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Shadow in the Empire of Light
A magical novel of intrigue, mystery and family drama from the award-winning author of Aramaya and Fire Angels!
Shine’s life is usually dull: an orphan without magic in a family of powerful mages, she’s left to run the family estate with only an eccentric aunt and telepathic cat for company.
But when the family descend on the house for the annual Fertility Festival, Shine is plunged into intrigue; stolen letters, a fugitive spy and family drama mix with an unexpected murder, and Shine is forced to decide both her loyalties and future...
Shine’s life is usually dull: an orphan without magic in a family of powerful mages, she’s left to run the family estate with only an eccentric aunt and telepathic cat for company.
But when the family descend on the house for the annual Fertility Festival, Shine is plunged into intrigue; stolen letters, a fugitive spy and family drama mix with an unexpected murder, and Shine is forced to decide both her loyalties and future...
350 pages, Paperback
First published January 19, 2021
19 people are currently reading
473 people want to read
About the author
Jane Routley
9 books148 followersI write fantasy with strong women characters.
I’ve published 7 books as me – Mage Heart and the Aurealis award winners Fire Angels and Aramaya, The Three Sisters and The Melded Child.
I have a queer time travel romance called A Shining Knight.
I've begun a new series in a new world called Shadow in the Empire of Light.
I am also publishing TTRPGs in Call of Cthulhu.
My short stories have been widely anthologized, appeared in Meanjin and read on the ABC.
My favourite writers are Jane Austen, Angela Carter, Sara Douglass, Janet Evanovich, and Gail Carriger.
My current life ambition is to see an erupting volcano.
I’ve published 7 books as me – Mage Heart and the Aurealis award winners Fire Angels and Aramaya, The Three Sisters and The Melded Child.
I have a queer time travel romance called A Shining Knight.
I've begun a new series in a new world called Shadow in the Empire of Light.
I am also publishing TTRPGs in Call of Cthulhu.
My short stories have been widely anthologized, appeared in Meanjin and read on the ABC.
My favourite writers are Jane Austen, Angela Carter, Sara Douglass, Janet Evanovich, and Gail Carriger.
My current life ambition is to see an erupting volcano.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 120 reviews
December 17, 2020
Thank you Rebellion for the review copy. All opinions are my own.
Recommends it for: You like your story strange and the writing posh and direct. I can’t compare this book to anything really, sorry!
The cute cat cover definitely will fool the sweetest people – this book is a wild ride with some strange X-Rated scenes – you have been warned.
Shine is a non-magical person in a family full of mages. Her family start to descend on her house for the fertility festival suddenly Shine is plunged into intrigue; stolen letters, a fugitive spy, family dram and even a murder which will have to force Shine to decide her loyalties and her future.
Weird, strange, unexpected; definitely best describe this quirky book.
I really enjoyed the world that Jane created. The magic and the mages were really interesting and I loved this quirky family set up and the chaos of it all.
Shadow and Shine were very interesting characters. I also really enjoyed this matriarchal world that Jane created, there are so many real-life comparisons. Shine was a little annoying at times as she just accepted all the terrible things but the narration of this story was superb, Jane is an excellent author and the very classy tone of the book was a nice surprise.
The plot was a bit thin, there was more messing around, weird unrelated story lines and politics than an actual story. At first it can be disorientating trying to understand what is happening and trying to remember all the strange names.
I think if you are looking for something strange and fresh, this book is for you.
Rating: 3
Shadow in the Empire of Light
Possibly a series
Publish Date: 19 January 2021
Cover Rating: 6/10
Adult – Fantasy – Magic - Mystery
Recommends it for: You like your story strange and the writing posh and direct. I can’t compare this book to anything really, sorry!
The cute cat cover definitely will fool the sweetest people – this book is a wild ride with some strange X-Rated scenes – you have been warned.
Shine is a non-magical person in a family full of mages. Her family start to descend on her house for the fertility festival suddenly Shine is plunged into intrigue; stolen letters, a fugitive spy, family dram and even a murder which will have to force Shine to decide her loyalties and her future.
Weird, strange, unexpected; definitely best describe this quirky book.
I really enjoyed the world that Jane created. The magic and the mages were really interesting and I loved this quirky family set up and the chaos of it all.
Shadow and Shine were very interesting characters. I also really enjoyed this matriarchal world that Jane created, there are so many real-life comparisons. Shine was a little annoying at times as she just accepted all the terrible things but the narration of this story was superb, Jane is an excellent author and the very classy tone of the book was a nice surprise.
The plot was a bit thin, there was more messing around, weird unrelated story lines and politics than an actual story. At first it can be disorientating trying to understand what is happening and trying to remember all the strange names.
I think if you are looking for something strange and fresh, this book is for you.
Rating: 3
Shadow in the Empire of Light
Possibly a series
Publish Date: 19 January 2021
Cover Rating: 6/10
Adult – Fantasy – Magic - Mystery
January 19, 2021
I’ll be honest – I’ve been a bit bemused by the negative reviews for this entertaining and really different fantasy adventure. But I’ve come to the conclusion that a lot of reviewers picked it up because of the allusion to the telepathic cat – and most fantasy adventures with a telepathic pet don’t generally come with steamy sex scenes. So I think this is more of a case of readers opening up this book thinking they were getting one type of story – and instead were confronted with something quite different. While that cover certainly didn’t help, given that it also doesn’t give any clue of the erotic charge running through this adventure.
As for me – I found Shine beguiling and enjoyed the rather claustrophobic, dangerous edge to this adventure as the Family, both mundanes and mages, gather for the annual fertility festival, where consenting adults get together for the purpose of creating more children. Routley’s worldbuilding is impressive as she creates a large family, riven with factions and infighting as the most powerful, entitled mages jockey for the prime positions. Shine is well down the pecking order, as she watches the man she has given her heart to flirt with other girls – and tries to keep away from her more unpleasant, bullying cousins. I kept waiting for her to discover that she had unexpected magical powers… And no, I’m not going to reveal if she does – but this one has lodged in my head and despite the fact that I’ve subsequently completed two other books, it won’t leave me alone.
As for the sex – yes, there are a couple of uncharacteristically raunchy scenes, but I didn’t find them unduly gratuitous. This is a society with a very relaxed attitude towards sex, especially at this time of the Festival, for it is important that there be more female children within the family, as it is female mages with most power. And the fact that Shine is a mundane with an unfortunate bloodline means she is regarded with contempt by many family members – there is nothing cosy about this bunch. But despite the fact it deals with some quite dark subjects, there is a bouncy energy and a lot of snarky humour that stopped it being a bleak read.
I will be reading more from this intriguing author – and if there is a sequel to this book, which feels as if there should be – then I’ll be hunting it down. While I obtained an arc of Shadow in the Empire of Light from the publishers via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
8/10
As for me – I found Shine beguiling and enjoyed the rather claustrophobic, dangerous edge to this adventure as the Family, both mundanes and mages, gather for the annual fertility festival, where consenting adults get together for the purpose of creating more children. Routley’s worldbuilding is impressive as she creates a large family, riven with factions and infighting as the most powerful, entitled mages jockey for the prime positions. Shine is well down the pecking order, as she watches the man she has given her heart to flirt with other girls – and tries to keep away from her more unpleasant, bullying cousins. I kept waiting for her to discover that she had unexpected magical powers… And no, I’m not going to reveal if she does – but this one has lodged in my head and despite the fact that I’ve subsequently completed two other books, it won’t leave me alone.
As for the sex – yes, there are a couple of uncharacteristically raunchy scenes, but I didn’t find them unduly gratuitous. This is a society with a very relaxed attitude towards sex, especially at this time of the Festival, for it is important that there be more female children within the family, as it is female mages with most power. And the fact that Shine is a mundane with an unfortunate bloodline means she is regarded with contempt by many family members – there is nothing cosy about this bunch. But despite the fact it deals with some quite dark subjects, there is a bouncy energy and a lot of snarky humour that stopped it being a bleak read.
I will be reading more from this intriguing author – and if there is a sequel to this book, which feels as if there should be – then I’ll be hunting it down. While I obtained an arc of Shadow in the Empire of Light from the publishers via Netgalley, the opinions I have expressed are unbiased and my own.
8/10
January 16, 2021
[this book was kindly provided to me by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review]
Unfortunately, I DNFed this book at 21%. It was leaving a weird impression in me, and by weird I mean messy and complicated and not well-explained.
If this was a part of a sooner -established fantasy world, I wouldn't say anything - but this is supposed to introduce the reader to this environment for the first time and all the author did was throw horrendous infodumps at us. All the relations and relationships and gossip and politics were too much, even though she included the family tree. It's different than when Tolkien did it, he put those into the appendix for the readers who are interested in those tiny details, like he himself was - he could have lived without them -, but here I needed to look at the tree every few minutes and it was SO annoying.
I'm honestly disappointed, because the premise seemed unique and interesting, but the book itself turned out not to meet my expectations.
→1 star
Unfortunately, I DNFed this book at 21%. It was leaving a weird impression in me, and by weird I mean messy and complicated and not well-explained.
If this was a part of a sooner -established fantasy world, I wouldn't say anything - but this is supposed to introduce the reader to this environment for the first time and all the author did was throw horrendous infodumps at us. All the relations and relationships and gossip and politics were too much, even though she included the family tree. It's different than when Tolkien did it, he put those into the appendix for the readers who are interested in those tiny details, like he himself was - he could have lived without them -, but here I needed to look at the tree every few minutes and it was SO annoying.
I'm honestly disappointed, because the premise seemed unique and interesting, but the book itself turned out not to meet my expectations.
→1 star
January 17, 2021
Thank you, Rebellion and Netgalley, for accepting my request to read this ARC.
Shadow in the Empire of Light is a promising feminist fantasy story about mystery, family drama and playful magic. Through my perspective, the summary talks about family dynamics, supernatural creatures and a rich cultural setting. That's why I immediately requested this when I saw it. I was in the mood for some good magic and intrigue!
The story evolves around Shine, an orphan without magic in a family full of it. She lives with her eccentric aunt and telepathic cat. Their extended family arrives for the annual Fertility Festival and Shine is thrown into a mystery mixed with spies and playful magic. She has to choose where her loyalties lie and what she wants to achieve in the future. On top of that she also meets Shadow, an Outlander from the Ghostlands, who will bring even more complexity to her journey. Reading the summary I was met with a creative take on the fantasy genre, taking playful magic and mixing it with mystery and questions of loyalty. The promise of feminism and sex positivity also meant a great deal to me. This is something I will never get bored of in literature and I can only applaud authors for attempting it.
