Radiant Shadows by Melissa Marr || Book Review

I was looking to read an interesting fantasy book with a different twist that what I usually read.

I didn’t check first if this book was part of a series, and only realised this when I added it to my ‘currently reading’ tab on GoodReads – it’s book four in the Wicked Lovely series by Melissa Marr.

Again, some books need to be read in order of being published to understand what is going on, and others have enough information to give you a backstory. While this book did dwell on details from previous books, I feel like it should still be read in the correct order to get a good understanding.

DISCLAIMER: This review could contain possible spoilers based on my opinions. All opinions and views are my own.

Book review: Radiant Shadows by Melissa Marr #bookreview #melissamarr #fantasybooks #youngadultbooks#booktwt #bookaddict #booktwitter
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Originally published: 2010

Pages: 340
Format: Paperback

Plot from GoodReads:

He was sculpture-perfect but had a tangled feel. Shadow and radiance. He didn’t look much older than her, until she saw the arrogance in his posture. Then, he reminded her of the faeries who walked through the courts and crowds confident that they could slaughter everyone in the room. Like chaos in a glass cage.

“Come dance.”

Ani turned her back and let herself be swept into the crowd.

Thoughts:

The first couple of chapters turned out to be a bit of a bore and I considered putting this book permanently on my ‘DNF‘ shelf. It’s quite a detailed book but I couldn’t get into it completely from the beginning.

At some parts the story did pick up the pace and it led me to finishing the book. The plot focuses on drama, betrayal and death, and with the interesting kinds of magic introduced in the book, it helped build on the story.

The different point of views were a nice touch to understanding the different characters and how they expressed themselves.

Ani’s characters enjoys throwing herself into difficult situations. I say enjoys because no matter how many warnings she gets, she still does her own thing. Aside from that, you still get the sense that she is protective of those close to her.

Devlin is like an anti-hero in the book, that you know you shouldn’t really be rooting for yet you end up doing anyway.

The attention of some of the characters from the previous books in the series helped give some perspective to the who and the what.