Tagged: shadow walkers
Reborn in Shadow by Cynthia Luhrs
(Cover picture courtesy of Cynthia Luhrs’ site.)
A GHOST GIVEN A SECOND CHANCE…
Hamish Campbell committed so many sins he’d lost track of them all. The worst? Murdering his brother in a fit of rage. Granted another chance by the god of Shadow, Lord Campbell joins the Shadow Walker brotherhood.A WOMAN FULL OF LIGHT…
Anna Duncan is goodness personified, casting warmth on everyone she encounters. A chance encounter throws everything she knows upside down when she meets a man with haunted eyes. When a murderer sets his sights on Anna, she realizes the line between good and evil isn’t black and white but made up of varying shades of gray.OUT OF DARKNESS, HOPE RISES
Though death draws them together, Hamish has too many secrets. If he’s not careful those secrets may spell the ruin of humanity and cost him the only woman he’s ever truly loved.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook from the author in exchange for an honest review.]
I honestly didn’t expect to like Hamish. His actions make him an evil, cheating, lying, brother-killing traitor so why on earth would he be brought back from the dead 400 years later to be one of the good guys? And yet Hamish seems to have changed. He really does regret all the actions and events leading up to his murder of Colin. His horrible childhood really doesn’t excuse his actions toward his own brother, but I am definitely more sympathetic toward him than I was before. I feel like I can understand what led to his jealousy of Colin and his affair with Abigail.
The characters in this one were wonderful. Hamish goes through a very powerful personal journey of forgiveness, proving that with a little help no one is beyond redemption. Anna is a little naive and sweet but her refusal to see the bad things in the world reminds me of a friend of mine. Yes, she’s rather naive, but it’s realistically so and her views on humanity do change slightly the more she’s with Hamish. Even if the rest of the novel was awful, Cynthia Luhrs’ characters would be enough reason to read it.
The rest of the novel is not awful, thankfully. I found the plot was much more fast-paced than the previous books in part because of the rising tensions between Shadow Walkers and Day Walkers are reaching the boiling point. Dayne and Thorne are at each others’ throats and we really learn the importance of Draken being introduced in Desired by Shadow. There’s actually a greater, overarching plan for the series rather than just a bunch of vaguely connected romances that end with each book. Cynthia Luhrs ends this one on such a cliffhanger that I can’t wait for Embraced by Shadow.
I love how she also expanded on the world of Shadow Walkers and Day Walkers. We learn a little more about Draken and Fury as well as the fae. It was interesting to see things from Thorne’s point of view as he’s tormented by the apparition he believes is the long-lost love he killed in a jealous rage. I don’t fully understand his reasons for bringing Hamish back but it seems they’ll be fully revealed in the next novel. For now the explanation presented in Reborn in Shadow is satisfying.
If you’ve loved the series so far, you’ll love Reborn in Shadow as well. Hamish will surprise you, I guarantee!
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Novella: Iced in Shadow by Cynthia Luhrs
(Cover picture courtesy of Wicked Green Smoothies.)
Beware… there’s a nasty spirit threatening to ruin Christmas. Come spend the holiday at Ravensmore Castle with your favorite Shadow Walkers. Iced in Shadow may be read standalone. It takes place after Desired by Shadow.
If you enjoy persnickety gods, supernatural creatures and ghosts with the ability to manifest physical bodies, then try Iced in Shadow.
[Full disclosure: Cynthia Luhrs contacted me and asked me to review her novella after seeing my reviews of the first two books in the series. She provided me a free ebook copy in exchange for an honest review.]
Most novellas in series don’t actually add anything to the series. They’re just sort of a slice-of-life of the characters that can be read as a standalone novella or are just rehashings of events already covered in the previous novel(s). This is not the case in Iced in Shadow! It’s not necessary to read before Reborn in Shadow (book 3) but it does some really important setting up for the novel that gives it a little more depth.
Hamish, Colin’s brother that quite deliberately caused his downfall, is back as a Shadow Walker. How does such a villain get to fight on the side of good, the side that protects humans? Is he really all that evil in the first place? I won’t spoil too much but I have to say that maybe things aren’t as straightforward as they seemed in regards to Hamish’s character from the first two novels. He’s more complicated than I thought and it adds quite a bit of depth to someone who’s shaping up to be a very three dimensional character.
Also unlike a lot of novellas, this one actually has a plot. There’s a very deliberate reason behind writing this and I loved the surprise ending. I don’t want to give too much away again but let me just say there’s going to be some family in-fighting in Reborn in Shadow because of the confrontation at the end of this novella. I also think there will be a little more romantic tension between our two Shadow Walkers and their wives because of the events that take place here.
Yes, this can be read as a standalone but you will get so much more out of it after you read Lost in Shadow and Desired by Shadow. It really builds on the story and it makes me even more eager to get a start on the third book, Reborn in Shadow.
I give this novella 5/5 stars.
Desired by Shadow by Cynthia Luhrs
(Cover picture courtesy of Paperblog.)