But finishing this book, I was met with conflicting feelings. The author claims to "write strong women" in her biography but I'm sorry to say that I didn't see them in this book. The majority of characters are disrespectful and unsympathetic, lacking development. Shine, the main character, is the sort of person that ignores people when they explain they're uncomfortable with how she behaves. She continues to behave like this for her own gain. Scenes in this book are regularly given a distasteful vibe because of this. It also didn't help her case that this book is written in first person. I can't relate to a character that, for example, spies on a man washing himself, especially when he clearly states he doesn't want that. Women throughout history have fought against being treated like this so in my opinion we don't need scenes where the roles are reversed. Sex positivity is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but I find it infuriating when people force it upon others who don't want to talk about it.
And Shine's character does improve a little at about 70% in the book. But her change of heart is never explored. There's no inner dialogue about what she thinks about her past behavior. Because of this, I found it hard to root for her. Her dynamic with Shadow regularly results into her racist thought process, talking about his skin and grammar. For me, this doesn't build up a good character unless they're met with consequences or relatable dialogue with others. And this never happens. I can understand Shine's character has grown through her heritage and upbringing but I can't encourage characters who are not being explored in a thoughtful manner.
I think I understand what the author meant to do here. In some way, the first chapters give the promise of a world based on discrimination, racial judgment and characters who will be confronted with their behavior, resulting in deep development. The book would achieve this if it included criticism or consequences within scenes. In this way, the promised complexity and intrigue of this book is regularly diminished by its characters and the way dialogues are handled.
The idea for this book is 100% there but the execution is at 30%. Reading this and seeing its potential in family dynamics and world building, I think this book would be better executed as a (high) fantasy tome. World building remains flat by a lack of setting and the culture is ignored throughout shallow dialogues about "pricks" and "sickly paleness of one's skin". The story attempts to take on too much focus on both characters, magic systems and culture. A good example for me is the character of Kitti, Shine's telepathic cat. This supernatural creature intrigued me from the beginning but I found myself hungry for more backstory. Kitti, at the end, has no real purpose towards the story and I wonder why she was created.
If characters would be given more relatability through inner conflict, this might've been a good character driven story. The complexity of the world remains ignored by an overwhelming amount of characters without connection to the story, which resulted in me forgetting who was who. Reading this, I felt like I was given a draft for a promising story. It's something I would 100% enjoy more if the story had been fleshed out. I feel like this book is also a build up to a sequel. If this ever releases, I would be interested to read it. I think the quality and premise of the sequel will influence my opinion on this book.
I was disappointed this book didn't offer trigger warnings for, as an example, incest.
Shadow in the Empire of Light is a promising feminist fantasy story about mystery, family drama and playful magic. Through my perspective, the summary talks about family dynamics, supernatural creatures and a rich cultural setting. That's why I immediately requested this when I saw it. I was in the mood for some good magic and intrigue!
The story evolves around Shine, an orphan without magic in a family full of it. She lives with her eccentric aunt and telepathic cat. Their extended family arrives for the annual Fertility Festival and Shine is thrown into a mystery mixed with spies and playful magic. She has to choose where her loyalties lie and what she wants to achieve in the future. On top of that she also meets Shadow, an Outlander from the Ghostlands, who will bring even more complexity to her journey. Reading the summary I was met with a creative take on the fantasy genre, taking playful magic and mixing it with mystery and questions of loyalty. The promise of feminism and sex positivity also meant a great deal to me. This is something I will never get bored of in literature and I can only applaud authors for attempting it.
But finishing this book, I was met with conflicting feelings. The author claims to "write strong women" in her biography but I'm sorry to say that I didn't see them in this book. The majority of characters are disrespectful and unsympathetic, lacking development. Shine, the main character, is the sort of person that ignores people when they explain they're uncomfortable with how she behaves. She continues to behave like this for her own gain. Scenes in this book are regularly given a distasteful vibe because of this. It also didn't help her case that this book is written in first person. I can't relate to a character that, for example, spies on a man washing himself, especially when he clearly states he doesn't want that. Women throughout history have fought against being treated like this so in my opinion we don't need scenes where the roles are reversed. Sex positivity is a good thing, don't get me wrong, but I find it infuriating when people force it upon others who don't want to talk about it.
And Shine's character does improve a little at about 70% in the book. But her change of heart is never explored. There's no inner dialogue about what she thinks about her past behavior. Because of this, I found it hard to root for her. Her dynamic with Shadow regularly results into her racist thought process, talking about his skin and grammar. For me, this doesn't build up a good character unless they're met with consequences or relatable dialogue with others. And this never happens. I can understand Shine's character has grown through her heritage and upbringing but I can't encourage characters who are not being explored in a thoughtful manner.
I think I understand what the author meant to do here. In some way, the first chapters give the promise of a world based on discrimination, racial judgment and characters who will be confronted with their behavior, resulting in deep development. The book would achieve this if it included criticism or consequences within scenes. In this way, the promised complexity and intrigue of this book is regularly diminished by its characters and the way dialogues are handled.
The idea for this book is 100% there but the execution is at 30%. Reading this and seeing its potential in family dynamics and world building, I think this book would be better executed as a (high) fantasy tome. World building remains flat by a lack of setting and the culture is ignored throughout shallow dialogues about "pricks" and "sickly paleness of one's skin". The story attempts to take on too much focus on both characters, magic systems and culture. A good example for me is the character of Kitti, Shine's telepathic cat. This supernatural creature intrigued me from the beginning but I found myself hungry for more backstory. Kitti, at the end, has no real purpose towards the story and I wonder why she was created.
If characters would be given more relatability through inner conflict, this might've been a good character driven story. The complexity of the world remains ignored by an overwhelming amount of characters without connection to the story, which resulted in me forgetting who was who. Reading this, I felt like I was given a draft for a promising story. It's something I would 100% enjoy more if the story had been fleshed out. I feel like this book is also a build up to a sequel. If this ever releases, I would be interested to read it. I think the quality and premise of the sequel will influence my opinion on this book.
I was disappointed this book didn't offer trigger warnings for, as an example, incest.
January 26, 2021
This was a very interesting fantasy read that was centered around a country estate and a fertility festival. Shine keeps up the estate after her mother, who was a mage, disappeared. Shine is half mage, half ghost. She is part of the royal family but being half breed with no magic makes her a mundane and no use but basically a servant to them. I will say all the names were very unique and most seemed based around light which was fascinating- Lucient, Blazanne, Lumina, Scintillant, Illuminant, Glisten...
In this mage world the female line holds the strongest magic and the males are used for breeding it seems like. There is a lot of sexual activity since this is a fertility festival and they are trying to create more female mages ;) The conversations are very direct about their sexuality and preferences which makes sense due to what they are celebrating.
There is also a power struggle among the leadership of the mages and a murder and some conspiracy happens.
All in this crazy activity Shine is hiding an illegal Ghost under her bed named Shadow along with her telepathic cat that warns her when her mage family members might be coming near.
I enjoyed this fast paced quirky story. Like everyone else I am not sure if there is a story that I can relate it to which isn't a bad thing. I think she set up the story well for Shine to continue on her journey into a second book. I am hoping we learn more about her mother and what happened to her and maybe who her ghost father is.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟💫 (round up to 4)
Thank you @netgalley and @rebellion for the electronic copy for my honest and voluntary review.
TW: Stories of sexual abuse, Fighting, Drugs
In this mage world the female line holds the strongest magic and the males are used for breeding it seems like. There is a lot of sexual activity since this is a fertility festival and they are trying to create more female mages ;) The conversations are very direct about their sexuality and preferences which makes sense due to what they are celebrating.
There is also a power struggle among the leadership of the mages and a murder and some conspiracy happens.
All in this crazy activity Shine is hiding an illegal Ghost under her bed named Shadow along with her telepathic cat that warns her when her mage family members might be coming near.
I enjoyed this fast paced quirky story. Like everyone else I am not sure if there is a story that I can relate it to which isn't a bad thing. I think she set up the story well for Shine to continue on her journey into a second book. I am hoping we learn more about her mother and what happened to her and maybe who her ghost father is.
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟💫 (round up to 4)
Thank you @netgalley and @rebellion for the electronic copy for my honest and voluntary review.
TW: Stories of sexual abuse, Fighting, Drugs
June 30, 2020
Find this and other reviews at The Reader in Indigo
Shine Lucheyart may be a granddaughter of the ruling Empress, but as a magic-less mundane with a vanished (some say dead) mother and a pale-skinned foreign father, she's forced to live a quiet life of genteel poverty on an isolated country estate, with little company aside from a giant talking cat and her radical, semi-banished aunt. But when her extended family descends on her home for an annual fertility festival---and a pale-skinned scholar from a neighboring republic who's not supposed to be in the country at all gets dumped in her lap---she finds herself caught up in plots and schemes that threaten everything she holds dear.
Overall I enjoyed this a lot, and I think anyone who likes their fantasy steeped in politics and family drama would do the same. Shine is a character very much caught between: though clever and generally well-intentioned (though in many ways still very much the product of her upbringing), and the beneficiary of a society where her sex and lineage give her special status, her lack of magic keeps her very much at the dregs of her social class, a poor relation who will struggle to ever escape that fate. (Mundane members of mage families get treated a bit like illegitimate children, in that they can't inherit and they can't exercise political power.) Her pale (well . . . paler) skin sets her apart from her peers, a constant reminder of her lack of fully belonging.
I think I'd need to read the next book (this is clearly set up for more books) before commenting further on the racial and social elements at play here. The Empire is a matriarchal, matrilineal society where women hold most of the power, but . . . a feminist utopia, this is not. And the as-yet-unseen neighboring republic, glimpsed through comments by Shadow (the pale-skinned foreigner who finds himself quite literally hiding under Shine's bed . . . don't ask, just read the book!), seems to be a counterpoint in many ways, but without seeing it firsthand, it's hard to really give an analysis. It didn't escape my notice that the dark-skinned empire has an economy based on resource extraction, while the pale-skinned republic seems to have a more capitalist manufacturing-based economy---along with a patriarchal, patrilineal social structure---and I'm curious to see where the author goes there.
A big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review!
