Aaand as my next and last Saturday Pages entry a review of a book that I got approved for via NetGalley, thank you so much Harlequin Mira for the chance to read this one!
As a book I got for review it will count towards that category for my 105 Challenge!
Shadow Study by Maria V. Snyder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I had been wanting to read the Study trilogy for quite a while, even before I read the Healer trilogy about Avery, the healer from Kazan. But seems that they kept being pushed back for other books till I got approved for this one, which I'm not sure if I should call a continuation of the trilogy or a spin-off but with the same characters?
Anyhow, I finally read and loved the three Study novels, loved Yelena and Valek and their relationship and came to be really intrigued about the world, the two rival countries Ixia and Sitia and adored so many of the secondary characters (Arin and Janco, I'm looking at you!).
I loved revisiting the world and the characters, even if I was lucky and didn't have to wait for this book as long as most fans did. Time has passed for Yelena and Valek and they continue their relationship as they can when their respective duties allow them, and make the most out of it.
I was quite surprised but very glad when I saw that we were getting more than Yelena's POV in this one! I loved that we had Valek's POV in this one and also Janco's. Valek's was my favourite because we finally find something more about Ghost man through flashbacks to his past. It might have taken us a bit off from the current action, but I loved those glimpses so much, that I really didn't mind at all!
Now that Yelena has grown into her powers and she is sure of them, what twist could be thrown in to add a proper sense of threat? Clearly the only way to do that effectively was having Yelena lose her powers! And oh boy, now that was an absolute game changer! Yelena was so worried and so completely lost without her magic! But I simply loved (and it broke my heart) that the thing she missed the most was her connection with Kiki, her utterly wonderful and adorable horse!
We have Yelena and Valek separated and working on different leads during most of the book and we get introduced to some new characters too. Little Miss Assassin (nicknamed lovingly so by Janco) wants Valek's position with the Commander and he's quite tempted to let her have it, once he gathers if she really can be trusted. And other characters that I would have known if I had read Opal's spin-off before reading this one! Oh well, I'll get to the eventually!
Yelena trying to discover who wants her magic-less and dead and Valek trying to see why security acount the Palace is so lax and trying to crack a smuggler's operation end up leading to an old enemy that they thought was dead but wasn't, and that makes them wonder a lot about loyalties and who can they really trust.
The book ending with quite a bomb being thrown but not with a painful cliffhanger which is something to be thankful for! Still, I really cannot wait to get my hands on the next book of the series! Very much deserving of 4 stars!
View all my reviews
As a book I got for review it will count towards that category for my 105 Challenge!
Shadow Study by Maria V. SnyderMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I had been wanting to read the Study trilogy for quite a while, even before I read the Healer trilogy about Avery, the healer from Kazan. But seems that they kept being pushed back for other books till I got approved for this one, which I'm not sure if I should call a continuation of the trilogy or a spin-off but with the same characters?
Anyhow, I finally read and loved the three Study novels, loved Yelena and Valek and their relationship and came to be really intrigued about the world, the two rival countries Ixia and Sitia and adored so many of the secondary characters (Arin and Janco, I'm looking at you!).
I loved revisiting the world and the characters, even if I was lucky and didn't have to wait for this book as long as most fans did. Time has passed for Yelena and Valek and they continue their relationship as they can when their respective duties allow them, and make the most out of it.
I was quite surprised but very glad when I saw that we were getting more than Yelena's POV in this one! I loved that we had Valek's POV in this one and also Janco's. Valek's was my favourite because we finally find something more about Ghost man through flashbacks to his past. It might have taken us a bit off from the current action, but I loved those glimpses so much, that I really didn't mind at all!
Now that Yelena has grown into her powers and she is sure of them, what twist could be thrown in to add a proper sense of threat? Clearly the only way to do that effectively was having Yelena lose her powers! And oh boy, now that was an absolute game changer! Yelena was so worried and so completely lost without her magic! But I simply loved (and it broke my heart) that the thing she missed the most was her connection with Kiki, her utterly wonderful and adorable horse!
We have Yelena and Valek separated and working on different leads during most of the book and we get introduced to some new characters too. Little Miss Assassin (nicknamed lovingly so by Janco) wants Valek's position with the Commander and he's quite tempted to let her have it, once he gathers if she really can be trusted. And other characters that I would have known if I had read Opal's spin-off before reading this one! Oh well, I'll get to the eventually!
Yelena trying to discover who wants her magic-less and dead and Valek trying to see why security acount the Palace is so lax and trying to crack a smuggler's operation end up leading to an old enemy that they thought was dead but wasn't, and that makes them wonder a lot about loyalties and who can they really trust.
The book ending with quite a bomb being thrown but not with a painful cliffhanger which is something to be thankful for! Still, I really cannot wait to get my hands on the next book of the series! Very much deserving of 4 stars!
View all my reviews
Another Snyder book! I've been hearing all about this Valek guy for quite some time. I'm wary of the ending... but I definitely want to read all of Snyder's fantasy novels, so I hope to read this one at some point. Glad you loved it, Pili!
ReplyDeleteAwesome review :)
Alyssa @ The Eater of Books!
Yep, I was quite in a binge with these! No worries, it was not really a cliffhanger, we just got some interesting news! ;)
DeleteYay for getting to read all these four books after each other :D I'm glad you really liked this one Pili. <3 But aw, they are separated a lot of this book? Ugh. I won't like that :\ Sigh. But glad you still liked it a whole lot :D Thank you for sharing sweetie. <3
ReplyDeleteBinge reading a series is awesome! And yeah, unfortunately in this series poor Yelena & Valek end up being apart a lot of the time.
DeleteThank you so much sweetie!
I will have to start binge-reading this series and the other one, too... in fact, I need to binge-read all Maria Snyder books because I have heard she is actually pretty darn good at what she does!! :) It's promising to see a high rating for this book!
ReplyDeleteFaye at The Social Potato
Yes you do! If you want to binge read, you'll have 7 books counting this one, the original trilogy and a spin-off trilogy! ;)
DeleteThank you Faye!