This was such a good read I loved it and was completely hooked from the first page. Definitely recommend

I absolutely devoured this book. I stayed up 3 hours past my bedtime because I couldn’t put it down, and read it in less than a day. This was my first Martineau read but know I’ll be reading everything else they have published!

When I first read Maxym M. Martineau’s Kingdom of Exiles, book one of her Beast Charmers series, I was enthralled with the world she created, making that title my favourite read of 2019. She finished that series with two more titles, The Frozen Prince and The Shattered Crown. She also made an interesting pivot: while Kingdom of Exiles was definitely an adult fantasy romance with spicy sex scenes between Beast Charmer Leena and Undead Assassin Noc, she reworked it for the trade print market as an upper end young adult book by aging down the characters and reducing the explicitness of the sex scenes, then continued the rest of the trilogy as YA. (There’s an FAQ on her website about the change). With the end of Noc and Leena’s main storyline, the focus shifts now to some of the secondary characters who were introduced in the original books, and a spinoff series Guild of Night. Shadows of the Lost tackles two of those characters, Kost and Gaige. This review will contain some spoilers for the original series as a result.

With Noc regaining his ancestral kingship of Lendria, it’s fallen on his longtime companion Kost to take over Noc’s role as the Guild Master of Cruor. Leading a group of undead assassins is a challenge at any time, but especially in the fragile situation that exists now, with Hireath, the peaceful beast charmer city, having been destroyed by a legendary dragon beast, and Gaige, at one time a powerful beast charmer and member of the charmers’ council, under Kost’s wing. Because Gaige had died in a fierce battle and Kost, unable to imagine life without a man he’d come to call friend and maybe something more, had implored Noc to raise him to become an undead assassin like himself. As a result, the charmer symbol on Gaige’s wrist, once vibrant and bright, had turned to a faded etching, his bestiary link severed, and he’d lost the connections so vital to his core being, with the exception of one beast – Okean, for whom Gaige had been given a golden key, allowing him to call Okean from the beast kingdom to Cruor whenever he wishes. It’s bittersweet, reminding him of all the beasts he can no longer call and the beast kingdom he can no longer visit at will. Now, dark shadows, those an assassin learns to wield to perform their craft, follow him but don’t obey him. Gaige refuses to take part in any of the elemental training every newly raised assassin is required to take to learn how to control the shadows ,leaving him at risk of being consumed by the shadows and lost to the world entirely.

While Kost and Gaige’s friendship appears broken, Kost isn’t willing to give up on Gaige. He knows the adjustment he himself had to make when he was raised, the severing of his old life, the heartache of lost love and betrayal. Being patient with Gaige isn’t just his job, and if he hopes to regain the fragile steps they’d made towards a romantic relationship, he knows he has to give Gaige time and space to adjust. But time isn’t on their side, with dark shadows (Gaige’s? Someone else’s?) beginning to take on a life of their own, Gaige’s nightmares bleeding into daytime, undead beasts creating havoc outside of their normal realm, and an unknown enemy stalking their every move. Can Kost and Gaige find their way back to each other before it’s too late?

Whew, this story is a rollercoaster of action and adventure from start to finish! It’s hard for me to say whether reading it without having read the first trilogy is doable, as I reread the Beast Charmers trilogy before starting this one. There is some explanation of what has gone before to catch readers (old and new) up to speed, and the book also includes a bestiary and short character summary at the end. Like any good fantasy series, there’s a map at the start too, helping the reader picture the various places mentioned in the story.

So, high points for epic fantasy and adventure, sidekicks, secondary characters, and humour, especially with Calem and Ozias, two of Kost’s longtime friends and assassins. Where the story falters for me a bit is the romance between Kost and Gaige – the emotional battle of Gaige blaming Kost for having Noc raise him as an undead assassin just goes on and on, though it does get resolved somewhat in the latter half of the story. I say somewhat because while the story doesn’t end on a cliffhanger and Kost and Gaige are officially together by the end of the book, the enemy isn’t vanquished and all signs point to more books down the road. Interestingly, after having toned down the sex scenes in the first trilogy to be YA, this book has a higher heat level, in keeping with the author’s description of Shadows of the Lost as an “epic New Adult fantasy series with a bit of spice”, perhaps looking to see if it gets picked up by TikTok readers. The original trilogy is billed as “Fantastic Beasts meets Assassin’s Creed” and that holds true for this story as well. All in all, it’s an enjoyable and action packed-read and definitely a series I’m planning to continue.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy of Shadows of the Lost. This was very interesting and well written, I think this needs the love it deserves.

