Of Shade and Shadow: The Exiled

A Daughter's Ransom #1

by Niamh Schmid, Rebecca Schmid

The Great War is won… so everyone tells her. But even with her brother now king, Astra Verzaer knows the fight is far from over. When her sudden exile finds her alone in the dreary country of Merimeethia with only the aloof Prince Louko for company, she digs deeper in vain attempts to find proof of her suspicions. Yet Astra is not the only one with secrets, and she soon finds herself swallowed up in a sudden uproar over Merimeethia's throne--an uproar which she believes to be caused by the very person she set out to find. But will anybody believe her? Even if they do, will it be too late?

Genres: Fantasy

388 pages, Paperback

Published December 20, 2020

Reviews

[Ellie Lieberman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a masterpiece and I do not say that lightly. It is one of my favorites from what I read this year.

This is a vastly unique story, starting after the great war. These phenomenal authors take you on a journey to piece together the shared and individual pasts of the main characters, as well as the current political landscapes of the kingdoms at large and current individual struggles of the characters themselves, capturing both the smaller and larger stories at play.

I enjoyed that the authors steered clear from typical tropes that makes for easy movement of the plot and rely on far more believable complications rooted in well established characters. It adds to the flow and flavor and allows for a more natural unfolding that really sucks the reader in. I also appreciate the representation of things like mental/emotional abuse and trauma recovery, including the ways others react to it. I have not come across many books to showcase it this well.

There is something so satisfying about the complexity of characters like Louko and women warriors (my favorite kind of characters) like Aster. You can't help but care about them. There are distinct and unique voices for all the characters. Even the secondary characters are interesting and three-dimensional and well crafted. I greatly enjoyed the sarcasm and tentative, developing friendship between the main characters, as well as the relationships with the other characters.

This book has my favorite type of world building. I hold this up as the pinnacle example. I love how, as a reader, you slowly discover about the history and setting, like peeling back layers at the perfect time of reference. It feels full and rich.

The entire book is well-crafted and just utterly brilliant. There needs to be a fandom around these characters and places because I need somewhere to continue fan girling over this book!

The rest of the books are on my tbr!

If you haven't read this book already, do yourself a favor and read it now!

[Julie - One Book More · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a lot of things I like about Of Shade and Shadow: The Exiled – the fantastic character development, the intriguing plot, the amazing friendship, and the unique fantasy world. The story takes place a year after a war has ended, and the characters are adjusting to life post-war. Astra Verzaer is struggling to control her powers and is exiled from her home country after a particularly dangerous accident and amid speculation about her role in the war. Her brother, now king, arranges for Astra to stay in Merimeethia and is escorted there by Louko, the sarcastic and aloof prince. As the prince and Astra become friends, they also face dangerous obstacles, and their lives are in constant danger.

Astra and Louko are well-developed and unique characters, and I love their developing friendship. The story switches back and forth between their perspectives, which gives each character a distinct voice. You get to understand their thoughts and feelings and learn how they feel about everything their experiencing. I also thought it was really interesting to see how Astra and Louko felt about each other when they were going through some of the more intense situations. When Louko is mistreated, for example, Astra has such a strong reaction, which I think says a lot about her feelings for him and their growing friendship.

At the start of the book, Astra and Louko begrudgingly travel together, and though they know each other from the war, they don’t seem very close. However, as the story progresses, their friendship grows. Astra and Louko are very different in temperament and attitude, yet for them, it works. They develop a lovely connection, and I like how they accept each other and want the best for each other without really expecting anything in return. I think Astra and Louko are both deeply wounded people who feel very much alone and abandoned in the world. (Speaking of that, you should check the content warnings before reading the book. There are some topics, including verbal abuse, physical abuse, violence, and more that could be triggers for readers.) So, this friendship is meaningful and important to them both, and it shows. I like how they fight for each other and try to help each other through all the tests and obstacles they face. Their friendship is definitely one of the highlights of the novel.

I found many of the other characters really interesting too, including Astra’s brother, several members of Louko’s family and the soldiers who travel with them. There are some interesting dynamics, as one character struggles to become a leader, another becomes ingratiated in anger, and all deal with political turmoil and country-wide upheaval. I never quite trusted any of the characters, except for Louko and Astra, and often couldn’t decide who was traitorous and villainous and who wasn’t. This heightened the suspense and added to the mysterious and ominous tone, as did the perilous physical and emotional journeys throughout the book.