Shine Lucheyart may be a granddaughter of the ruling Empress, but as a magic-less mundane with a vanished (some say dead) mother and a pale-skinned foreign father, she's forced to live a quiet life of genteel poverty on an isolated country estate, with little company aside from a giant talking cat and her radical, semi-banished aunt. But when her extended family descends on her home for an annual fertility festival---and a pale-skinned scholar from a neighboring republic who's not supposed to be in the country at all gets dumped in her lap---she finds herself caught up in plots and schemes that threaten everything she holds dear.
Overall I enjoyed this a lot, and I think anyone who likes their fantasy steeped in politics and family drama would do the same. Shine is a character very much caught between: though clever and generally well-intentioned (though in many ways still very much the product of her upbringing), and the beneficiary of a society where her sex and lineage give her special status, her lack of magic keeps her very much at the dregs of her social class, a poor relation who will struggle to ever escape that fate. (Mundane members of mage families get treated a bit like illegitimate children, in that they can't inherit and they can't exercise political power.) Her pale (well . . . paler) skin sets her apart from her peers, a constant reminder of her lack of fully belonging.
I think I'd need to read the next book (this is clearly set up for more books) before commenting further on the racial and social elements at play here. The Empire is a matriarchal, matrilineal society where women hold most of the power, but . . . a feminist utopia, this is not. And the as-yet-unseen neighboring republic, glimpsed through comments by Shadow (the pale-skinned foreigner who finds himself quite literally hiding under Shine's bed . . . don't ask, just read the book!), seems to be a counterpoint in many ways, but without seeing it firsthand, it's hard to really give an analysis. It didn't escape my notice that the dark-skinned empire has an economy based on resource extraction, while the pale-skinned republic seems to have a more capitalist manufacturing-based economy---along with a patriarchal, patrilineal social structure---and I'm curious to see where the author goes there.
A big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a free copy in exchange for an honest review!
May 19, 2020
I received a free copy in exchange for an honest review from Netgalley.
I nearly DNF'd this several times. To be perfectly honest, the world building was lacking up front, and the social interaction was confusing. There wasn't enough background to understand what was expected as a reader, and what I should seem to already know about this world. By 38%, nothing had really happened and what did, didn't make sense. And, for a book that's supposed to be YA, there's a lot of questionable sexual themes. I'm all for realistic situations but my god that's a lot of unnecessary sex, rape, incest and group sex. To be honest, I got a little lost in the family relationships and dynamics, so they may call themselves cousin, but even non blood cousins make me squeamish. I really think this is a case of the "less is more" theory- any psychological impact was negated by the sheer quantity of it. I think the author was trying to make a bold statement about social mores, and contrast with the "Ghosts" but even the descriptions were a little thematically icky. The pale sickly technological people versus the tanned, beautiful magical? The idea of trying to force the color/race issue felt just like that- forced. Trying to make an us versus them mentality for the characters can be done in better ways, with more subtly and interest for the reader.
The tag line for this book was so promising- murder, spies, telepathic cats, mayhem! We got the watered down version and it took nearly the whole book to get there.
I nearly DNF'd this several times. To be perfectly honest, the world building was lacking up front, and the social interaction was confusing. There wasn't enough background to understand what was expected as a reader, and what I should seem to already know about this world. By 38%, nothing had really happened and what did, didn't make sense. And, for a book that's supposed to be YA, there's a lot of questionable sexual themes. I'm all for realistic situations but my god that's a lot of unnecessary sex, rape, incest and group sex. To be honest, I got a little lost in the family relationships and dynamics, so they may call themselves cousin, but even non blood cousins make me squeamish. I really think this is a case of the "less is more" theory- any psychological impact was negated by the sheer quantity of it. I think the author was trying to make a bold statement about social mores, and contrast with the "Ghosts" but even the descriptions were a little thematically icky. The pale sickly technological people versus the tanned, beautiful magical? The idea of trying to force the color/race issue felt just like that- forced. Trying to make an us versus them mentality for the characters can be done in better ways, with more subtly and interest for the reader.
The tag line for this book was so promising- murder, spies, telepathic cats, mayhem! We got the watered down version and it took nearly the whole book to get there.
July 23, 2020
This book really wasn’t to my taste. Too many horrible people - even a paedophile. Really not what I want to be reading about.
I really liked the idea of Katti, Shine’s telepathic cat. I also enjoyed the Mooncats. I’d have liked to have seen a lot more of these two aspects.
There were too many different characters introduced too quickly for me to keep track of. Almost none of them had enough page time for me to get to know them. The vast majority of them were nasty, and only out for themselves, just wanting to spend their time drugged, drunk and having sex. Every single character seems to look down on “the peasants”, and even Shine, who does consider them to some extent, seems to see them mostly as a mass of nameless servants.
The plot itself seemed to take forever to get going, it wasn’t until three quarters of the way through that any progress was made. Unfortunately, the finding out what happened to Shine’s mother plotline was postponed until (I assume) the next book.
Shine did finally permit herself to leave at the end of the book, which redeemed it a little. But the constant misery and powerlessness of the only characters I cared about meant that I didn’t enjoy this book. However, if you prefer your magical worlds darker, you may enjoy this book.
I was given a free copy of this book, my opinions are my own.
I really liked the idea of Katti, Shine’s telepathic cat. I also enjoyed the Mooncats. I’d have liked to have seen a lot more of these two aspects.
There were too many different characters introduced too quickly for me to keep track of. Almost none of them had enough page time for me to get to know them. The vast majority of them were nasty, and only out for themselves, just wanting to spend their time drugged, drunk and having sex. Every single character seems to look down on “the peasants”, and even Shine, who does consider them to some extent, seems to see them mostly as a mass of nameless servants.
The plot itself seemed to take forever to get going, it wasn’t until three quarters of the way through that any progress was made. Unfortunately, the finding out what happened to Shine’s mother plotline was postponed until (I assume) the next book.
Shine did finally permit herself to leave at the end of the book, which redeemed it a little. But the constant misery and powerlessness of the only characters I cared about meant that I didn’t enjoy this book. However, if you prefer your magical worlds darker, you may enjoy this book.
I was given a free copy of this book, my opinions are my own.
May 2, 2020
I felt like there was so much going on with this book, but at the same time, nothing was really happening. I got to around 40% and nothing big really happened to make it exciting. I was drawn into this book because the synopsis says telepathic cat and spy and drama, but I really didn’t see like any of it. The cat was a cool idea, but literally nothing happened with it like it ran away for a good amount of the beginning.
I’m all for being sexually free and all, but I feel like the way the people in this book handle it are just... idk it was a lot. Like clearly, Shadow was incredibly uncomfortable and yet not much was done to accommodate him in terms of talking about his “prick”. And also, there was a scene where I DNF’ed at 50% because I felt like the whole plot was just dragging.
I received a copy from Rebellion via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
I’m all for being sexually free and all, but I feel like the way the people in this book handle it are just... idk it was a lot. Like clearly, Shadow was incredibly uncomfortable and yet not much was done to accommodate him in terms of talking about his “prick”. And also, there was a scene where I DNF’ed at 50% because I felt like the whole plot was just dragging.
I received a copy from Rebellion via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
August 17, 2020
Shadow in the empire of light by Jane Routley is a family drama, fantasy novel with magical elements of magic and spirits. Since the start of the book there is not direction and only incidents upon incidents have been bombarded on the reader.
Inspite of providing with the family chart in the start of the book, the characters in the story and their relationships with eachother are quite not clearly potrayed. The read the entire book and it was kinda ok. I did not enjoy it much.
Inspite of providing with the family chart in the start of the book, the characters in the story and their relationships with eachother are quite not clearly potrayed. The read the entire book and it was kinda ok. I did not enjoy it much.
November 9, 2020
Unpopular opinion: this was clumsy and weird and so not what I had expected.
I was looking forward to an empowering book about an underdog and a telepathic cat. What I got was a YA novel with characters that don't show any character development, a telepathic cat as a world building device, lots of weird words and phrases, a clumsy attempt at racial issues, and a lot of (pretend) sex scenes.
I was looking forward to an empowering book about an underdog and a telepathic cat. What I got was a YA novel with characters that don't show any character development, a telepathic cat as a world building device, lots of weird words and phrases, a clumsy attempt at racial issues, and a lot of (pretend) sex scenes.
August 4, 2020
Content warnings:
I like house party mysteries, heroines who are disadvantaged but plucky, and fantasy matriarchal societies, so I should’ve liked this book. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work for me, largely due to the amount of content warnings.
The worldbuilding is interesting, once you get enough information about it. The empire where the book is set is a matriarchal society where a person’s standing is very much based on whether you’re born with magic, and females are by default more powerful mages than men. Those without magic are immediately lesser and subject to the whims of their more magically capable family. It’s so bad that Shine actually refers to some of her non-magical relatives as “Cousin Two” and “Auntie Four” – apparently they’re not even worthy of names. Supposedly there are laws in place to protect the non-magical from the worst of the abuses, but, from what we see in the book, I have a lot of doubts about whether those were actually enforced. Men are basically studs – at one point, one of Shine’s cousins confesses that he was essentially by another cousin, and Shine’s only advice is to stand up to her bullying (?!?!). I really found myself struggling to like Shine, which was rough, since the book is told from her first person POV. While I think she generally meant well, she was also very much a product of her upbringing in a way that was very reminiscent of the British empire – she doesn’t seem to see Shadow, a pale-skinned foreigner (commonly called “ghosts” by Shine’s people) who ends up literally hiding under her bed, as fully human, constantly steamrolls over his boundaries (she even spies on him while he’s changing even after he tells her he’s uncomfortable with that because she wants to see if he’s equipped the same as a “regular” man), and despite being half-foreign herself, sees foreigners as something like uneducated savages. While she does grow as the book continues, I was still deeply uncomfortable with the framing and never felt like it was fully interrogated. There’s no pushback and no justice for the wronged family members.
Pretty much all the characters are horrible people. Shine’s father was a foreigner, so Shine’s paler than the rest of her family, and they never let her forget that or that she doesn’t have magic. Even the cousins that are vaguely nice to her, Lucient and Klea, seem only to do it to get her to do things for them. The amount of abuse (physical, emotional and sexual) among the family members was extremely uncomfortable for me. Pretty much the only character I liked was Katti, Shine’s psychic cat, but there’s not enough of her and she doesn’t really serve any purpose in the story. By the end of the book, while we’re told Katti is unusual, we’re not really told why or given much backstory for her. I mean, I kept waiting for someone to explain why Shine, who’s supposedly non-magical, is psychically connected to a giant cat, but no one else seemed concerned with that. I mean, I also liked Shadow, the “ghost” foreigner, but due to his initial issues communicating with Shine and her general inability to see him as a person, we don’t get too much of him as a real character, either.