Martineau has a pretty solid fan base, and this work, although it is the first in a new series, is clearly meant for those fans.

This fantasy novel is action-packed, and has pretty detailed action scenes. I am not a fan of those and the abundance of them made this difficult to enjoy. I do believe that for people who like action described in detail, this book is a great choice.

Overall, not for me, but still a good book.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book!

I found the magic system and fantasy world very intriguing, and it definitely held my attention. While I enjoyed the story overall, I couldn't help but feel I missed something while I was reading. I looked at the authors other works and saw this is actually part of a larger series. I completely missed that fact when I started and it makes much more sense knowing that. I would recommend reading the other series first (The Beast Charmer). It feels weird to me that there was no mention that this was a continuation of their other works and the synopsis leads readers to believe this is a brand new series unrelated to anything else. I do plan on seeking out that other series and hopefully revisiting this book with more context.

Shadows of the Lost by Maxym M Martineau
#netgalley published 6/6/23
#sourcebookscasablanca
#scififantasy

Sorry, this book got lost in my list some how. Just getting to it now.

This book was supposed to to be the first in a series. As you can see, I gave it until 20% to see if I could pick up the world they were supposed to to be building. I couldn't. Not enough anyway to get to understanding what was going on. I felt like I was being dropped into the middle of a series. All I was able to understand was that Gaige was "undead" and that there were bizarre creatures involved.

Not enjoyable enough of a story for me to stick it out. A few books ago, I read a book that I discovered was #3 in a series and I understood that one less in than 10%. Yup. I quit.

#fantasy #bookstagram

An exciting and gripping dark fantasy I loved. Grippin and highly entertaining
Highly recommended
Many thanks to the publisher, all opinions are mine

I’m trying, you know I am. Because I re-read this book when I reached 15%-ish but I regret it because I still do not understand it all. Maybe this book is for you but it is not for me. — 1.5 ⭐️

I mean, the characters still seem odd. Not only the MCs but also the other supporting characters. To be honest, I have no clue whose is the real MCs because too many POVs makes us the reader confused. I know the MCs are probably them (Kost and Gaige) but what’s the point add 2-3 more POVs? Maybe for giving us a different perspective BUT in that certain POVs, it only shows the romance between that character to another. Not even related to the storyline. Also, the characters are needed to be improved more from one storyline to another in writing, for example, Gaige says he did not have those feelings but in the middle of the storyline, he was pushing Kost even further until on the same pages but then he says that he always loved him and care for him and blablabla. What’s the foundation of that? Then, there are some pop-ups characters that out of nowhere because it might make the story foundation interesting, but do we get answers from it? NOPE. There are also not certain characters that has specific development rather than Gaige. All of them are just rather vanilla.

The Storyline is also pretty confusing and I guess no solid ground in what is it about. Perhaps this book was intended to have no plot or sort but somehow I get the plot. The questions about the storyline are:
¹ Is the aim focusing on Gaige finding his power?
² Is the aim looking for the Lost?
³ Does the storyline only occur for Kost-Gaige and The Lost?
⁴ What is the aim of the storyline? - what is the base and the foundation of these?
Because I just don’t get it, as I mentioned earlier that I even re-read this book when I reached 15%-ish and I want to understand more. When I re-read that, I am more confused. I get a grasp of how the magic work in this realm, who is who, and what is these creatures had to do with those, and so on. However, I’m still unsure what the aim of the storyline but if it's focusing on Gaige, then make it to do so not go around in circles! Also, the choice of words for the world-building is hella confusing. It was a poor choice of words. The world-building in this book is not that good either for my liking. So, I just don’t get it at all. The Map helps but when it is connected to the storyline, it is just a pile of rubbish.

I would probably appreciate this book more if they put some moral of the stories in a pile of these ridiculous traits. However, there are not many morals of the story that can be taken from this book as well. Even the romance is not that good, it’s annoying in complete nonsense. I was expecting this book to be one of cute-surprising-M-M-worth-to-read-Fantasy. But oh boy why am I disappointed?

➊ Make yourself your own anchor
➋ Psychological response on your behavior towards other define your past
➌ Siblings jealousy - common sense
➍ Heroism traits - the most useless person in the room would likely to be the hero of all

Nevertheless, those traits have nothing to do with The Beast. Because the beasts are enormous! I love them. I appreciate the author putting this Bestiary inside the book, how cool is that? (maybe that's the only reason why I give this book more stars).

