Mark This Book Monday: Shadows by Paula Weston!!!

Hello guys!! Welcome to a new week, new Monday and as such a new edition of Mark This Book Monday!

This week I'm gonna be reviewing the three books that are out so far (in Australia and the UK) from The Rephaim series. One of those very few series about angels and demons that I have actually enjoyed and adored! Which ones are the others you may ask? Sweet Evil trilogy by Wendy Higgins and Penryn and the End of Days by Susan Ee.

I want to thank Kristen from My Friends Are Fiction and Sam from Realm of Fiction for putting this series on my radar, you ladies are two of my most trusted canaries!



Shadows by Paula Weston

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I have never really been a fan of books about angels and demons but I had two of my blogging friends, Sam and Kristen, highly recommend I started this series last year but somehow I completely forgot about it. Fast forward to last week when the third book in the series came out, Sam was again raving about it and I decided to get the three books for my Kindle app... and the rest is history as they say, I totally binge read the three books in two days!

Shadows is the first book and the one that keeps us confused for the first half of it, as confused as Gaby herself is. She moved to Pandanus Beach trying to recover from the horrific accident where her twin bother Jude died, and now a year later, she seems to be able to start living and not just surviving. But then a mysterious stranger called Rafa arrives, calling her Gabe and claiming to be Jude's best friend. And that's just the beginning of what could be defined as "all hell breaks loose!".

Gaby is told that she's not 19, she's not human, she was presumed dead too and her being alive makes her a suspect of treason to her own people. There are two sides that are telling her to choose, not really believing her when she says that she has no idea what's going on and she's being pushed in every direction to remember the past and defend herself.

I loved Gaby from the start, she was trying to heal, trying to find a new life for herself and then she's thrown THE curve ball and she doesn't know what to do or what (or who) to believe. Rafa proves to her that he was her brother's best friend and that they had known each other before, but he's quite stingy with the information he provides. Gaby has to relearn a LOT of things, starting with who to trust, how to fight and what she is not willing to compromise. She might have been someone different once, but she is now Gaby and she won't forget about her friend Maggie and her other regular human friends.

Rafa was a very interesting character, even if his tendency to expect Gaby to remember things or to be stingy with the information he provided really got on my nerves on occasion. Given that the rest of the Rephaim aren't any better with their information sharing, I quickly forgave him for it. He might have not been 100% sincere from the start, but he always gave Gaby more credit and treated her more like an equal than the ones that were supposed to be on Gaby's side.

Daniel I quite dislike on principle and never really warmed towards him, he was too much of the politician and didn't care enough to bother giving Gaby a chance to explain herself or really believed her when she said she didn't remember. So for me, the possible love triangle really wasn't such, as I'm pretty sure it wasn't for Gaby!

Maggie and Jason were also interesting secondary characters, and with very interesting twists hidden too!

One of the best things on this book is how well balanced the action and the world building were. We don't really get any info dumping, we're getting explanations but at the same time we're moving the plot along. There were plenty of twists, unexpected reveals and surprises along the way and the take on fallen angels never felt overly done at all.

One heck of a first book and one that I flew by and as soon as I was finished needed to start book two! Well deserved 4.5 to 5 stars! Even if angel books are not your thing, trust me, this one might just be!



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