My other issue was that the plot was a complete muddle. Shine is constantly being pulled between running the household despite the ridiculous demands of her visiting relatives, trying to hide the “ghost,” and solving a mystery for her cousin. I kept expecting each of these plot lines to be woven together (the rebels, the mooncat, the missing letter, the presence of the ghost, the murder, etc) but in the end, they didn’t. It was a bit like expecting a soup (where all the elements had cooked together and melded) and ending up with a salad.
Overall, while the overall premise and worldbuilding had promise, the execution didn’t work for me.
I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
I like house party mysteries, heroines who are disadvantaged but plucky, and fantasy matriarchal societies, so I should’ve liked this book. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work for me, largely due to the amount of content warnings.
“It was odd to be the strong one here. Mages have the power, not mundanes. Odd to be the one giving help instead of receiving it.”
The worldbuilding is interesting, once you get enough information about it. The empire where the book is set is a matriarchal society where a person’s standing is very much based on whether you’re born with magic, and females are by default more powerful mages than men. Those without magic are immediately lesser and subject to the whims of their more magically capable family. It’s so bad that Shine actually refers to some of her non-magical relatives as “Cousin Two” and “Auntie Four” – apparently they’re not even worthy of names. Supposedly there are laws in place to protect the non-magical from the worst of the abuses, but, from what we see in the book, I have a lot of doubts about whether those were actually enforced. Men are basically studs – at one point, one of Shine’s cousins confesses that he was essentially by another cousin, and Shine’s only advice is to stand up to her bullying (?!?!). I really found myself struggling to like Shine, which was rough, since the book is told from her first person POV. While I think she generally meant well, she was also very much a product of her upbringing in a way that was very reminiscent of the British empire – she doesn’t seem to see Shadow, a pale-skinned foreigner (commonly called “ghosts” by Shine’s people) who ends up literally hiding under her bed, as fully human, constantly steamrolls over his boundaries (she even spies on him while he’s changing even after he tells her he’s uncomfortable with that because she wants to see if he’s equipped the same as a “regular” man), and despite being half-foreign herself, sees foreigners as something like uneducated savages. While she does grow as the book continues, I was still deeply uncomfortable with the framing and never felt like it was fully interrogated. There’s no pushback and no justice for the wronged family members.
“So I was in an uncomfortable place where someone I liked had done something I deeply disapproved of for reasons I understood. What stance should I take? How did I react? Was it even for me to judge?”
Pretty much all the characters are horrible people. Shine’s father was a foreigner, so Shine’s paler than the rest of her family, and they never let her forget that or that she doesn’t have magic. Even the cousins that are vaguely nice to her, Lucient and Klea, seem only to do it to get her to do things for them. The amount of abuse (physical, emotional and sexual) among the family members was extremely uncomfortable for me. Pretty much the only character I liked was Katti, Shine’s psychic cat, but there’s not enough of her and she doesn’t really serve any purpose in the story. By the end of the book, while we’re told Katti is unusual, we’re not really told why or given much backstory for her. I mean, I kept waiting for someone to explain why Shine, who’s supposedly non-magical, is psychically connected to a giant cat, but no one else seemed concerned with that. I mean, I also liked Shadow, the “ghost” foreigner, but due to his initial issues communicating with Shine and her general inability to see him as a person, we don’t get too much of him as a real character, either.
My other issue was that the plot was a complete muddle. Shine is constantly being pulled between running the household despite the ridiculous demands of her visiting relatives, trying to hide the “ghost,” and solving a mystery for her cousin. I kept expecting each of these plot lines to be woven together (the rebels, the mooncat, the missing letter, the presence of the ghost, the murder, etc) but in the end, they didn’t. It was a bit like expecting a soup (where all the elements had cooked together and melded) and ending up with a salad.
Overall, while the overall premise and worldbuilding had promise, the execution didn’t work for me.
I received an advance review copy of this book from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
August 10, 2020
This review and more at I Wish I Owned A Bookstore
Thank you to NetGalley and Rebellion Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book has a telepathic cat therefore it is awesome - ‘nuff said!
Thanks for reading - follow me on instagram...
OK just kidding here’s my review:
I enjoyed this book but it definitely didn’t blow me away. It was slow to start as we’re getting to know all the characters, but it picked up about halfway and the plot ended up being quite fun. There’s a lot of family members who all have amazing light-themed names like Illuminant, Sparklea, and Splendance. I found myself referring to the family tree at the beginning of the book pretty often. The family drama gets pretty ridiculous, but there are some interesting side characters that I enjoyed.
I thought the world-building was pretty unique. Routley has created a matriarchal society ruled by female mages, where the mundane (non-magical) peasants are basically slaves. Their whole culture revolves around getting pregnant although they are not particularly fertile, so there are lots of sexual references (and scenes, as well as reference to sexual abuse) including sex between first cousins. Yep. They’re all doing it. With their cousins. All the time. Bit weird, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway, our main character Shine is a mundane, from a noble family, so while she is above the servants, she is not treated well by the family, most of whom are greedy, power-hungry a-holes. On top of being a mundane, Shine’s father was a Ghost, one of the foreign Outlanders, whose society more closely resembles modern Western society. As a result, Shine has paler skin compared to her family, and tries to darken it with cosmetics, to try and fit in. Her mother disappeared when she was a baby, and so she has been relegated to care for the family’s country estate with her wayward aunt (exiled for her radical political views on mundane rights). Shine wants to travel the world, or attend university, but with no money of her own and her mother gone, she is at the mercy of her money-grabbing family. She tries to do the right thing, but feels trapped by her situation.
The plot intrigued me, with a stowaway illegal ghost, a stolen letter, a spy, and a murder all jumbled in with the family’s ambitious plots and grudges. Shine gets mixed in with it all, which ends up being pretty dangerous for her as she has no way to defend herself against the crazy mages, other than getting friendly mages to protect her. It’s not an action-packed book but there’s a few mage fights, and I was amazed at how often they end up hiding under the bed!
The writing style is quite different as well. I think the almost posh nature of the language used really suits the setting. The insults they use, like 'slime rat' and 'ride rat' are super cute.
I liked Shine, and even a couple of the mages turned out to be all right. There’s a few other interesting side characters who I’d like to see again, and I’m keen to see what Shine’s next adventure will be.
Happy reading!
Thank you to NetGalley and Rebellion Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.
This book has a telepathic cat therefore it is awesome - ‘nuff said!
Thanks for reading - follow me on instagram...
OK just kidding here’s my review:
I enjoyed this book but it definitely didn’t blow me away. It was slow to start as we’re getting to know all the characters, but it picked up about halfway and the plot ended up being quite fun. There’s a lot of family members who all have amazing light-themed names like Illuminant, Sparklea, and Splendance. I found myself referring to the family tree at the beginning of the book pretty often. The family drama gets pretty ridiculous, but there are some interesting side characters that I enjoyed.
I thought the world-building was pretty unique. Routley has created a matriarchal society ruled by female mages, where the mundane (non-magical) peasants are basically slaves. Their whole culture revolves around getting pregnant although they are not particularly fertile, so there are lots of sexual references (and scenes, as well as reference to sexual abuse) including sex between first cousins. Yep. They’re all doing it. With their cousins. All the time. Bit weird, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway, our main character Shine is a mundane, from a noble family, so while she is above the servants, she is not treated well by the family, most of whom are greedy, power-hungry a-holes. On top of being a mundane, Shine’s father was a Ghost, one of the foreign Outlanders, whose society more closely resembles modern Western society. As a result, Shine has paler skin compared to her family, and tries to darken it with cosmetics, to try and fit in. Her mother disappeared when she was a baby, and so she has been relegated to care for the family’s country estate with her wayward aunt (exiled for her radical political views on mundane rights). Shine wants to travel the world, or attend university, but with no money of her own and her mother gone, she is at the mercy of her money-grabbing family. She tries to do the right thing, but feels trapped by her situation.
The plot intrigued me, with a stowaway illegal ghost, a stolen letter, a spy, and a murder all jumbled in with the family’s ambitious plots and grudges. Shine gets mixed in with it all, which ends up being pretty dangerous for her as she has no way to defend herself against the crazy mages, other than getting friendly mages to protect her. It’s not an action-packed book but there’s a few mage fights, and I was amazed at how often they end up hiding under the bed!
The writing style is quite different as well. I think the almost posh nature of the language used really suits the setting. The insults they use, like 'slime rat' and 'ride rat' are super cute.
I liked Shine, and even a couple of the mages turned out to be all right. There’s a few other interesting side characters who I’d like to see again, and I’m keen to see what Shine’s next adventure will be.
Happy reading!
January 22, 2021
3 stars
You can read all of my reviews at Nerd Girl Loves Books.
Meh. This an ok fantasy. It's an easy read, but the story doesn't really go anywhere. It's listed as a YA Fantasy and while the story is as simplistic as a YA book, I think the inclusion of a lot of discussion about sex takes it out of that category. Perhaps if you're talking about college-age YA, then perhaps.
Shine is a mundane orphan without any magical power in a royal family full of mages. Because she has no magical ability she is barely tolerated by the family and left to run the family's country estate. She lives on the estate with the mundane aunt that helped raise her and a telepathic cat. When the entire family descends on the estate for the annual Fertility Festival, all hell breaks loose. There is plenty of family drama, fights, a secret letter, a fugitive from another land, and eventually a murder.
There is almost no worldbuilding in the book, so I didn't have any idea why the world was set up the way it was. There were a few allusions to a war between mundanes and mages that resulted in a pact between the two that offered protection for the mundanes, but no specifics were given. There was also no full explanation as to how the mages got their power, or what powers they had other than being able to fly and move people around. Shine's character was developed a little bit and I liked her, but she didn't have much of an arc throughout the book. There was almost no character development of any of the minor characters, although several of them were fun to read. Most of them were very one-note and the usual stereotypes.
The book was fun and interesting to read, but it seemed to meander and didn't really have much of a point. It leapt from one drama to another. The overarching storyline of Shine trying to help a fugitive get back to his homeland could have been so much more interesting if it had been developed better. The ending was abrupt and completely underwhelming. I'm not sure if this is the first book in a series or not, but if it isn't, then the ending is even more disappointing than I thought.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley and Rebellion. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.