I enjoyed this story. It has interesting fantasy elements, especially the shapeshifting and Astra’s unique powers. I was hoping to learn more about both, and I’m curious to see how these aspects of the story develop as the series progresses. There are also several plot twists and surprising revelations that held my interest, and the cliffhanger ending is fantastic. I enjoyed the mystery and action, as well as the suspense and they lovely friendship, and I’m eager to pick up the next book and find out what happens next!

[T.M. Kohl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Entertaining yet raw and real

I have to admit that I blasted through this book quite quickly, needing to find out what would happen next. Astra and Louko served very well as main characters—I found myself empathizing with their deep insecurities and sympathizing with their tragic and traumatic pasts. Through their eyes it was interesting to see the world and it’s history unfold, finding out bit by bit what is really going on.

What I really found interesting was the terrible effects of childhood trauma had on the characters (even beyond the main characters), making them all the more real and human. I was heartened to see how a friendship and human connection could begin to heal those wounds, no matter how insurmountable it might have seemed. I saw this story as one of hope, despite all the hardship the characters experienced.

Very well done for a debut book, plot wise and character wise. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and have recommended it to others. I think it could use just a light editing rinse to clear up some typos and occasional wacky formatting, but that hardly detracted from the story. Really worth the read, especially if you are interested in fantasy and/or deep introspection of characters!

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Exiled: Of Shade and Shadow (book 1 of A Daughter’s Ransom series) is written by a fabulous author duo, Niamh Schmid and Rebecca Schmid. I don’t remember a time before this when I would have read a novel written by more than one author, and I found that their separate writing styles seamlessly blended into one fantastic style for me as I read! Their world building, characters, and relationships among all of the characters are so fully and brilliantly thought-out and depicted that I was instantly immersed in their medieval fantasy world and had a hard time putting the book down! I find it really unique and amazing how this series will take readers on different journeys through not just stories, but also through many different genres. The series offers something for every kind of reader to love! Book 1 is fantasy, book 2 Steampunk, and book 3 will bring us back to getting to know more from where book 1 left off. SciFi is also mentioned as a genre of their series. Chess, archery, magic, elves, mythological creatures, and mysterious paragraphs from an antagonist that ends each chapter after a certain amount of chapters in! I loved it all! Also with their well-prepped and highly organized publishing schedule, I like that I won’t have long, stressful waiting periods to find out when the next books in the series will become available! I read book 1 during its featured month when members of Book Club-Hosted by Heather Skinner voted it in and I would recommend this read to book clubs, and to anyone looking for an exciting next read!

[Blake Vanier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a unique start, which takes place after a huge war that all of the characters were involved in. This puts us in a position of catch up to a lot of the character dynamics that are present in the current story. It also adds a layer of mystery as we learn more about the characters that played such significant roles in the war.

The world is huge and perfect for the start of an epic fantasy. Fortunately, Niamh and Rebecca don't let the massive world take away from the flow of the plot or the character development. The pacing and the information is well balanced.

The character development is also top notch. Even the minor characters are well fleshed out with their own personalities and fun to follow.

on a final note.

It is incredibly rare for me to be disappointed in my ability to judge a character. There is a particular point in this book where I trusted one of the characters just to have them turn it around. It was done through expert story crafting, and I still feel stupid for being so gullible. Idiot. (story reference)

Bravo!

[Michele Quirke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of Shade and Shadow: The Exiled was a unique experience for me in the sense that it was written by two authors. I'm not sure I've ever read a book by more than one author and truth be told, I had some doubts about how it would work. However, in this case the two voices blended well together and I really enjoyed it! The authors make a great team!

The plot of Of Shade and Shadow was intriguing and held my interest, but my real love was the characters. Poor Louko! That prince was so mistreated and abused (by his entire family!) and the emotional wounds were so deep. He lacked confidence, often calling himself an idiot and second guessing every word that came out of his mouth. He was so realistic in the sense that the pain he carried with him due to years of abuse shaped him into who he was. And then there's Astra. She suffered quite a lot as well, yet she was so kind and patient with Louko. I loved her as a character and am super eager to see how the events at the end of his book impact her in the next one!

Of Shade and Shadow: The Exiled is an incredible fantasy and I look forward to reading the next in the series! 4.5 stars!

[Marie Ricci · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so hard to put down. Astra and Louko are amazing characters, I just had to read what was going to happen to them next. I love their relationship, the friendship genuine and full of good intentions. Everything that is left unsaid makes you want to learn more about this world, what happened in the past and what is going to happen in the future. Excellent first volume in this series, would definitely recommend !

