I've given it two stars. Otherwise, I nearly hated it.

I haven't read any of her other books (she publishes under this name, under Michelle West and Michelle Sagara West as well), but if the writing's anything like this, I'm not inclined to. The thing is, I bought the next book, Cast in Courtlight, first without realising it wasn't the first book, so I suppose I should read it since I have it. Seriously, though, this book came so close to being shredded to bits, which is saying something from someone who doesn't even like to dogear the pages.

I listened to the audiobook version of this and maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had read it on my own. I somehow doubt it though. Anyway, I'm too tired to go into a full review so I'm just going to use bullet points to highlight the issues I had.

- Dear god in heaven but this was wordy. Sometimes it took forever and a day for the story to get to the damn point. It was also repetitive. For example, there was one incident that the heroine relates three or four times to different characters. I got it the first time, thanks.
- I don't think the author knows how to really get across how the magic in this works. I think she tries to get around this by being excessively wordy which...refer back to the first bullet point.
- Heroine belongs to an elite law enforcement organization but it's well established that she almost flunked out of all her classes. I suppose this is why, despite her years on the job, she is woefully ignorant about a lot of things she should know pretty well. She asks questions about things she should already know but often fails to ask the ones she most needs to.
- Two potential love interests, one of whom is the uber cliched immortal being who nevertheless takes a liking to the twenty-year old heroine despite the fact that there is nothing about her looks or intellect to explain his interest. Of course, he's also busy donning his pretentious cloak of mystery. I am so over this well worn trope. *yawn*
- The overall writing style seems very simplistic and some of the dialogue is just downright childish. It reads very much like a YA book in my opinion. The only thing I was even remotely interested in was finding out what the heroine's old associate/friend, Severn, did to earn her wrath. But by the time the heroine had finished with her never-ending telling of their history I no longer cared.

I was already pretty sure that I wasn't going to be proceeding with this series by the halfway mark of this book but, just for a lark, I skimmed some reviews for the last book published - book #11. No spoilers, but it's clear that there are some issues raised in this book that are still not resolved a full TEN BOOKS LATER. Sorry, but if an author can't address some basic stuff in ten books then I certainly can't be bothered to read them all.

9 April 2020: $1.99 on Kindle

Full disclosure: I only made it through 48% of this book.

ETA: Anyone that wants to spoil me on all things Lord Nightshade, please do - I'm so incredibly curious about him, but I just can't force myself through anymore of the book in order to get such small moments/knowledge of him.

ETA2: Or if there's a book that I should pick up later in the series where things start to become more smoothly written and I can skip the first-(several)-book(s)-syndrome....

I've been looking forward to diving into this series for years, years, and when I finally did I am left with nothing but disappointment. You may ask why it's taken me so long to read it if I'd been so looking forward to it.

Fair enough. As excited as I get about books, I sometimes am too scared to start, too. Especially when they're a part of a series, a long series, and a much beloved series, at that. So it took a group buddy read planned for October to get me to start this. But I was excited! Here was the push I needed to start my dive into this (apparently) amazing world.

Unfortunately, I hit a brick wall. Maybe it's just me, I don't know. But I crashed up against bad storytelling, bad characterization, and bad writing. Honestly, that I managed to make it nearly half-way through is a bit of a miracle considering how frustrated I was the entire time I was reading - and it did take me nearly a whole month to make it this far. In the time I took me to read half of this book, I've started and finished twelve other books.

Apparently, pure stubbornness kept me reading long past the time for me to quit. Most of that obstinance came from the fact that I was sure, absolutely sure, that if I could just make it past the first-book-syndrome thing Cast in Shadow had going on, I'd be rewarded beyond measure. There's a good story, a good world, in here somewhere, dying to get out. I can sense it just beyond all the not-telling, flat characters, and confusing (or non-existant) descriptions.

But that's the problem. It's too far out of reach. I spent the entirety of my time reading this novel screaming for someone to just tell Kaylin something as it related to her. And everything in this book relates to her somehow, but guess who doesn't know anything. Kaylin. Yup. Exactly. Everyone else knows these important things that will (apparently) affect her life greatly, but no one thinks Kaylin needs to know. And what's worse? Kaylin doesn't EVER demand to know! I mean, why should she? It's just her life. *deep breath*

If that weren't bad enough, I still don't get this world. I don't even understand enough to give a confusing idea of what it's about. Seriously ..... I've been trying to get it. I've read and re-read passages in an attempt to understand. I don't get the heirarchy, I don't get the structure, I don't get the rules, I don't understand any of it!!