You can read all of my reviews at Nerd Girl Loves Books.
Meh. This an ok fantasy. It's an easy read, but the story doesn't really go anywhere. It's listed as a YA Fantasy and while the story is as simplistic as a YA book, I think the inclusion of a lot of discussion about sex takes it out of that category. Perhaps if you're talking about college-age YA, then perhaps.
Shine is a mundane orphan without any magical power in a royal family full of mages. Because she has no magical ability she is barely tolerated by the family and left to run the family's country estate. She lives on the estate with the mundane aunt that helped raise her and a telepathic cat. When the entire family descends on the estate for the annual Fertility Festival, all hell breaks loose. There is plenty of family drama, fights, a secret letter, a fugitive from another land, and eventually a murder.
There is almost no worldbuilding in the book, so I didn't have any idea why the world was set up the way it was. There were a few allusions to a war between mundanes and mages that resulted in a pact between the two that offered protection for the mundanes, but no specifics were given. There was also no full explanation as to how the mages got their power, or what powers they had other than being able to fly and move people around. Shine's character was developed a little bit and I liked her, but she didn't have much of an arc throughout the book. There was almost no character development of any of the minor characters, although several of them were fun to read. Most of them were very one-note and the usual stereotypes.
The book was fun and interesting to read, but it seemed to meander and didn't really have much of a point. It leapt from one drama to another. The overarching storyline of Shine trying to help a fugitive get back to his homeland could have been so much more interesting if it had been developed better. The ending was abrupt and completely underwhelming. I'm not sure if this is the first book in a series or not, but if it isn't, then the ending is even more disappointing than I thought.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from NetGalley and Rebellion. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.
July 23, 2020
I went into this book thinking thats it's a cool YA fantasy but it turned out to be more of a family drama set in a fantastical land of mages and mundanes and matriarchs and crystal smuggling. Don't get me wrong, I liked the premise. I liked what the author was trying to do here. The xenophobia, homophobia, illegal 'aliens' - these are pretty much the same as in the real world. But the plot was way too convoluted for my liking. Too many characters with ridiculous names made it difficult for me to remember them, let alone relate to them. Seventy five percent of the book was just meandering around politics, family relations and Shine grumbling about everything and everyone, before the 'murder' actually occurs. Shine doesn't grow as a character at all. She lacks depth. All she does is complain and doesn't try to stand up against the wrongs being done to her and hers.
That being said, a lot of issues were covered well. Was this book a satire? I hope so. The narration was sharp and witty. I loved Katti and the mysterious mooncats. Sirra Shadow was an interesting guy. I would have liked more scenes with these characters.
Thank you Netgalley for the e-ARC.
That being said, a lot of issues were covered well. Was this book a satire? I hope so. The narration was sharp and witty. I loved Katti and the mysterious mooncats. Sirra Shadow was an interesting guy. I would have liked more scenes with these characters.
Thank you Netgalley for the e-ARC.
March 4, 2024
Loved the art nouveau cover, and the other things the cover promised including a telepathic bobcat, along with Magic, Murder, Mayhem, and complicated dynamics among the large family dynasty.
Sadly it did not deliver, even with all these seemingly fantastical elements added to the premise: magic mages with crystals in the middle of their heads, the Mooncats (shape shifters that turn to human sized cats and glow with a pale light in the full moon!), the matriarchal, sex positive society premise…
The world building was good in theory, but the execution just couldn’t support the overly ambitious structure here.
For starters the author takes two concepts and inverts them: she takes a matriarchal society and tries to make it sex positive and she creates a world in the Empire of Light where everyone is dark skinned and the “othering” of foreigners are the pale skinned neighbors of the bordering society, nicknamed Ghosts and rarely seen in the Empire of Light as they are outlawed. (Read immigration issues.)
The problems abound. First off the matriarchal twist accomplishes little because the women are just as small minded and power hungry as patriarchal men. In this case those in charge are power hungry mages who enforce a strict caste system demeaning the peasant workers (yes they use the word peasant), sexually exploiting the men and those mundanes (anyone without magical powers). Coercion and forced sex among cousins is referenced often, very much in the style of the Tudors. Don’t see much point in changing the gender if it changes literally nothing else in the restrictive and oppressive society and sexual harassment and abuse is still rampant. Just made me sad honestly, which is a shame because I was enjoying the sex positivity in the early few pages of this book.
Then there’s the title - Shadow is the name of the fugitive spy who has to hide under beds, and in closets, and secret chambers… except he’s not really a spy, he’s a diplomat on an investigation that goes horribly awry and winds up the only surviving member of his party.
Except he’s NOT the main character, so not sure why his name is on the cover. He’s discovered in a crystal mine on the outskirts of the kingdom. Shadow has been investigating Crystal smuggling. He’s called in to tend to one of the injured miners because Shadow has healing abilities. While tending to the sick man. Shadow and his team inadvertently wind up interrupting the culprits in the midst of stealing crystal, and all his colleagues are killed.
He’s discovered later by a military man surveying the wreckage and put in the care of Bright, a young army man estranged from his family for having a gay lover, Stefan Graceson, who joined the same military unit with Bright when they ran away from home.
Everyone in the mage family has names relating to light. Thank goodness there’s a family tree on the first pages, I referred to it often. In a way that’s a shame. If the character development had been more robust it would have been easier to keep everyone clear and separate. As it was many of the personalities were equally terrible and it was hard to tell everyone apart.
Well we haven’t even gotten to our main protagonist yet. Some feminist I am, telling you all about the menfolk first. But honestly, with a name like Shine this girl is DULL. Everything happens TO her. And she winds up being errand girl and whipping girl (in some cases literally) for her families whims and furies and melodrama. This got real old real fast. I was promised strong women. I got b*tches and the put upon victims forced to take their orders begrudgingly, but no strong women and not a very clever heroine. Shine has several tasks at play in this novel, many of them competing interests or competing for her time: keep the family estate running to protect the peasants and turn a profit for a thankless family with high demands; protect Bright from her families knowing he made a visit because they are still violently furious with him for not helping continue the family breeding and instead taking a male lover and being exclusively faithful to him; protect Shadow and hide him from the rest of the family during the annual Blessings weekend (a time to procreate like rabbits for the good of increasing the family line!); help her estranged cousin Klea (Sparklea) retrieve a highly sensitive letter that will be used to blackmail her from cousin Toy (Chatoyant); care for her aunt Effa (Effulgentia) who’s essentially her foster mother because Effa had a nervous breakdown when her son Bright was beaten and exiled from the family; make sure the family guests have everything they need during the big weekend and that the Blessings festival goes smoothly; have sex with cousins at their whim because you know, gotta keep the bloodline pure (even though Shine doesn’t want to have babies yet, so much for sexual independence and right to rule your own body even in this matriarchal society…). I think that’s it but there’s way more happening here with family politics and rivalries and attractions and jealousies. Every few minutes Shine is pulled in a new direction with another family demand to attend to or try to diplomatically deflect. She doesn’t have any agency here and she barely remembers one quest before she gets distracted by chores or sex or flirtations. Its exhausting for the reader that’s for sure, and for plot momentum and / or character development. There was far too little of Katti the telepathic cat and NO explanation for how Shine who has no magic yet is able to communicate with Katti or how/when it happened or how rare this is as no one else in the household seems to have an animal familiar. And Katti doesn’t serve to add anything to the plot! So annoying.
What’s most interesting is how blind Shine is to the deep and growing friendship she has with Shadow, and how it’s more real than any of the sexual relationships or flirtations she has inside or out of her family. And it’s so disrespectful that she keeps bringing up sexual innuendo in front of Shadow when he’s clearly so modest - think this is meant to be a running joke but again, this is just sexual harassment under matriarchal instead of patriarchal guises so what’s the point?!
The world building here was so intriguing, just sad it was populated with so many unlikeable people. Also the whole book was devoted to family drama and the murder and crystal smuggling and blackmail letter all tied up sloppily. We never even get to Shadow and Shine embarking on their quest to find Shine’s mother and father. (Her mother was a mage who had an affair with a Ghost and Shine is mixed race and constantly getting verbally abused by her family for it. Her parents ran off when she was a year old to return to the Ghost kingdom fully intending to return to care for Shine, but they never did and Aunt Eff wound up raising for while day after day they awaited for her parents… and eventually just presumed them dead. Shine has no inheritance as a result and never developed her magical powers, hence her poverty stricken status in the family.) More questions than answers at the end of the book, which was published in 2020. It seems like it was set up to be a series but no book two on the horizon yet… conflicted as I’m not sure I’d be compelled to continue on anyhow. This could have been so much more. Klea’s story was especially heartbreaking and should have come with trigger warnings. I think all the other weak points could have been forgiven or overlooked in this book but what Routley did with Klea was just so dark and sad… especially as she seemed to be one of the few sane ones and one of the bright spots (haha) in an otherwise very dysfunctional family.
I also have the Mage Heart series of my bookshelf. I was eager to read that fantasy trilogy but given this lackluster (haha) experience I’m not nearly as eager at this point. Routley and I have very different definitions of strong women.
Sadly it did not deliver, even with all these seemingly fantastical elements added to the premise: magic mages with crystals in the middle of their heads, the Mooncats (shape shifters that turn to human sized cats and glow with a pale light in the full moon!), the matriarchal, sex positive society premise…
The world building was good in theory, but the execution just couldn’t support the overly ambitious structure here.
For starters the author takes two concepts and inverts them: she takes a matriarchal society and tries to make it sex positive and she creates a world in the Empire of Light where everyone is dark skinned and the “othering” of foreigners are the pale skinned neighbors of the bordering society, nicknamed Ghosts and rarely seen in the Empire of Light as they are outlawed. (Read immigration issues.)
The problems abound. First off the matriarchal twist accomplishes little because the women are just as small minded and power hungry as patriarchal men. In this case those in charge are power hungry mages who enforce a strict caste system demeaning the peasant workers (yes they use the word peasant), sexually exploiting the men and those mundanes (anyone without magical powers). Coercion and forced sex among cousins is referenced often, very much in the style of the Tudors. Don’t see much point in changing the gender if it changes literally nothing else in the restrictive and oppressive society and sexual harassment and abuse is still rampant. Just made me sad honestly, which is a shame because I was enjoying the sex positivity in the early few pages of this book.
Then there’s the title - Shadow is the name of the fugitive spy who has to hide under beds, and in closets, and secret chambers… except he’s not really a spy, he’s a diplomat on an investigation that goes horribly awry and winds up the only surviving member of his party.
