ARC Review: Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan



Title: Reign of Shadows
Author: Sophie Jordan
Series: Reign of Shadows #1
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Publisher: Harper Teen
Publication Date:  February 9th 2016
Pages: Kindle, 304
My Rating: 2.5 Stars
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  Seventeen years ago, an eclipse cloaked the kingdom of Relhok in perpetual darkness. In the chaos, an evil chancellor murdered the king and queen and seized their throne. Luna, Relhok’s lost princess, has been hiding in a tower ever since. Luna’s survival depends on the world believing she is dead.

  But that doesn’t stop Luna from wanting more. When she meets Fowler, a mysterious archer braving the woods outside her tower, Luna is drawn to him despite the risk. When the tower is attacked, Luna and Fowler escape together. But this world of darkness is more treacherous than Luna ever realized.

  With every threat stacked against them, Luna and Fowler find solace in each other. But with secrets still unspoken between them, falling in love might be their most dangerous journey yet.

  With lush writing and a star–crossed romance, Reign of Shadows is Sophie Jordan at her best.

  I was given an ARC by the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. 

  Reign of Shadows was a surprisingly easy read for a fantasy book. I didn’t exactly fly through it but it was a quick read nonetheless. I really liked the pacing of the book as well. The romance of this book is just one of my favorite things ever! It really made me feel the tension and the feels between Luna and Fowler, and this is the type of romance that I really enjoy. It’s intense, and it just made me feel so much in general. I really enjoyed the story, but I think this is the type of book that if you don’t think about anything much, you will really enjoy it. However, once I thought about what to write for this review, I just couldn’t get past the fact that it was abruptly stopped and that there wasn’t much world building.

  Okay, so this book is full-length but the thing is it felt abruptly stopped at a weird point. I thought that the ending was just the end of one chapter, so I was surprised to find out that it was already the end of the book. I know this is a series, but it doesn’t feel like a cliff-hanger as much as an unfinished book that has more chapters to come. This is exactly what I felt after I finished reading Never, Never: Part One, which is why I liken this to part one of a book.

  I also didn’t like how there was so little background about the world and the characters. Yes, there were some things revealed, and maybe it’s the author’s plan to reveal more things towards the next books in the series, but I still felt like I know so little about the world and the situation the characters are in. For instance, I don’t get the origin of the creatures (sorry, I forgot what they’re called) in the book, and I just felt like there could have been more explanation for them. Also, not much was revealed about the lives of Luna and Fowler, although there was an interesting bomb dropped towards the end (which I really loved). 


2.5 in-between stars


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