Maran knows little of the outside world, Something is stirring in his peaceful kingdom and darkness is waking up.

This book followed all the basic conventions of the genre without really adding much originality. I ended up DNF-ing this book as it was just so one dimensional with the characters.

Thank you to NetGalley and Hidden Shelf

I finished this book mainly because I was feeling stubborn. The Land of Shadows follows Maran, who has been training under a legendary swordsman and has just been chosen to attend a special school to finish training. However, before that can happen, the village is attacked. The mentor and his mother both die, but he's still going to school, but now he gets to take his brother too.
The good: Lowen can write a decent fight and the relationship between the brothers was pretty fun.
The bad: It was so bland. The characters were...like action figures. Despite the beginning, they never grieve. They make snarky remarks at each other, but have little personality otherwise. They were magically good at everything and never had to try very hard. They just did what needed done and it went perfectly, save once or twice. The greater plot was also bland. The great and terrible evil that was banished a thousand years ago isn't actually dead and is coming back for more and can only be defeated by the magical chosen one. Nothing too special in the slightest, and Lowen did not add enough to make it special from every other book with that exact plot.

Thanks to @hidden_shelf for making the ARC of 'The Land of Shadows' by Seth Lowen available for review on @netgalley.

I'm very much of two minds about this book.

On the one hand, it has a very classical, high fantasy vibe to it, and you can tell that a lot of thought has gone into creating the world in which the story is situated. Across the span of this one book, you get a very clear idea of the players involved, and where on the board they're situated, which is no small feat given the amount of detail the book gives you.

On the other hand, while there are moments where the two lead characters - brothers Maran and Jerathim - are given little flashes of individual personalities, the characters are all otherwise rather flat, particularly when it comes to dialogue. And this is an extremely dialogue-heavy book, with multiple scenes of characters walking around, working in tandem with the narration to deliver a lot of expository detail. It's a lot to take in.

The pacing of the story feels off. A good chunk of the story happens over the span of a week, when it would have made more sense for it to happen over several weeks, if not months. Not only would this have allowed for some more character development, but it would have provided Lowen an opportunity to give his characters some flaws to overcome. As it stands, however, they're essentially the overpowered protagonists of 99% of modern animes, losing just enough to give them the facade of having imperfections, without ever really being in danger of not coming out on top regardless of the challenge.

I didn't hate this book by any means, but I did struggle with it; and that's disappointing, because I actually think that it has a solid foundation upon which to build a much more compelling story. I hope that the sequel will be able to do that foundation more justice.

Rating: 3/5

'The Land of Shadows' will be available from the 24th of October 2024.

This had everything that I was looking for from this type of book. The characters worked well in this universe. It had a great fantasy element to this and had a interesting concept for a world. I enjoyed reading this and I was on the edge of my seat for the darkness awakening. Seth Lowen writes a great story and had the elements I was looking for.

I liked it. It was a cute, fun book. Maran and Jerethim are good kids, so they're easy to like a s root for. The setting and plot were fine. It uses standard fantasy conventions, but not in a derivative way. It made the story feel almost cozy.

I really wanted to like this one, it started so promising. However, I sadly had to DNF at 44%.

This is a very classic adventurous coming-of-age story that many still might find enjoyable. It's good old-school high fantasy with a clear cut villain, clear cut heroes, a beautiful princess, monsters and a lot of stories told as loredrops.

Here are my reasons for DNFing:

1. It's too polished, too clear cut. The heroes are knights in shining armour, true paladins. The protagonist is a tropey naive boy that worships those heroes and in combat situations believes he can be the hero and save everyone - and probably does at the end of the book. There was no edge to anyone, no one stuck out and was likeable enough for me to want to follow them. On top of that, the protagonist has a brother who is basically the same as him?? Why is the brother even there, what purpose does he have for the plot?

2. I did not enjoy how characters were written. They're all polished and shiny and perfect. And then they all speak perfect prose - no person would speak that stiffly and formally when telling a story. But most of all the main characters' reactions to what happens to and around them is absolutely unrealistic and ridiculous. Pretty bad things happen to them and they bounce back without any emotional trauma or other consequences. Present them with a shiny lollipop in form of a pretty princess and they've forgotten everything.

BRAVO SETH!

Great coming of age adventure story, that takes us on a well constructed journey from training to fight to hero.

With nice world building, likable characters, and an interesting fighting magic system. This book will keep you up nights trying to find out the next twist.

Thanks to Seth and Netgalley