Except he’s NOT the main character, so not sure why his name is on the cover. He’s discovered in a crystal mine on the outskirts of the kingdom. Shadow has been investigating Crystal smuggling. He’s called in to tend to one of the injured miners because Shadow has healing abilities. While tending to the sick man. Shadow and his team inadvertently wind up interrupting the culprits in the midst of stealing crystal, and all his colleagues are killed.
He’s discovered later by a military man surveying the wreckage and put in the care of Bright, a young army man estranged from his family for having a gay lover, Stefan Graceson, who joined the same military unit with Bright when they ran away from home.
Everyone in the mage family has names relating to light. Thank goodness there’s a family tree on the first pages, I referred to it often. In a way that’s a shame. If the character development had been more robust it would have been easier to keep everyone clear and separate. As it was many of the personalities were equally terrible and it was hard to tell everyone apart.
Well we haven’t even gotten to our main protagonist yet. Some feminist I am, telling you all about the menfolk first. But honestly, with a name like Shine this girl is DULL. Everything happens TO her. And she winds up being errand girl and whipping girl (in some cases literally) for her families whims and furies and melodrama. This got real old real fast. I was promised strong women. I got b*tches and the put upon victims forced to take their orders begrudgingly, but no strong women and not a very clever heroine. Shine has several tasks at play in this novel, many of them competing interests or competing for her time: keep the family estate running to protect the peasants and turn a profit for a thankless family with high demands; protect Bright from her families knowing he made a visit because they are still violently furious with him for not helping continue the family breeding and instead taking a male lover and being exclusively faithful to him; protect Shadow and hide him from the rest of the family during the annual Blessings weekend (a time to procreate like rabbits for the good of increasing the family line!); help her estranged cousin Klea (Sparklea) retrieve a highly sensitive letter that will be used to blackmail her from cousin Toy (Chatoyant); care for her aunt Effa (Effulgentia) who’s essentially her foster mother because Effa had a nervous breakdown when her son Bright was beaten and exiled from the family; make sure the family guests have everything they need during the big weekend and that the Blessings festival goes smoothly; have sex with cousins at their whim because you know, gotta keep the bloodline pure (even though Shine doesn’t want to have babies yet, so much for sexual independence and right to rule your own body even in this matriarchal society…). I think that’s it but there’s way more happening here with family politics and rivalries and attractions and jealousies. Every few minutes Shine is pulled in a new direction with another family demand to attend to or try to diplomatically deflect. She doesn’t have any agency here and she barely remembers one quest before she gets distracted by chores or sex or flirtations. Its exhausting for the reader that’s for sure, and for plot momentum and / or character development. There was far too little of Katti the telepathic cat and NO explanation for how Shine who has no magic yet is able to communicate with Katti or how/when it happened or how rare this is as no one else in the household seems to have an animal familiar. And Katti doesn’t serve to add anything to the plot! So annoying.
What’s most interesting is how blind Shine is to the deep and growing friendship she has with Shadow, and how it’s more real than any of the sexual relationships or flirtations she has inside or out of her family. And it’s so disrespectful that she keeps bringing up sexual innuendo in front of Shadow when he’s clearly so modest - think this is meant to be a running joke but again, this is just sexual harassment under matriarchal instead of patriarchal guises so what’s the point?!
The world building here was so intriguing, just sad it was populated with so many unlikeable people. Also the whole book was devoted to family drama and the murder and crystal smuggling and blackmail letter all tied up sloppily. We never even get to Shadow and Shine embarking on their quest to find Shine’s mother and father. (Her mother was a mage who had an affair with a Ghost and Shine is mixed race and constantly getting verbally abused by her family for it. Her parents ran off when she was a year old to return to the Ghost kingdom fully intending to return to care for Shine, but they never did and Aunt Eff wound up raising for while day after day they awaited for her parents… and eventually just presumed them dead. Shine has no inheritance as a result and never developed her magical powers, hence her poverty stricken status in the family.) More questions than answers at the end of the book, which was published in 2020. It seems like it was set up to be a series but no book two on the horizon yet… conflicted as I’m not sure I’d be compelled to continue on anyhow. This could have been so much more. Klea’s story was especially heartbreaking and should have come with trigger warnings. I think all the other weak points could have been forgiven or overlooked in this book but what Routley did with Klea was just so dark and sad… especially as she seemed to be one of the few sane ones and one of the bright spots (haha) in an otherwise very dysfunctional family.
I also have the Mage Heart series of my bookshelf. I was eager to read that fantasy trilogy but given this lackluster (haha) experience I’m not nearly as eager at this point. Routley and I have very different definitions of strong women.
August 5, 2020
It has been a long time since I've last read anything by Routley - I may have been a freshman in high school, barely, the last time that I picked up her books. But, I remember immediately counting her in with my favorite fantasy authors, so I have long kept my eye out for anything new from her, so needless to say, I was so pleased to see this one pop onto my radar! Plus, I was totally in the mood for a good fantasy!
And I am so glad that I dove right into this one! I really had a lot of fun reading this! Our narrator, Shine, is a mere mortal (though she can telepathically communicate with her cat!) in an illustrious family of mages - including the Empress herself. Orphaned and frustrated with her uncertain place in their family, the book takes place over the annual Blessings Festival - which becomes filled with intrigues, secrets, magic, trysts and plenty of plotting. The world-building here feels both seamless and sturdy (I certainly think that this is a strong enough foundation for more books to be set here!). There's humor, excitement, and some interesting societal ideas, too. It really feels like a great start to a new series- though this doesn't end on a cliffhanger. Shine is sympathetic and the book, though there are some darker plot points, is on the whole a fast and fun read. I will definitely be eagerly awaiting more!!
And I am so glad that I dove right into this one! I really had a lot of fun reading this! Our narrator, Shine, is a mere mortal (though she can telepathically communicate with her cat!) in an illustrious family of mages - including the Empress herself. Orphaned and frustrated with her uncertain place in their family, the book takes place over the annual Blessings Festival - which becomes filled with intrigues, secrets, magic, trysts and plenty of plotting. The world-building here feels both seamless and sturdy (I certainly think that this is a strong enough foundation for more books to be set here!). There's humor, excitement, and some interesting societal ideas, too. It really feels like a great start to a new series- though this doesn't end on a cliffhanger. Shine is sympathetic and the book, though there are some darker plot points, is on the whole a fast and fun read. I will definitely be eagerly awaiting more!!
June 17, 2020
I was quite looking forward to this one. It sounded interesting and, amusingly, had a picture of a cat on the front just like my last read: Pawsitively Swindled.
However, I will be perfectly honest with you already here at the start: I was rather disappointed and could not find the motivation to finish it. I don’t want to tear this book to shreds so I will keep my observances down to a few points.
Firstly, there was so much talk about sex. I mean maybe I should have expected it a little as the description mentions a Fertility Festival, but I didn’t think that would mean people were simply allowed to have sex with whomever they pleased. Now, just so you know, this isn’t all explained in explicit details, but from the 30% that I read, sex is frequently mentioned or observed.
Secondly, the plot was rather weak. There seemed to be too many other things that happened or were spoked about that bogged down the driving force that the plot could have had.
Thirdly, this was an intriguing world. I am sad it was executed the way it was.
However, I will be perfectly honest with you already here at the start: I was rather disappointed and could not find the motivation to finish it. I don’t want to tear this book to shreds so I will keep my observances down to a few points.
Firstly, there was so much talk about sex. I mean maybe I should have expected it a little as the description mentions a Fertility Festival, but I didn’t think that would mean people were simply allowed to have sex with whomever they pleased. Now, just so you know, this isn’t all explained in explicit details, but from the 30% that I read, sex is frequently mentioned or observed.
Secondly, the plot was rather weak. There seemed to be too many other things that happened or were spoked about that bogged down the driving force that the plot could have had.
Thirdly, this was an intriguing world. I am sad it was executed the way it was.
August 1, 2020
I received an ARC of SHADOW IN THE EMPIRE OF LIGHT thanks to the publisher through NetGalley.
The idea of murder and a telepathic cat caught my interest but after reading the first 18% I was checked out. The concept of the book was nothing like the summary had promised, at least not in what I read. On top of that it gave me a really creepy feeling, like skin crawly nose scrunched feeling.
A fundamental part of the world building is essentially breeding to the point where those without magic are literally a number. While there are times when breeding stories are interesting, this one was not a breeding for survival but just to make a larger family. It didn’t make any sense.
I was really hoping for a story with magical animals and a murder mystery. But that isn’t this book.
Did not finish sadly. I had already preorder a physical copy however and will attempt again when it arrives.
The idea of murder and a telepathic cat caught my interest but after reading the first 18% I was checked out. The concept of the book was nothing like the summary had promised, at least not in what I read. On top of that it gave me a really creepy feeling, like skin crawly nose scrunched feeling.
A fundamental part of the world building is essentially breeding to the point where those without magic are literally a number. While there are times when breeding stories are interesting, this one was not a breeding for survival but just to make a larger family. It didn’t make any sense.
I was really hoping for a story with magical animals and a murder mystery. But that isn’t this book.
Did not finish sadly. I had already preorder a physical copy however and will attempt again when it arrives.
August 5, 2020
Spoilers/Trigger Warning
The book was an interesting read as it was set in a magical world where female mages were in power. The plot, while open-ended, was still interesting as you read through family dynamics and the magical politics surrounding the family. However, the book' used themes of rape, incest, and racism without any trigger warning, and it didn't feel necessary to involve those themes as casually as it did at all. The book, with an interesting premise, rushed through serious topics and made it seem overall cheap.
The book was an interesting read as it was set in a magical world where female mages were in power. The plot, while open-ended, was still interesting as you read through family dynamics and the magical politics surrounding the family. However, the book' used themes of rape, incest, and racism without any trigger warning, and it didn't feel necessary to involve those themes as casually as it did at all. The book, with an interesting premise, rushed through serious topics and made it seem overall cheap.
April 30, 2020
So much weird crap in this book. Getting high and Pretending have sex with her cousin (or was it uncle?)When I say pretending I mean he’s sitting in a chair telling her about a book he recently book. while she’s uncontrollably giggling (because she’s high) as a maid bounces her on the bed, so passers by think they are getting it on. I closed the book at 19% when she entered the bathhouse and walked in on a threesome. Not a book for me. More detailed review to come.
