This isn't at all a bad book, but it does have flaws. It could be tighter, could be tidier, and could be clearer. The worldbuilding, while not straight out of a well-used cookie cutter, is not extensive; the viewpoint character, while she isn't completely passive, gets rescued quite a bit, and doesn't seem to achieve all that much. The plot has a lot of threads, but they don't form a whole greater than the sum of its parts. There are gestures at romance for the main character, but the gestures go in several different directions and never amount to much in the long term (though there is one explicit scene).

It also features one of my pet peeves, which is biblical names in a setting in which Christianity is decidedly not present; it always suggests to me that the author has not thought things through.

In terms of the story: Shine, the main character, is part of a large family all with names that have to do with light in some way (though some of them have add-ons, like Blazeann or Sparklea, most are along the lines of Radiance or Gleam). They're a cadet branch of the imperial family in a nation that I at first thought was based on ancient China, because of its tendency to self-isolate and refer to pale-skinned foreigners as "ghosts". As the book progressed, though, it became clear that if China was an influence, it was only one influence, and a good bit of the setup was out of the author's head (which I approve of; taking an entire fantasy society from a superficial impression of a real historical society always seems lazy to me).

The family are, on the whole, pretty nasty, with a few exceptions, and even the exceptions are still mostly entitled aristocrats with a tendency to indulge themselves in drug-taking and sex. You become an aristocrat by being a mage, and mages, rather than using their powers for useful things like building bridges or clearing agricultural land, apparently leave all of that to the peasants to do by hand, and mainly use their (primarily psychokinetic) powers recreationally.

Shine's aunt, who raised her, is, at least, a radical thinker who thinks the peasants should be, you know, paid for their work rather than made to work on the nobles' land as a form of taxation, and educated, and so forth. But she and Shine are "mundanes," non-mages, who are therefore only gentry, not nobility, and have little status in the family (though considerably more than the peasants outside it, which Shine is at least uncomfortable about).

Multiple and mostly non-intersecting plots are under way in and around the family, as they come to the country estate that Shine and her aunt manage for an annual fertility ceremony. Shine gets involved in all of the plots one way or another, but isn't especially effectual. At one point, she finds out (through Convenient Eavesdrop, which is a plot device I hate) that two family members are planning to sabotage the matriarch's drug stash so that she's incapacitated and loses face; she attempts to foil the plot, but <spoiler>someone else is already on top of it, and her intervention is unnecessary</spoiler>. Later, while she does take effective action once against an enemy, she and her companions keep getting into dire straits and then getting cavalry-rescued unexpectedly (this happens three times in quick succession). Eventually, all of the plot lines wrap up, mostly not very conclusively, with minimal help from Shine, and in a way that reveals they were never all that connected in the first place.

I made a note partway through that I didn't feel like the author had the chops to achieve a really satisfactory ending, and reflecting on the ending, I think I was right. Overall, the book feels undercooked. The middle does plenty of development of lots of different things, but they never come together, and the main character is caught up in events more than she drives them. The worldbuilding is underwhelming, and yet I found myself confused more than once about how things worked.

I have to say that I picked up the book in large part because it had a telepathic cat in it, and I've been a sucker for telepathic cats ever since I read Andre Norton's Forerunner books at the age of about 11 or 12. The telepathic cat could have been more utilized, but overall, she was a good one, even if her name (Katti) was distinctly unimaginative.

I received a copy via Netgalley for review.

Another person who DNF’d early on. I was drawn in by the premise, but found it hard to get into and be interested in. The writing was a bit too wordy for me as well, which made it feel more difficult to follow along with what was or was not happening in the story.

Shadow in the Empire of Light is a grandiose title for a book which is narrow in both scope and viewpoint. It has an intriguing premise, an interesting suggestion of a magical system - but very little impetus when it comes to using either.

It takes societal norms, such as gender and racial stereotypes, seeking to twist them into a new narrative. Women have the power, white skinned people are ghosts without magic.

The narrative is driven by Shine's first person voice, which inevitably narrows the scope of the novel down to her perception of the world. Which is narrow - a fact she acknowledges and chafes against. She's a mundane in a world of mages - she has no magic, while her cousins drip with it. She does have a telepathic cat though.