Next, there is this magical realism in this book which I am totally against it. Mainly because they did not have a certain or specific focus. Such as:
¹ The realm between the living and the dead
² The exact price for raising up the dead
³ The consequences to pull up strings between the dead and the living
Those almost like; it doesn’t matter whether you are living or you are just dead, isn’t it? Even though in the plot was mentioned that when someone was raised, they probably in completely different from who they are while they were still living but not to the point of “amazingly written”.

The ending of this book was a cliffhanger I believe the author intends to write another book. I do hopefully beg for the next book: Dear Maxym, if you really going to write the next book, please do has more solid ground than this. However, even though the cliffhanger might make some readers intends to read the next book, I personally might need to regain my calm composure and lower my expectation before reading the next book. I do know if I would read her other works because this one is a disappointment enough for me.

The only things that I like in this book are: Bestiary, The Quiz, and The People’s explanation at the end of the book.

Thank you for Netgally giving me the privilege reading this book before publication date

When I first read Maxym M. Martineau’s Kingdom of Exiles, book one of her Beast Charmers series, I was enthralled with the world she created, making that title my favourite read of 2019. She finished that series with two more titles, The Frozen Prince and The Shattered Crown. She also made an interesting pivot: while Kingdom of Exiles was definitely an adult fantasy romance with spicy sex scenes between Beast Charmer Leena and Undead Assassin Noc, she reworked it for the trade print market as an upper end young adult book by aging down the characters and reducing the explicitness of the sex scenes, then continued the rest of the trilogy as YA. (There’s an FAQ on her website about the change). With the end of Noc and Leena’s main storyline, the focus shifts now to some of the secondary characters who were introduced in the original books, and a spinoff series Guild of Night. Shadows of the Lost tackles two of those characters, Kost and Gaige. This review will contain some spoilers for the original series as a result.

With Noc regaining his ancestral kingship of Lendria, it’s fallen on his longtime companion Kost to take over Noc’s role as the Guild Master of Cruor. Leading a group of undead assassins is a challenge at any time, but especially in the fragile situation that exists now, with Hireath, the peaceful beast charmer city, having been destroyed by a legendary dragon beast, and Gaige, at one time a powerful beast charmer and member of the charmers’ council, under Kost’s wing. Because Gaige had died in a fierce battle and Kost, unable to imagine life without a man he’d come to call friend and maybe something more, had implored Noc to raise him to become an undead assassin like himself. As a result, the charmer symbol on Gaige’s wrist, once vibrant and bright, had turned to a faded etching, his bestiary link severed, and he’d lost the connections so vital to his core being, with the exception of one beast – Okean, for whom Gaige had been given a golden key, allowing him to call Okean from the beast kingdom to Cruor whenever he wishes. It’s bittersweet, reminding him of all the beasts he can no longer call and the beast kingdom he can no longer visit at will. Now, dark shadows, those an assassin learns to wield to perform their craft, follow him but don’t obey him. Gaige refuses to take part in any of the elemental training every newly raised assassin is required to take to learn how to control the shadows ,leaving him at risk of being consumed by the shadows and lost to the world entirely.

While Kost and Gaige’s friendship appears broken, Kost isn’t willing to give up on Gaige. He knows the adjustment he himself had to make when he was raised, the severing of his old life, the heartache of lost love and betrayal. Being patient with Gaige isn’t just his job, and if he hopes to regain the fragile steps they’d made towards a romantic relationship, he knows he has to give Gaige time and space to adjust. But time isn’t on their side, with dark shadows (Gaige’s? Someone else’s?) beginning to take on a life of their own, Gaige’s nightmares bleeding into daytime, undead beasts creating havoc outside of their normal realm, and an unknown enemy stalking their every move. Can Kost and Gaige find their way back to each other before it’s too late?

Whew, this story is a rollercoaster of action and adventure from start to finish! It’s hard for me to say whether reading it without having read the first trilogy is doable, as I reread the Beast Charmers trilogy before starting this one. There is some explanation of what has gone before to catch readers (old and new) up to speed, and the book also includes a bestiary and short character summary at the end. Like any good fantasy series, there’s a map at the start too, helping the reader picture the various places mentioned in the story.