[E.P. Stavs · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun adventure

A fun beginning to what will clearly be an epic adventure. I really enjoyed the characters of Louko and Astra, and learning bits and pieces of their history in the previos war along the way. The first half was probably my favorite, and I found myself thinking about the story as I went about my day. There was a lot of traveling in the second half, which was interesting but a touch less gripping. Overall, I enjoyed the story and plan to continue on to book 2 in the future.

4.5 ⭐

[Joharra Harper · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is breathtaking. Amazing characters. A beautiful setting. A lovely friendship. It's everything I love in a book. Cannot wait for more in the series.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I found this story to be really engaging!! The plot is fast-paced and the stakes are high right off the bat, and they REMAIN high the whole time, which is excellent. This is a believable fantasy world where characters’ powers are interesting and are unfolded naturally throughout the story -- I especially like how the “translation of foreign languages” works between the multilingual characters, that leads to some pretty adorable and funny interactions. Stuff like this keeps the reader feeling like they’re in a big fantasy world!

Additionally, I like the switching perspectives where the limited-omniscient narrator focuses on one main character sometimes, then another sometimes -- that’s tricky to write, and it’s done well here. I like that the perspective-switching helped me get “in the minds” of the two main characters so I could watch their thought processes change as they learned new things about each other/the world/the war/etc. This made me feel really connected to their growth and their friendship.

The following things are what make this story a 4 out of 5 for me instead of a full 5 out of 5:

This might be a personal preference -- there’s little physical description of the characters. While I don’t think an author should spoon-feed a reader every molecule of description, I need more than just a hair color or eye color mentioned in order to “play a movie of what’s happening” in my head as I read along. I didn’t like having no choice but to jump to conclusions about what some characters looked like only to be given another smidge of a detail (much) later that made me have to re-cast what they looked like in my head long after I’d “invented” an image for them. Details about body sizes/bone structure shapes/fitness levels/skin tones, done relatively early, would help.

And without spoiling too much, about halfway in, there is an important scene where it is the first time we the audience “get into a third important character’s head.” It is a shocking and violent scene (in a good way!), BUT since this is the first time the audience sees things from this specific third character’s perspective, I didn’t understand that a third character’s perspective was what was happening -- the previous scene shows us an already-was-the-narrator character resolving that something has to change, and I thought that this important scene was this familiar character resolving that change themselves personally -- which totally went against this familiar character's development to that point. So it made me (incorrectly) think, 'oh, wow, that second character hasn't been built up in the writing to do and say these things.'

All of this confusion could have been solved by having maybe a little more buildup about the third character’s potential powers, OR, by having one shorter/minor scene before that one where we realize, “ah, this is what it looks like to get into this third character’s perspective.” Because, as it stands, this transition into this third person's perspective shocked and confused me so much that I spent a lot of time flipping back through earlier chapters to “try to figure out what I missed about the already-familiar second character,” and then only when we get into that third character’s head again later did it occur to me, ‘OH, when the formatting looks like this, it means we’re in this THIRD guy’s perspective now, even though other 'switch between perspectives' formatting didn't look like this.' The way it is now, it badly snapped me out of what otherwise should have been a huge and very interesting plot moment.

Overall this was a joy to read -- definitely recommend as a good adventure and friendship story!

[Adrianne Lemke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great start to a series

This book is filled with adventure and intrigue, and I loved the growing friendship between Louko and Astra. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next, especially with the way things ended.

[Maria Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meet Astra, a princess struggling to recover a year after the war ended, unable to control her strange powers. Soon she has no choice but to team up with reluctant ally Louko, a prince from another land. Despite his cutting sarcasm, the two form a begrudging friendship. Astra still believes an old enemy to be at work and suddenly, Astra and Louko must work together again in order to survive.

This fantasy novel is an amazing, accomplished debut. There is plenty of action, moments of real suspense and beautiful writing of a genuine friendship that forms between Astra and Louko. Not to mention plenty of banter that had me laughing out loud a couple of times! The worldbuilding is also excellent, effortlessly dripping in the backdrop of the different lands and their history without it ever feeling overwhelming. I finished this book in 2 or 3 days because I just couldn't put it down. I really recommend this fantastic read for fantasy lovers!

[Tiny Elf Arcanist · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story is told from the perspective of two traumatized and insecure teenagers. Awkward moments ensured. Their interactions are wholesome but somewhat repetitive, with them over-apologizing to one another. It was refreshing reading a YA novel where the relationship between the MCs isn't romantic.

