I enjoyed the story. It was unique and imaginative. I loved the mystery/detective aspect and the world building. The concept is terrific. The only thing I had problems with was the writing. It needs a good edit.

Thank you to the author Sergei Katz, and NetGalley for providing me an ARC in exchange for my candid review of the book.

The concept of this book is AMAZING! It is a unique and imaginative book that is a combination of a mystery/detective novel that is set in a world like that of Hunger Games with people who are born with innate magical abilities must attend a school similar to Hogwarts. And yet it is uniquely its own fascinating refreshing story. I would love to give this book a five star rating. However, the book was obviously written by someone whose primary language is not english. This leads to odd language and idioms such as ....her hair was up to her shoulders...." I am guessing that this book was self-published and thus has the problems with a certain clunkiness in writing style and language and idioms that are painful at times. THIS BOOK IS IN NEED OF A GOOD EDITOR!

Having said that, I will still read the future publications by this author because he is that good of a storyteller. He should be published and this would make an amazing book with some time spent on polishing it up.

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I didn’t finish this one. I find it boring and I didn’t like it.
I was expecting way more from this book but it didn’t convince me

This book was okay. Mostly cliche. I would recommend friends to borrow from library but I wouldn't suggest them going out to buy it.

This was a bingeworthy book, such an original story, I just loved it and I have found a new author to add to my never ending TBR!

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was wayy too predictable.

Thank you kindly to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this review copy.

I want to scream. Seriously, I just want to scream and scream and never stop screaming because this book could have been so. damn. good!
I loved the beginning; I deeply enjoyed James's perspective - I loved his entire character and I deeply wish the book would have been told solely from his POV. It would have added to the quality of the book - or at least what there was left of it.
Now, aside from absolutely fanboying over James; the setting could have been amazing. Could have been. Started out that way. But the shifting of POVs interferred horribly with it - don't get me wrong; normally, I enjoy reading different POVs but in this case, I don't think it fit the book very well. It does not help that the characters were female. Honestly - has Sergei Katz ever TALKED to a female?! I've seen self-inserts and Mary Sues (I am looking at you, Ms No-personality-Bella Swan) written better.
Also - thank you very much, Mr. Katz, we understood that Lynn is a panther. But she has a name, does she not?! How about, oh, I don't know, actually USING it instead of adressing her as "The panther" in every second sentence?
The foxes were cute, but here, also: foxes ist perfectly fine. I was close to counting all the "foxies" mentioned in this book, but I presume I would have gotten very mad in the process.
So, yeah. This book ended up being one big dissapointment on my end. Which is a shame, because I was very excited for it and really loved the first few chapters.

I received a free ARC by Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This book was okay. It was not the best read I have had. The potential and plot idea was there, but it didn't feel exacuted well. It could have gone through some more beta reading and editing before it was brought to publishing. The characters felt like they needed to be a bit more flushed out, but not to much. There is something here and I will continue to read the rest of the series when it comes out.

Couldn't get into this book. I enjoyed the initial concept, magical detective? Yes, please! But it started out fairly confusing and I had a hard time immersing myself into this book.

I was so very excited for this book. The concept was so interesting and fairly new. Unfortunately I was sorely disappointed. The writing style is heavy, the author explains every little thing and idea, the descriptions of places and things was sloppy and unimaginative. And honestly, the plot wasn't really that good either.
Such a disappointment.

Shadow Talker is the first book in the Magic Detective School series. We meet James and follow how he becomes a detective and also get the POV's of his two teammates, Phoenix and Lynn (Panther). I thought the concept of the story with magic detective learning their craft was great but the execution of the story was really not so great. I did receive an ARC so hopefully my issues with this story will have been worked out with a good edit. The three POV's were very similar and at times I just had no idea what was happening in the story. There were parts where I had to assume what was or had happened because what I felt where important parts of the story were hinted at where as mundane things had so much description it was unnecessary. The school and magic from different worlds was very interesting and if the issues of some of the writing can be taken care of I feel this would be a fabulous story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book in return for a honest review. These thoughts miss spellings and grammar errors are all my own.

Thank you Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this book, unfortunately I had to DNF this book. It’s not a bad book by any means it just wasn’t a book for me. The story just didn’t sit right with me but that’s not to say I wouldn’t give it another try in the future because the premise of the book sounds great and intriguing but for whatever reason I just couldn’t get into it at the time. I would still definitely recommend giving it a read though.

this was a really unique read, the characters were great and I really enjoyed the use of a shadowed detective in training. I look forward to more from the series.

This book! Great series to read. Very entertaining. I could hardly put it down...only when I had to! I'm interested in more Shadow Realm books.

It gripped my attention from the beginning!

Ah, this book was all over the place for me and it kept dragging me out of the story no matter how hard I tried to stay engaged. I just couldn't finish it.

Did not finish due to choppy writing style and inability to connect with either the plot or the characters.

A seemingly good idea, but with an underwhelming writing. The author is constantly explaining every single detail by using the protagonist's thoughts. Even the thoughts themselves are jumpy and incoherent. Overall a 1.5 out of 5 stars.

Shadow Talker is book 1 in the Magic Detective School series.

I thought there was a lot of potential and the story was very good. But it just wasn't written well or edited properly. I couldn't connect with the characters or follow everything that was going on. Because I liked the story, I decided to give it 2 stars instead of 1 star.

This book was a too slow paced for my liking.
When I read the synopsis magical detectives I just wanted to read it. But in the end I couldn't go through the book, that is how much I didn't like it...
One star.

I am a big fan of fantasy books for any age group. The premise for Shadow Talker was intriguing, and I looked forward to this read. However, after 50 pages, I'm finding the style of writing, story telling, and editing to be very tiresome. It's clunky, awkward, and hard to follow. In just the very beginning of the book, it's hard to follow who is talking, who they are talking to, where they are, or what they are doing.

All the same, the world building so far was interesting and intriguing. I'm still curious about what happens and hope a more concise, clean version is put out. The cover is beautiful, the title is attention grabbing.

This book, while being a good idea and having some good starts of characters, reads like it's in the beta-reading phase. I had to reread too many sentences to make sense of what it was saying.

Due to these reasons, I have chosen to DNF. Thank you for publisher and netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this arc!