And I've got nothing to say about the characters because they're all about as flat as a piece of cardboard. Kaylin's alternatively kick-ass, healer, and damsel. Whatever the moment calls for. Everyone else, except perhaps Nightshade, I just don't care about. I don't even really care about Kaylin if she can't be bothered to care about herself either.

So, maybe it's me. I don't know. Honestly, I don't care. I can't go any further.

Review also available at The Book Eaters

7 November 2015: $0.99 on Kindle

17 March 2015: Still $1.99
15 December 2014: $2.99 on Kindle
10/1/2012: Just $2.99 on Kindle

I must be picky or something, because while I thought the ideas behind this were worth exploring, the execution left me wondering whether an editor had got within a mile of the manuscript. There is something distinctly fannish in nature about the words on the page, something that says "I learned how to write solely through my friends on the Internet," and while that's not wrong (I learned a fair bit that way myself), that needs tempering with a healthy dose of "This is how we do it for pay."

The first star is because I didn't throw it across the room. The second star is because I like it enough to see what the second book holds, if my library has it (no way I'm paying a hold fee). Also because at least there's space for the story to grow, since I know there are sequels. I was surprised at the lack of romance; I've grown so used to woman-authored SF/F having to have that element that when it's not there, I'm... pleasantly astounded, I think. But waiting for it to show up later. Almost dreading it. In a way, I wish this had been a single, self-contained mystery. I see a lot of possible plotlines, none of which I've enjoyed in the past, so I'll go forward hoping for the best but not expecting too much. Again, it's less the writer than the genre and my cynicism. Had this been marketed more as mystery than urbanesque fantasy, I might be singing a different tune.

But only about the plot. The editing is still dire, and that's why this can't go any higher than two stars. I caught mistakes that my teachers wouldn't have let slide, and that I don't, either, whether I'm editing or beta-reading. This is not a first novel by an unknown quantity at a tiny press. Sagara should've been given better treatment, someone to work with her, who would catch the mistakes and polish the draft into a printable novel. Whoever is responsible, it's a sad way to create a distraction from an otherwise decent book.

[eta: I did go ahead and spoil myself, because I have a long TBR list. Yeah, probably not going to get invested in this series. Sorry, but since I can't bring myself to give a crap about either Severn or Nightshade, and find Nightshade downright creepy, continuing would be pointless.]

This is a pretty fair fantasy novel, particularly for the YA market. It has the full mccoy of fantasy ingredients: the medieval type setting, another world, romance, magic, weird creatures, the goodies vs the baddies.

The characters are engaging and varied, including the differing breeds of 'people'. At this stage I'm looking forward to the next novel, we'll see how good they stand up to the continuing saga of 9 novels.

At this point in time it is a good world for those who enjoy the lighter side of fantasy rather than the dark side. If you go for the heavy fantasy stuff eg Julian May, I don't believe this would be the type of thing to go for.

Unnecessarily confusing.

For one thing, I couldn't understand why there were so many different types of humanoids mucking about. There’s Barrani (aka, fey), Leontines (lion people), Dragons (who usually seem human but can transform into Dragon Classic), Arians (winged people) and Tha'alani (who I thought were just psychic humans but are actually psychics with head tentacles). To add to this madness, any of these races may belong to the three guard organizations, all of which are named after animals (Hawks, Wolves, and something else). So there’s animal-esque people who belong to organizations named after other animals. Oh, and there's at least two types of magic users, three if you include the Tha'alani.

Politics and geography are also muddled. Everyone is ruled by the Emperor. Except for within the fiefs (which are slummish, hell-hole places), which are ruled by fieflords (who may or may not all be outcast Barrani. This was also unclear). The main character, Kaylin, is an ex-fief denizen who is now a Hawk (one of the guard orders. Who despite the name don’t go airborne. Unless they’re Arians who naturally have wings). The Hawk place (town? Citadel? Castle?) is a stone’s throw from the fief. Kaylin and her companions keep walking/running to the fief so it’s probably less than 5 miles away. Maybe one mile? It is just so absurdly close I don’t understand.

I don’t like being confused. I really, really don’t. I liked the concept of a fantasy-mystery, and there were actual creepy parts, plus the ultimate reveal of the reason behind why Kaylin keeps trying to kill childhood friend-turned-enemy Severn is an emotional punch in the stomach. But when I can’t quite keep straight who everyone is and what is going on, I am too distracted trying to make sense of things to appreciate the story.

Also, ultra-powerful immortals need to stop falling in love with heroines for NO GOOD REASON. Stop going mushy for humans because you find the mix of ignorance, sarcasm and defiance cute or whatever.