Betrayed…A modern-day ghost story with a twist.
Kidnapped on her way home from work, Maggie is thrown into a terrifying world of shadow. Narrowly escaping death, she flees her kidnappers only to come face to face with her greatest fear.
Helping a dying stranger, Maggie unleashes a terrible curse when she saves Robert. Now with only a week to break the curse, time is running out as they are locked in a deadly fight with forces that will stop at nothing to destroy them.
Intensely romantic and thrilling, Desired by Shadow portrays the struggle between redemption, retribution and the desire to find a love that transcends time.
If you enjoy persnickety gods, supernatural creatures and ghosts with the ability to manifest physical bodies, then Desired by Shadow is for you.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
What I found interesting about Desired by Shadow is that it continues on where Lost in Shadow left off by telling the story of someone else. That someone else is Maggie, a woman who can see Shadow Walkers and is kidnapped by the Day Walkers to spot them so they can be hunted down and killed. She already knows a little about this mysterious world when she accidentally saves Robert, the charming pirate from the last book, on the anniversary of his death while trying to escape from the Day Walkers. As for Robert, he is a typical playboy and doesn’t want anything to do with the whole soulmates thing his friend Colin and Emily went through.
Maggie is a very different woman from Emily in the first book. She’s spent most of her life out on the streets and things are finally starting to look up when she’s kidnapped by the Day Walkers. Maggie is a very capable woman and successfully escapes from the clutches of the Day Walkers all on her own, which was quite impressive. However, what I like the most about her character is that she learns to trust again. She learns to trust people in general, but more importantly she learns to love and trust Robert when circumstances bring them together.
The romance between Robert and Maggie develops similar to Colin and Emily’s but there are some nice, notable differences so it doesn’t feel like a complete repeat episode. The only thing I can really criticize is that the proofreading doesn’t seem to be as good as it was in the last novel. I caught way more typos than before and I’m not sure if it’s because I just noticed more or that there were actually more. None of them really take away from the story, but it’s certainly worth mentioning. They may have been corrected in the actual ebook now that it’s been out a few weeks and I was reading an ARC through NetGalley.
If you liked Lost in Shadow, you’ll probably like Desired by Shadow even more. It expands on the world-building from the first book, the characters are believable and the plot is fast-paced if a little predictable.
I give this book 4.5/5 stars.
Lost in Shadow by Cynthia Luhrs
(Cover picture courtesy of Nomi’s Paranormal Palace.)
A relaxing vacation to Scotland turns deadly when a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger leads to murder. Shocked when she witnesses a man commit murder before disappearing in front of her eyes, Emily learns she possesses an extraordinary ability allowing her to interact with ghosts.
Unwittingly drawn into shadow when she intervenes to help Colin, igniting the ancient warrior’s long-buried desires, she unleashes a terrible curse. Now with only a week to break the curse, time is running out as they are locked in a deadly fight with forces that will stop at nothing to destroy them before they succeed. Intensely romantic and thrilling, Lost in Shadow portrays the struggle between redemption, retribution and the desire to find a love that transcends time.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
The whole unavenged ghost thing was really starting to wear on me before I read Lost in Shadow. Not because I had read many books about it, but because it seemed in pop culture there were no really new, unique takes on it. Pretty much every story sounded the same. That was until I read Lost in Shadow, of course.
Colin is now one of my new favourite love interests, not only because of that Scottish accent I seem so attracted to, but because he actually has a believable backstory for becoming a Shadow Walker. Despite his terrible past he’s also never that typical bad boy who needs to be shown the fun side of life by the heroine. It’s actually quite a refreshing change, especially when you consider how easily Cynthia Luhrs could have fallen into the cliché trap with the whole Scottish warrior/modern American girl dynamic.
At first Emily seems like a typical romance heroine in that she’s gone to Scotland to recover from a failed relationship and stumbles onto a great guy with a mysterious past. But what I loved about Lost in Shadow is that Emily is allowed to grow out of this two dimensional role and becomes a strong heroine in her own right. She doesn’t always just stand by waiting to be saved but at the same time she’s not one of these instant action girls that kicks butt constantly. Her past combined with Colin’s makes for an interesting relationship dynamic to be sure, but that added layer of the Shadow Walker curse makes it even more interesting.
I love how Cynthia Luhrs could have written a typical romance novel with very little world-building but didn’t. The Shadow Walker and Day Walker conflict is fascinating and we even get to see how the two types of ‘ghosts’ came into being. Throw in a mysterious way for Shadow Walkers to break their curse/gift and you’ve got the makings of a great fantasy novel as well. The romance between Colin and Emily is obviously still the main focus but despite my general distaste for romance novels, it didn’t bother me at all. In fact, the romance in this novel actually contributed to both the plot and the character development. It was a refreshing change.
I saw the ending coming a mile away, but I guess every once in a while you have to have endings like the one in Lost in Shadow, right?
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Amazon Barnes and Noble* Goodreads
*Not available