So, high points for epic fantasy and adventure, sidekicks, secondary characters, and humour, especially with Calem and Ozias, two of Kost’s longtime friends and assassins. Where the story falters for me a bit is the romance between Kost and Gaige – the emotional battle of Gaige blaming Kost for having Noc raise him as an undead assassin just goes on and on, though it does get resolved somewhat in the latter half of the story. I say somewhat because while the story doesn’t end on a cliffhanger and Kost and Gaige are officially together by the end of the book, the enemy isn’t vanquished and all signs point to more books down the road. Interestingly, after having toned down the sex scenes in the first trilogy to be YA, this book has a higher heat level, in keeping with the author’s description of Shadows of the Lost as an “epic New Adult fantasy series with a bit of spice”, perhaps looking to see if it gets picked up by TikTok readers. The original trilogy is billed as “Fantastic Beasts meets Assassin’s Creed” and that holds true for this story as well. All in all, it’s an enjoyable and action packed-read and definitely a series I’m planning to continue.

Unfortunately, I fell behind in this series without realizing it, so I was unable to read this book before publication date. My library has purchased this title already and I'm excited to go back and read the books that I've missed. Maxym M. Martineau creates such interesting worlds and characters, so I'm very excited to dive back into this series.

I wish I had know that this was a spin off of another series prior to reading it. There is a lot of world building that is missing from this novel that I feel I could have gotten from the other series. Everything, including characters, are already established in this, and at times the reader is left confused as there are missing pieces of information that leads to relationships. Despite this, the writing is very descriptive, including emotions, conversation, and the actions in the novel.

The multiple narrators, Mark Sanderlin, Nick Mondelli, Jess Nahikian, and Jay Alder, make it easy to tell the POVs apart. Each narrator did a fantastic job of portraying the emotions of each character. They kept the listeners attention, without having to try to.

I want to thank Netgalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for an ARC of this book and Dreamscape Media for an advanced audiobook.

I so loved and enjoyed the slow burn romance between those two MCs, Kost and Gaige! It was a quick, fun read, with plenty of swoony romantic element. I loved it

Thank you to Netgalley and Sourcebooks Casablanca for allowing me to read this book.

I wanted to love this book, but it wasn't for me. I thought the characters were lovely, but the world buiilding fell flat. The complex world wasn't explored in a way that made sense to me. I thought the world was interesting, but wanted more from it.

2.5 stars

Sadly, this book wasn't entirely for me. While I enjoyed certain aspects of the book, such as the battle-scenes and the LGBTQ+ romance, I had a hard time understanding the worldbuilding and the fantasy elements of the book. Somehow, it felt as though this wasn't the first book in a series and there was some knowledge the reader was missing in some parts of the book. Having now reflected and seen other reviews, I understand that it is related to the author's previous series, which I have not read. I think there could have been some more basic worldbuilding as this is marketed as the first book in a new series and one can't expect the reader to have read the previous series.

I enjoyed this book. It was dark and exciting. Figuratively and literally. This has all the right points for me, dark, death, magical beasts and a forbidden romance. Okay, maybe forbidden is not the correct word, but you know. I really enjoyed the detail that Maxym has written for this book. Everything read like I could be there, touching and seeing everything they are describing.

DNF at 65%

I rarely DNF books, but it felt necessary with this one. I was lucky enough to receive an eARC through Netgalley, so thank you so much to the publisher! Unfortunately, I was unaware, as it wasn’t made clear from the blurb, that this is a spin-off to an existing trilogy, and I therefore do not feel qualified to properly review this novel.

While it wasn’t the only reason, the primary reason I didn’t connect with this story was the lack of explanation of the magic system, the world, and the characters’ relationships with one another. I think these issues would have been resolved had I read the original trilogy, as this book really cannot stand on its own. I therefore do not recommend this book to anyone who has not read the Beast Charmer series.

I did have a few other issues with the story, but as I didn’t finish the book, and as I do not have the necessary back story, I will not comment further on that.

Loved the LGBTQ+ representation in this book! Intense, big feelings, heavy trials, layered characters. Maxym Martineau is one GIFTED author. Everything she writes is solid gold. She deserves so much more recognition than she has received for her work. Wonderful book that you definitely need to read. Plus that spice is 🤌🤌🤌

This story was good but it needs more details I feel the author left out. I almost feel like I was thrown into the middle of a series. There are references made of past events like I should know what these past events are when I have no clue as to what they are.

The world building, and beasts are really what makes this book come to life.

*I didn't learn until later this is a spinoff of a series. I think this needs to be explained somewhere in the description for requesting book. Maybe I missed it.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and the author for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I would like to thank the publisher, author and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. I was excited to get started on this book however I had a very difficult time getting into this book and as a result was not able to finish it.

As a result I don’t believe I can give a fair review despite a few attempts to read it.