Out of the Shadows

This was my first book by this author, It was pretty enjoyable. I would give this book a 3.5 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read!

Let me preface this by saying that I got a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. So here goes.

This book was kind of all over the place. It is five separate stories, not completely unrelated to each other but clearly occurring some time apart. There is almost no transition from one story to the next, it just happens. We are not given any real background into who any of the characters are until the third story, and even then we only hear about one of the four people who make up the band of mercenaries known as The Shadow. There's no introduction to who they are, why they do what they do, or where any of them came from. We are just thrown into the story.

That being said, I can't say the book was horrible. It wasn't. I did enjoy it for what it was. The writing style is good. Nothing overly flowery, but also not very descriptive. The fight scenes were great, I could definitely see them playing out in my mind. But beyond that, it was kind of clinical; detached, almost. Character descriptions are few and far between, so it's hard to imagine any of the characters at all (I kinda fell back onto generic character designs and went from there), and the only setting that stood out to me was from the fourth story because I feel like there was more time spent on describing that location than any of the others. The first "big reveal" was, however, ridiculously predictable, and the second one was slightly less predictable in that I was only half correct in my assumption.

Would I continue reading this if there is a sequel? I don't know. I don't feel the pressing need to know what happened after the last story. I do feel like the ending left it open to more (and if the author note is any indication, it sounds like this is going to be a trilogy). If it comes across my kindle, I may take a peek, but as of right now, I am leaving this as is.

All in all, it is a solid collection of stories.


My rating scale:

1- I hated it
2-Nothing special
3-it was okay
4-I really liked it
5- Absolutely loved it

Out of the Shadows is a fun adventure for teens with intriguing characters. Leopold, Midas and Raven all follow Daniel, the leader of The Shadows, with the motto 'Anything for the Money'. But as the three grow into adults and realize what 'anything' might mean, it isn't quite so tempting anymore. Leo, Midas, and Raven deal with changing relationships and changing circumstances as they try to figure out what they want the rest of their lives to look like.

Please be aware that this is an episodic adventure - it is not one continuous story but several episodes in the lives of The Shadows as they wrestle with their future. Without knowing this, some of the transitions between episodes can be a bit disconcerting.

The three core characters, Leopold, Midas, and Raven are all very interesting and generally mysterious. Throughout their adventures we discover more and more about them as individuals, but never the whole story. This will intrigue teen readers and make them look forward to the next book.

3.5 stars (Apologies in advance - this book led me to have a lot of thoughts, which is a good thing!)
I was drawn to this book by the cover, as it reminds me very much of the game 'Thief'. Considering the image used, I was however surprised by how little bow and arrow action we were privileged to, but nonetheless. The is a solid YA fantasy read, which for the most part, I really enjoyed. I thought it was well written. It flows nicely, the pacing is good with a reasonable proportion of action scenes to the more down time scenes. The writing of the time period is also believable which is nice for immersion.

I'm a big fan of games so I thought it had a great, strong start with the tournament. Though I was a wee bit confused why they didn't train for any of the events except the archery? Was that the only event they were privy to beforehand? It was a little odd. I also noticed that the obstacle course was very boot camp like, which was clearly strongly inspired by the author's military background. Which isn't a bad thing at all, I love obstacle courses. I'm just not sure some of the obstacles used were all that fitting with the time, but it wasn't a big deal and I did enjoy it nonetheless.

As I say, I thought it was well written, action scenes included, but I was surprised and a bit disappointed by the ending of part 3 in particular. I thought there was a good build up and I liked the planning, but ultimately I thought it was missing the climax. It ended quite suddenly and nothing really happened, it was just - over. I would have liked to have felt something.

I appreciated the level headed royals, I thought that was interesting and a nice touch. The protagonists are all quite simple characters but I thought there was enough development to get a decent enough feel of who they each were. Although we don't see much, I also really liked the relationship between Maria and Midas, it was very sweet.

"I see your boredom and raise you the pain in my side which persisted for most of the race." 😆
"You might have a point, but I can't hear you make it over the sound of your whining." 😂

I, however, cannot ship Leo and Raven, at least not at this time. I didn't really feel their connection, so I couldn't find it believable. I'm also a bit confused about the 'brothers' relationship. Are they real brothers or are they 'brothers' as in comrades? The writing consistently made it feel as though they were blood brothers, which I loved, but then in part 3 Leo mentions the time when they 'first met' and now I don't know for sure. Were they separated when very young and then met later in life?

I liked this book and most of the things mentioned so far are just observations and my reaction or opinion of them. But there were a couple of things that did hinder my overall reading enjoyment that led to me giving this a lower rating than I'd hoped.

The first being Leopold. Don't get me wrong, I didn't dislike him as a character, he was perfectly fine, but there was just way too much of him (sorry Leo). I felt like the majority of the time he over shadowed the other two and they were demoted to supporting roles instead of main characters. Leo's abilities and subsequent triumphs were continually highlighted extensively, starting from the tournament and then again during the missions. I had thought it was written so Raven was meant to be the 'brains' and Midas the 'muscle', but I felt that Leo ended up taking on both those roles and the other two never got the opportunity to shine.

Finally, the main reason why I unfortunately can only give this book 3.5 stars. After reading 260 pages about them, I still have absolutely no clue what the protagonists look like! (unless I completely missed it, which if so, I apologise). Aside from height, build and in Raven's case - scars, we are given no insight into what our characters look like, which for me personally, has a drastic effect on my ability to fully immerse myself in the world and to form a connection and bond with the characters. Not that it matters what they look like, because it doesn't. It would just be nice to put a face to the name. Some readers might enjoy a blank canvas and the freedom to dream them up however they wish, but unfortunately I like to be given a clear picture so I can visualise the scenes. Hair colour, eye colour, skin tone, anything would have been great. We do learn all the way in part 3 that Midas can't grow facial hair, so at least I then knew to stop picturing him with the beard I originally saw him with.

So overall, a decent read, with a few areas that can be improved upon in future works.

an excellent YA novel! I would recommend reading this book to middle schoolers if they like to read action and adventure!