The world is fleshed out, and I'd love to learn more about it. The world building, however, wasn't subtle, done in short info dumps.

The book would benefit from an editor. Some paragraphs could be removed without affecting the story, and some scenes lack follow-up. Most notably, ellipses are overused.

There are unexpected twists, and a minor cliffhanger to keep you intrigued. But the worldbuilding and characters are enough to get me invested in the series.

[Patrick Carpenter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astra, the exiled princess, and Louko, the cynical and graceless prince, form an unforgettable duo in this epic fantasy tale. The authors do an excellent job of playing the traits of Astra and Louko off of each other and making us root for them. I found it endearing how the authors managed to take two classic character tropes and smash them together into a journey of intrigue, wit, and sympathetic travesty. Anyone looking for an epic fantasy adventure will find this title satisfying!

[Heather Heckman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good debut and a decent travel/adventure story.

World building: It isn't Earth, and it isn't "Middle Earth lite" either, there are two moons! There are full histories for each of the countries that readers catch bits and pieces of alongside superstitions about them. Magic is called gifting, and in different places it is more or less common and some people have different types like Elves or shapeshifters.

Characters: I really care about these characters, especially the narrators Astra and Louko. Both of them feel alone, and I want to give them hugs and warm bowls of soup. The novel opens with the Great War being over*, and Astra and Louko knew each other from fighting on the same side, but are still trying to piece together what happened to different people and what those experiences mean now. This heavy backstory weighs on them throughout the novel, and I really want to dig more into it.

Dialogue: Speech in real life is different from fictional dialogue, and I think that the dialogue in Of Shade and Shadow pushes too close to real speech. There are quite a few "um"s "idk"s and "how are you?" "Fine, how are You?" The upside of this is that it feels like two real ordinary people facing enormous problems instead of a super-powered half-elf and a genius prince (though Astra does have gifting and Louko is smart if perpetually downtrodden).

It isn't a perfect book, but I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

[S.S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was such a refreshing writing style that I have not even realised when the book was nearing towards the end. Though the story touches on difficult subjects of two main characters’ insecurities (for different reasons), I found it presented in both light and engaging way, that made the novel a real page-turner.

The characters (Louko and Astra) were absolutely phenomenal. Theirs backstories and depth made me care about them from the very first chapters. Their internal thoughts, though presented in a simple way, actually made them very believable and complex personalities. Their interactions, and the way their relationship evolved, were beautifully structured, and I quickly found myself rooting for both of them.

Aside from characters, the plot was full of actions, twists and travelling. That, combined with great world building, made my reading experience just perfect. There were so many simple, beautiful moments that I enjoyed in each chapter (like chess playing, learning how to use crossbow, speaking in other languages etc), that I wished I read it sooner! That real-like experience combined with just a dash of fantasy (Gift, Elvish weapons, etc.) really sets this book apart from many other epic fantasies that I read.

I definitely recommend this book to those who epic fantasy. I’m looking forward to reading book 2 in the series!

[Happy Booker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of shade and shadow is a fantasy story written about princess Astra and her struggles coming to terms with the war ending and controlling her powers. If that wasn’t enough, she also has to team with Louko, a prince, and bear his sarcastic comments to survive.
The story is filled with a lot of plot twists. The world-building stood out for me as it was original and complex. The pace of the story was steady and kept me intrigued. I really connected with the characters, and that mattered the most. Louko meshed well with Astra, and even though their personalities were so apart, it still worked pretty well.

It is effortless to dissolve into the book and get lost. There were plenty of elements for surprise, suspense, and also, the well-written literature kept you thinking. I felt sympathy and understood how tragic events and trauma in the past could shape and affect someone later in life.

I recommend this book to fantasy lovers and those who like

[Mary Woldering · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the Great War is over, young Astra the sister of the king is exiled to the far country of Merimeethia. A not-so-favored prince named Louko is sent to accompany her. A mysterious friendship and strong empathy forms between them. Both characters are victims of abuse, even though they are nothing alike and their reactions to mistreatment are as different from each other and are their personalities. The formatting of the story reads like two separate books mingled together: One by Astra and one by Louko. As they grow closer they piece together a mystery involving shape-changing and magical powers. The ending is a cliff hanger but there are plenty of hints left to lead a reader to the next book.

[Emmie Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was purely addicting. Very few books can I not put down, and this I could not. Will definitely recommend to fellow book lovers.