This one was good. It was a fun read and I'm looking forward to reading the next book.

Kaylin was once an orphaned child on the mean streets of the fiefs of Elantra, who escaped from there into the portions of town under the Lords of Law when she was thirteen years old. Now twenty years old, she works for the Hawks, akin to police or detectives of the fantasy Empire that is the larger setting of Cast in Shadow. Her most recent case involves a series of child murders in the fief of Nightshade that seem directly connected to the mystical tattoos that have been growing on her arms and legs since she was young. Her partners are a mysterious dragon-man, and Severn, who shares much of her painful past.

There's a fair amount to like in Cast in Shadow. Kaylin, while her tattoos could well make her Too Darn Powerful in the long run, is also a very flawed person who constantly shows signs of immaturity, of having an extremely poor handle on her life and her emotions. This endeared her to me, although I can also see this being really irritating. Those around her, from her big boss the Hawklord to the sexy?/frightening? Nightshade, indulge her a lot. She feels more like a teen than a young adult to me, to be honest, and I think she's okay when interpreted as such. Either way, this young-acting person's presence on a detective force is hard to explain.

The setting of Elantra is interesting so far, with its several mortal and immortal races, and its good and bad sides of the tracks (or river, in this case), its modern conveniences and lack of machinery and guns. We're given broad hints of the world's ancient history, and Kaylin's connection to it, which sets things up nicely for future books. I would have liked to have some more detail in the descriptions of the various races. It was pretty evident that that Leontines look like lions, but I didn't realize that the Dragons weren't lizard-people until one of them was described as having hair. Confusing!

While both of the two gents in Kaylin's maybe-forming, maybe-not-forming love triangle have qualities that would make real-life me head for the hills--leaving plenty of caltrops and pit traps behind me, just in case--they're pretty cool book boyfriends. Unusually for me, I'm inclined toward the cool guy rather than the hotheaded guy this time around. Then again, Severn murdered Kaylin's adoptive little sisters so he can take a hike, as far as I'm concerned. Then again, frequent threats of violence and death seem pretty normal in this setting, so maybe it's just a culture thing?

Despite the enjoyable setting and a cast of characters I'd like to know better, Cast in Shadow has some huge problems that, er, cast a huge shadow over the whole thing. They're connected to what in plays is known as Chekhov's Gun. Kaylin comes across a mysterious mage from the Arcanum once or twice, but nothing comes of it. A super-cool weapon comes into play toward the end of the novel (Chekhov's sword?), and weapon and wielder vanish from the narrative after that. Many characters have long-standing connections to Kaylin, deep waters flowing underground, and we only see tiny hints of the depth of their affection or conflicts in their sparse, fraught dialogue. While I can appreciate the lack of cruft, this takes things too far in the other direction. This lack of "pertinent, actually" detail happens constantly, making the story hard to get through, and it was even harder to pick up after a couple of days' break.

My opinion of this book is torn right down the middle. It's interesting and frustrating, engaging and tedious, in near-equal portions. I give it three stars because there's a lot of promise here, and I'm interested in seeing how well the series lives up to it in the long run. I think I'll try one of Sagara's fantasy novels, written under her pen name Michelle West first, though.

Thanks for another buddy read, M.! Let's get that last one done! ;)

It wasn’t a book I can enjoy, no it wasn’t
I couldn’t get into the world, you were dropped into the middle and then I never really felt like I could understand it…but I could.
Then I ran into issues with how she dialoged, because I really did.

(If you haven’t caught onto my joke about dialog yet you only need to read about 10 pages to see it.)

There are like 8 of these books so someone likes them, it just wasn’t me. Sorry.

This book will never get old! It's so freaking great, and I loved reading it again, I just had to go back, it's been 3 years since I last read it, and since I just read Cast in Deception, well, yeah. I had to!

*Second read March 31st 2014*
Loved read this book again, such a great, interesting world, and the characters! Love it, need to reread more!

*First read August 9th 2013*
Oh, wow, this was a fantastic book, such fantastic worldbuilding, and wonderful characters, loved Severn and Iron Jaw/Marcus and Kaylin, the betting, the lateness, and other character quirks, loved this book!!!

DNF at 10%

This was not good.

The beginning was really weak. Strange, disconnected dialogue. The world building was confusing at best.

It just couldn't hold my interest, I read ca. 50 pages. And I was so bored and not into it, that I'd rather watch stupid TV shows than go on reading. Figure that.

So I will stop here and will not rate it due to me having only read such a small portion of it.

PS: Due to recent events here on GR I opened a blog on booklikes (Tami, tami.booklikes.com )