May 8, 2020
This was not what I expected at all. Sadly this book did not work for me. There was too much incest and not enough of a good story building. There were also various storylines involving rape and I wish there was a trigger warning. This book just did not sit well with me and I couldn’t find any of the characters besides the telepathic cat likable.
September 1, 2020
I gave this book a try as the plot sounded interesting. However, I was unable to invest in the novel as the characters and plot were not well developed or introduced. Additionally, there were grammatical errors that interrupted my desire to continue reading.
maybe-read
July 17, 2020TELEPATHIC CAT!!
Say no more.
Say no more.
September 24, 2020
6% DNF not for me
August 27, 2020
Full Review at Sam's Beach Reads.
Shine lives in a society that is run by strong female mages in an imperialistic society. There are men who are also mages, but they are not as strong and are generally viewed as breeders (quote: “Men! They seem to have nothing better to do than hang around making a nuisance of themselves”). If you do not have magic, you are considered lesser, and if you are born into a magical family with no magic, you are only a handful of steps above the peasantry and are still expected to help the magical people in your family.
Shine is one of those people, and she runs the “family farm,” as it were, for her family, which is a not-so-distant branch of the imperial family. Splendance is the matriarch, whose role is the bless the fields and keep the other female mages in line and producing other female mages for the line. The various branches of the family are all conspiring against one another, and Shine only has a handful of allies in this pit of vipers.
When her favorite cousin rescues a “ghost” from the mines on their borders (in Shine’s society, everyone is POC, and their neighboring kingdom is very pale), Shine is roped into protecting him from her family during their Fertility Festival long enough to get the ghost to his embassy in the capital city. This would be a lot easier if there weren’t people at the gathering who need the ghost dead…
What I Loved:
The Worldbuild. While I found Shadow in the Empire of Light lacking in a lot of ways (see below), I think that the “bones,” aka the worldbuild, is pretty stellar. The idea of a matriarchal society where inheritance is based on a magical matrilineal line is intriguing, and a direct mirror to the “common” British imperial style of oldest male child inheritance. Similarly, the “less useful” members of the family (here, nonmagical people) are given allowances by the family office to make sure no one is destitute, but everyone contributes. The outer villages like Shine’s feed (literally and figuratively) into the capital city and produce money for the family office that is metro based. The economy of the empire is largely based on the magic itself, as well as the crystal mines, since the crystals enhance mages’ powers. What is also wild is that the crystals will enhance natural magic in all living things, so you get giant glowing cats and floating mice in forests, which is, in a word, awesome.
The Ghost. In this crazy world of magic and imperialism, the Ghost provides a really interesting foil as an outsider looking in. He is a scholar and type of doctor back home, but was investigating wrongdoing when his party was slaughtered and he was the only survivor. The Ghost is more “prudish” than the other characters from Shine’s world (as in, he doesn’t want to be ogled, have sex with random people, and have his penis talked about…), but he still flirts a little. He was initially portrayed as a bit of a caricature of a foreigner, but as time goes on, the Ghost gains his own voice and shows that Shine’s world is crazy and people “across the desert” are probably more similar to what we consider the real world.
Katti the giant telepathic cat. Like what always seems to happen in books with shoddy human characters, the animal ones stand out all the more. Katti is Shine’s, for lack of a better term, adopted mama cat, since Katti considers Shine her original baby. They are telepathically bonded in a way that Empire of Light doesn’t go into detail, but seems extremely rare for the worldbuild. Katti is just a fun and playful cat that happens to be the size of a St. Bernard (who wouldn’t love that?) and who has very strong opinions about most people Shine encounters. She is, in short, my dream pet.
What I Disliked:
The Rest of the Characters. Shine’s massive family are all detestable (save maybe Bright and his mother). The women are all domineering and rude, the men are all either weak minded or generally shitty people, and none of them learn. The female mages are given carte blanche to be horrible to people and have sex with whomever they want (even though there is a law that is supposed to stop that), and the cousins are expected to interbreed (ew. I could read Tudor English literature if I was into incest). Most of them are drug addicts, and there basically isn’t a single redeeming character amongst the core group. Shine herself isn’t even particularly likeable – she is in many ways a normal teenager/young adult, longing to leave her small town, but in other ways, she is also a crude and unempathetic individual. For example, she continually objectifies the Ghost by looking at his body and discussing his penis, while he continually tells her it makes him uncomfortable. While I get that all of the characters are a product of their society, it makes for rough reading.
The Flawed Execution of a Sex Positive Matriarchal Society. Whoa, that was a mouthful. However, it gets to the heart of it: I grabbed this ARC because I was so excited about a matriarchal society where women are sex positive, there is no slut shaming, and women are not at risk. What I got instead was a complete flip side of what we have now, with the women rulers either being puppets or tyrants, and the men being objectified as much as (if not more) than women are in our society. The women spend a lot of time talking about the men’s pricks and lovers they’ve taken (way to fail the Bechtel test) and it doesn’t even come out as sex positive anymore. Instead, it comes out as women being assholes, which I don’t *think* was the intent, but it ends up hurting rather than helping the image of a strong female society. Furthermore, the “strong women” are not all that strong at all. There is only two strong female bonds in Empire of Light, and both of them are closer to codependent or apologetic than unconditionally loving.
While there are other things I disliked about the book, I think those two high-level items get to the core of why Empire of Light was not the book for me.
Conclusion:
To be honest, I had mixed feelings (more than indicated above) while reading Shadow in the Empire of Light. I was conflicted about the subject matter, because despite disliking almost all of the characters and the overarching plotline, I still devoured this book in a day and a half. I am conflicted in how to categorize this, because even though it is listed as YA, the amount of sex (consensual and non-consensual) and doing drugs that is involved without any sort of concept of consequences makes me wary to give this to a teenager (Although the naming convention is ridiculously YA, as I have to go and edit the name of the book in my review because I assumed it was “and Light”).
I would recommend to people who want to see more books featuring flawed female characters, and who want to see radically different societal structures. I would tell readers to appreciate the scene and background setup, like flying magical animals and interesting religious undertones. I am also aware that other readers may not dislike some of the elements listed above as much as I did.
So, I am giving Empire of Light three stars despite a gut instinct to give it 2, because I do think this has a readership, just not me.
Shine lives in a society that is run by strong female mages in an imperialistic society. There are men who are also mages, but they are not as strong and are generally viewed as breeders (quote: “Men! They seem to have nothing better to do than hang around making a nuisance of themselves”). If you do not have magic, you are considered lesser, and if you are born into a magical family with no magic, you are only a handful of steps above the peasantry and are still expected to help the magical people in your family.
Shine is one of those people, and she runs the “family farm,” as it were, for her family, which is a not-so-distant branch of the imperial family. Splendance is the matriarch, whose role is the bless the fields and keep the other female mages in line and producing other female mages for the line. The various branches of the family are all conspiring against one another, and Shine only has a handful of allies in this pit of vipers.
When her favorite cousin rescues a “ghost” from the mines on their borders (in Shine’s society, everyone is POC, and their neighboring kingdom is very pale), Shine is roped into protecting him from her family during their Fertility Festival long enough to get the ghost to his embassy in the capital city. This would be a lot easier if there weren’t people at the gathering who need the ghost dead…
What I Loved:
The Worldbuild. While I found Shadow in the Empire of Light lacking in a lot of ways (see below), I think that the “bones,” aka the worldbuild, is pretty stellar. The idea of a matriarchal society where inheritance is based on a magical matrilineal line is intriguing, and a direct mirror to the “common” British imperial style of oldest male child inheritance. Similarly, the “less useful” members of the family (here, nonmagical people) are given allowances by the family office to make sure no one is destitute, but everyone contributes. The outer villages like Shine’s feed (literally and figuratively) into the capital city and produce money for the family office that is metro based. The economy of the empire is largely based on the magic itself, as well as the crystal mines, since the crystals enhance mages’ powers. What is also wild is that the crystals will enhance natural magic in all living things, so you get giant glowing cats and floating mice in forests, which is, in a word, awesome.
The Ghost. In this crazy world of magic and imperialism, the Ghost provides a really interesting foil as an outsider looking in. He is a scholar and type of doctor back home, but was investigating wrongdoing when his party was slaughtered and he was the only survivor. The Ghost is more “prudish” than the other characters from Shine’s world (as in, he doesn’t want to be ogled, have sex with random people, and have his penis talked about…), but he still flirts a little. He was initially portrayed as a bit of a caricature of a foreigner, but as time goes on, the Ghost gains his own voice and shows that Shine’s world is crazy and people “across the desert” are probably more similar to what we consider the real world.
Katti the giant telepathic cat. Like what always seems to happen in books with shoddy human characters, the animal ones stand out all the more. Katti is Shine’s, for lack of a better term, adopted mama cat, since Katti considers Shine her original baby. They are telepathically bonded in a way that Empire of Light doesn’t go into detail, but seems extremely rare for the worldbuild. Katti is just a fun and playful cat that happens to be the size of a St. Bernard (who wouldn’t love that?) and who has very strong opinions about most people Shine encounters. She is, in short, my dream pet.
What I Disliked:
The Rest of the Characters. Shine’s massive family are all detestable (save maybe Bright and his mother). The women are all domineering and rude, the men are all either weak minded or generally shitty people, and none of them learn. The female mages are given carte blanche to be horrible to people and have sex with whomever they want (even though there is a law that is supposed to stop that), and the cousins are expected to interbreed (ew. I could read Tudor English literature if I was into incest). Most of them are drug addicts, and there basically isn’t a single redeeming character amongst the core group. Shine herself isn’t even particularly likeable – she is in many ways a normal teenager/young adult, longing to leave her small town, but in other ways, she is also a crude and unempathetic individual. For example, she continually objectifies the Ghost by looking at his body and discussing his penis, while he continually tells her it makes him uncomfortable. While I get that all of the characters are a product of their society, it makes for rough reading.
The Flawed Execution of a Sex Positive Matriarchal Society. Whoa, that was a mouthful. However, it gets to the heart of it: I grabbed this ARC because I was so excited about a matriarchal society where women are sex positive, there is no slut shaming, and women are not at risk. What I got instead was a complete flip side of what we have now, with the women rulers either being puppets or tyrants, and the men being objectified as much as (if not more) than women are in our society. The women spend a lot of time talking about the men’s pricks and lovers they’ve taken (way to fail the Bechtel test) and it doesn’t even come out as sex positive anymore. Instead, it comes out as women being assholes, which I don’t *think* was the intent, but it ends up hurting rather than helping the image of a strong female society. Furthermore, the “strong women” are not all that strong at all. There is only two strong female bonds in Empire of Light, and both of them are closer to codependent or apologetic than unconditionally loving.