We see her restrictions, her restlessness, her curiosity - but it's all rather flat. Through her overtly flippant tone we are drawn into serious topics such as child abuse, rape and narcotic abuse. That's before we even acknowledge the rampant sex-fest of her society, 'riding' everything that moves. It feels crass, and because it is shown second hand through the prism of Shine's viewpoint it lacks any depth or resolution. This book should come with a trigger warning for abuse. I'm no prude, but the innuendo heavy pile on of the fertility blessing that takes up the entirety of this book became a bit tiresome.

Yes, there's family intrigue, murder, and drama - but Shine herself is not really a key player, rather a drifter into other people's dramatic scenes. The book is short , which allows it to peter out before the viewpoint can widen to Shine's future - and much more unknown horizons. It's hard to care for someone who has a cardboard stiffness level response to someone admitting to having been abused as a child,

I'm not curious about what happens to Shine next, her's was not the most interesting narrative of the story. I did like the concept of mage power and crystals, but again it was stymied in description to fit in with Shine's bland musings on something she doesn't have first hand knowledge of.

Overall this was a disappointing read, which wouldn't draw me into reading a longer series.

DNF @ 15%. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get into this book. The protagonist frustrated me with her naïveté, and I overall wasn’t a fan of the writing style. I’m also sort of just tired of fantasy that relies on bad aspects of society as a backbone for plot. Even if these things clearly aren’t supported by the author or the protagonist, I wish more authors recognized it was possible to build a fantasy society without relying on things such as homophobia and women being suitable for bearing children and little else.

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 Shine pretends to have sex with her cousin??? Um, idk but what. Why would the people in the house (literally all of them were like relatives) be okay with that?? I’m pretty sure that’s called incest. I DNF’ed at 50% because I felt like the whole plot was just dragging.

I should probably start my review by saying I believe I’m not the right audience for this book.
I struggled to get interested in this book from the beginning. I’m not exactly sure why. I wasn’t crazy with Shine and her Bright from the beginning. They seemed condescending and rude. Maybe this was just them being gentry. Bright’s lover is also his valet. Even though Bright had been disowned and forced into the army along with his lover, he still uses his boyfriend as his dutiful valet. Then we find out that Bright has an Outlander in the trunk of his carriage. At first they talk about this Outlander like an IT not a person. Bright even gives Shine permission to touch him. Because’s he’s human after all. I guess Ghost is what they call Outlanders because of their pale skin. They can’t pronounce his name so they give him the name Shadow. They continue to talk about him like he’s not there even though he speaks their language.
At one point before she realizes he speaks their language she says something like “Eue, what ugly skin. It reminds me of mushrooms.” This is rich coming from her because her father was an Outlander her mother had an affair with. This makes her much paler than the others in her family. They even call her Ghostie-girl and a “joke” she finds this very hurtful. They decide to hide him in Shine’s room until her family leaves so they can quickly help him sneak him back into his country to avoid a diplomatic incident.
This is where things start to get a little weird for me. So Shine and Ghost are talking in her room and she starts changing in from of him. She asks him to pull her boots off, braid her hair, and lace her dress. First, she’s scared of him then she’s asking him braiding her hair? O.K.
So it’s at this point we start seeing that Shine and her family are very liberal sexually. I thought Shine explained earlier in the book that the fertility festival that the family comes to town for was to bless the fields. For fertile crops... I was wrong. The family is Matriarchy. Apparently an important part of this is for the woman to breed as many female children as possible and sleep with anyone who catches their eyes. OK that’s fine but I didn’t realize that was the kind of book I was reading.
By this point in the book, I was really struggling and trying hard to finish this book. Two things happened that make is retired this book to my DNF pile.
First, after the family arrives they are all hanging out in the living room smoking dream weed. They all get extremely high. Bright is having a conversation with her ..cousin or uncle (?) A lady enters who this guy doesn’t want to talk to. So as an excuse to exit the room he starts kissing Shine on her neck. He sweeps her out of the room on the pretense that they are going to go have sex. They go to his room to keep us the ruse. When they arrive at the room he’s sitting in a chair telling her about a book he recently read. While shes giggles uncontrollably (because she’s high as a kite.) on the bed while his maid bounces the bed, so passers-by think they are getting it on. *Cue blank stare*
I closed the book at 19% when Shine entered the bathhouse and walked in on a threesome. It included details on who each person was and the action they were engaged in at the time. I’m not a prude. I don’t mind a steamy love scene. Until this point in the book, it was just talking about who was good in bed and the whole pretend sex thing with her male relative. So this just shocked me! It was so out of the blue, I felt like I walked in on this scene myself. LOL This was when I realized I am not the correct audience for this book.