While there are other things I disliked about the book, I think those two high-level items get to the core of why Empire of Light was not the book for me.
Conclusion:
To be honest, I had mixed feelings (more than indicated above) while reading Shadow in the Empire of Light. I was conflicted about the subject matter, because despite disliking almost all of the characters and the overarching plotline, I still devoured this book in a day and a half. I am conflicted in how to categorize this, because even though it is listed as YA, the amount of sex (consensual and non-consensual) and doing drugs that is involved without any sort of concept of consequences makes me wary to give this to a teenager (Although the naming convention is ridiculously YA, as I have to go and edit the name of the book in my review because I assumed it was “and Light”).
I would recommend to people who want to see more books featuring flawed female characters, and who want to see radically different societal structures. I would tell readers to appreciate the scene and background setup, like flying magical animals and interesting religious undertones. I am also aware that other readers may not dislike some of the elements listed above as much as I did.
So, I am giving Empire of Light three stars despite a gut instinct to give it 2, because I do think this has a readership, just not me.
October 2, 2020
Okay let’s be honest, I requested this book because it said there was a psychic cat. Sadly, Katty features way too little and there’s no explanation as to why this cat is psychic and only talks to one mundane.
Now onto to the story. The writing isn’t bad at all, there are some really interesting concepts and storylines that could be developed, however there is something - for lack of a better word - basic about the writing. I was slightly surprised when the word “perspicacious” was thrown into a description (love that word by the way).
The storyline you want - Shine and Shadow going off to discover things - isn’t what happens in this book (I’m guessing that’s the next book?). This one centres completely around the family drama happening at Shine’s homestead. There’s whole world of magic and weirdness that you don’t explore.
I say weirdness because in this world Mages rules, and more importantly, female mages rule.(This isn’t the weird part, YAY FEMINISM! ) The weird part is that breeding is at the centre of everyone’s concerns in this world and no one has a problem with interbreeding to make it happen.
Which brings me to : the plethora of trigger warnings this books needs!
A list of necessary trigger warnings : racism, abuse, child abuse, rape, murder, addiction, homophobia, xenophobia and incest.
It’s a lot for a YA book. As was all the sex going on. I’m not a prude by any means, but the objectification of people was kind of gross.
In all honesty, I don’t know who I would recommend this kind of book to? Someone in it for the psychic cat? Maybe out of morbid curiosity? Someone a fan of cheap romance? I don’t know. Despite that, I did need to know how the book ended. And I kinda want to know what happens next. Maybe I’m just hoping Shine will stop being a racist, ignorant wet blanket in the next book.
Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Now onto to the story. The writing isn’t bad at all, there are some really interesting concepts and storylines that could be developed, however there is something - for lack of a better word - basic about the writing. I was slightly surprised when the word “perspicacious” was thrown into a description (love that word by the way).
The storyline you want - Shine and Shadow going off to discover things - isn’t what happens in this book (I’m guessing that’s the next book?). This one centres completely around the family drama happening at Shine’s homestead. There’s whole world of magic and weirdness that you don’t explore.
I say weirdness because in this world Mages rules, and more importantly, female mages rule.(This isn’t the weird part, YAY FEMINISM! ) The weird part is that breeding is at the centre of everyone’s concerns in this world and no one has a problem with interbreeding to make it happen.
Which brings me to : the plethora of trigger warnings this books needs!
A list of necessary trigger warnings : racism, abuse, child abuse, rape, murder, addiction, homophobia, xenophobia and incest.
It’s a lot for a YA book. As was all the sex going on. I’m not a prude by any means, but the objectification of people was kind of gross.
In all honesty, I don’t know who I would recommend this kind of book to? Someone in it for the psychic cat? Maybe out of morbid curiosity? Someone a fan of cheap romance? I don’t know. Despite that, I did need to know how the book ended. And I kinda want to know what happens next. Maybe I’m just hoping Shine will stop being a racist, ignorant wet blanket in the next book.
Thank you to Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
September 23, 2021
What fun.
To have magic is to be a noble of the realm. Born to a mage family, but not showing magic - Shine is a second class member of the family, consigned to overseeing a backwater farm. The farm has a telepathic cat. Because Our Hero is in a magical world, and needs a magic sidekick.
It's the day before The Blessing Of The Fields, when the (magical) Head of the family comes to, well, bless the seeds before they're planted. Along with the Head comes lots of other family members and retainers, and a finer pack of backbiting, power-climbing, all around nasty nobles you could not hope to find. There's a nice one here and there, but you can safely assume that nice = weak.
You can safely assume that Magic = noble = politician = twisty pack of backstabbers.
Also, magic can twist the forest animals, so be careful going out at night. The magic world-building is really well thought out, +1 star if that's your thing.
Before the head shows up, Shine is visited by Bright, an exiled family member. (Yes, everyone is named for some form of radiance. Be Blessed in the Light.) Bright has an unregistered foreigner, probably a spy, in need of help. Shine thinks this is a terrible idea, but turning over the spy to the Head of Family would have even worse political ramifications. Especially since Shine is half-foreign, cue the sniggers & slurs from her family.
It is a time of Blessing the field, the whole family is coming, it's a terrible time to hide a spy. Behold the plot twist. Also, it's a fertility festival, and every is going to, um, be fertile. 95% is happily enthusiastic, and people who aren't interested are expected to wear a long brown robe, concealing and boring. There's one case of dubious consent, and one case of refusal which is countered with drugs. Because sometimes mages don't take no for an answer, even from other mages.
Add some back story, mix in some nasty family politics, and enjoy the story.
Shine runs around with no plan, doesn't really accomplish much. Still, I want to read the sequel.
PS, did you notice a lack of pronouns in this review? The country is a matriarchy. Go ahead and flip any gender-assumptions you had. And enjoy the story.
To have magic is to be a noble of the realm. Born to a mage family, but not showing magic - Shine is a second class member of the family, consigned to overseeing a backwater farm. The farm has a telepathic cat. Because Our Hero is in a magical world, and needs a magic sidekick.
It's the day before The Blessing Of The Fields, when the (magical) Head of the family comes to, well, bless the seeds before they're planted. Along with the Head comes lots of other family members and retainers, and a finer pack of backbiting, power-climbing, all around nasty nobles you could not hope to find. There's a nice one here and there, but you can safely assume that nice = weak.
You can safely assume that Magic = noble = politician = twisty pack of backstabbers.
Also, magic can twist the forest animals, so be careful going out at night. The magic world-building is really well thought out, +1 star if that's your thing.
Before the head shows up, Shine is visited by Bright, an exiled family member. (Yes, everyone is named for some form of radiance. Be Blessed in the Light.) Bright has an unregistered foreigner, probably a spy, in need of help. Shine thinks this is a terrible idea, but turning over the spy to the Head of Family would have even worse political ramifications. Especially since Shine is half-foreign, cue the sniggers & slurs from her family.
It is a time of Blessing the field, the whole family is coming, it's a terrible time to hide a spy. Behold the plot twist. Also, it's a fertility festival, and every is going to, um, be fertile. 95% is happily enthusiastic, and people who aren't interested are expected to wear a long brown robe, concealing and boring. There's one case of dubious consent, and one case of refusal which is countered with drugs. Because sometimes mages don't take no for an answer, even from other mages.
Add some back story, mix in some nasty family politics, and enjoy the story.
Shine runs around with no plan, doesn't really accomplish much. Still, I want to read the sequel.
PS, did you notice a lack of pronouns in this review? The country is a matriarchy. Go ahead and flip any gender-assumptions you had. And enjoy the story.
May 12, 2020
A fun YA fantasy which paints an interesting, magical world and has a terrific protagonist, and then bog sthe whole thing down somewhat by eventually being a bit of a family mystery story. Our lead, Bright, is a mundane magic free daughter of the ruling magical family, and the power structure that exists in a world with very powerful magic users underpin the story. There is a hierarchy where light skinned people (who are foreign) are shunned - and the book is interesting about shade policing, but also I think once the racism issue is raised, the casual use of the slur for white people (ghost) goes somewhat examined in a - cheers for race swopping but not considering the context way. I rather enjoyed not having any idea where it was going, and it feels like with missing parents and missing kids and an entire map of political intrigue to explore that more or less staying in the house was a mistake (I assume these are threads for further books - though that doesn't seem that clear). Oh and did I mention the telepathic cat.
That said for a feminist and sex positive book with interesting themes it never bored me, and in places surprised me with where it was willing to go (there is some quite horrific abuse stuff near the end). Not really my bag, but for the right audience (people who like cats) this will be catnip.
That said for a feminist and sex positive book with interesting themes it never bored me, and in places surprised me with where it was willing to go (there is some quite horrific abuse stuff near the end). Not really my bag, but for the right audience (people who like cats) this will be catnip.
January 17, 2021
This is a weird book. An interesting read but weird.
Shine is a member of the Imperial family but as she hasn’t no magical powers, she’s a mundane and is treated as a second class citizen by her family who all descend on her home for an annual fertility festival. The story reminds of Knives out but with magic mages, wild magical creatures (even a moving tree), a talking cat as well as politics, intrigue, lots of sex (also between cousins) with some female empowerment (the female mages are much stronger and its a matriarchal society) and lgbtq representation. It also has some dark elements of violence, sexual assault and abuse.
It’s a little all over the place and there are far too many characters to keep track of. I also can’t tell if it’s meant to be standalone or a series as it ends on a weird note. It was very easy to read and fast paced but not quite it for me. Lol - it’s just weird. Other people may really enjoy it though. 3.2/5 stars.
Shine is a member of the Imperial family but as she hasn’t no magical powers, she’s a mundane and is treated as a second class citizen by her family who all descend on her home for an annual fertility festival. The story reminds of Knives out but with magic mages, wild magical creatures (even a moving tree), a talking cat as well as politics, intrigue, lots of sex (also between cousins) with some female empowerment (the female mages are much stronger and its a matriarchal society) and lgbtq representation. It also has some dark elements of violence, sexual assault and abuse.
It’s a little all over the place and there are far too many characters to keep track of. I also can’t tell if it’s meant to be standalone or a series as it ends on a weird note. It was very easy to read and fast paced but not quite it for me. Lol - it’s just weird. Other people may really enjoy it though. 3.2/5 stars.
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