Radiant Shadows by Melissa Marr

Friday, September 03, 2010

Title: Radiant Shadows

Author: Melissa Marr
Pages: 340
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: April 2010
Rating: 4


via Goodreads
 Hunger for nourishment.
Hunger for touch.
Hunger to belong.
Half-human and half-faery, Ani is driven by her hungers.
Those same appetites also attract powerful enemies and uncertain allies, including Devlin. He was created as an assassin and is brother to the faeries' coolly logical High Queen and to her chaotic twin, the embodiment of War. Devlin wants to keep Ani safe from his sisters, knowing that if he fails, he will be the instrument of Ani's death.
Ani isn't one to be guarded while others fight battles for her, though. She has the courage to protect herself and the ability to alter Devlin's plans—and his life. The two are drawn together, each with reason to fear the other and to fear for one another. But as they grow closer, a larger threat imperils the whole of Faerie. Will saving the faery realm mean losing each other?
Alluring romance, heart-stopping danger, and sinister intrigue combine in the penultimate volume of Melissa Marr's New York Times bestselling Wicked Lovely series.

Review:  Melissa Marr has once again amazed us by bringing us to the beautiful world called Faerie.  Faerie is not well, however.  The world is no longer balanced with light and dark and when it comes to the queen- there's something strongly amiss.  Faerie needs "radiant shadows" to survive and without it, the faery realm may die.
 
Melissa Marr starts this novel off with bringing our attention to two new characters. 
The Wicked Lovely series has focused on different characters each book, but all placed in the same world.  Anyone who has not read Wicked Lovely or the novels before Radiant Shadows: it would be perfectly alright to begin with this novel and then go back to the others as you wish.

Ani- a new kind of faery and daughter of Gabriel- has been bound since birth to Devlin- the Queen's Bloodied Hands- when he was ordered to kill her.  Their fates are and will be forever tangled together.
 
Without giving too much away, I found myself liking this book.  I'm not much of a faery-kind-of-person.  I mostly read vampire books and "chick-lit" novels so when I opened the first page of Wicked Lovely, I was hesitant.  Wicked Lovely was what I fell in love with in the first place.  That particular novel was about Keenan and Aislinn.  So when I opened the next book, Ink Exchange, I was somewhat disappointed not to return to the same characters.  Having said that, I really enjoyed this book, even though Aislinn and Keenan- the two characters I had fallen in love with- were minor characters (barely mentioned at all).

The one thing I love about all Melissa Marr's novels is her style of writing.  I love her imagery and descriptions of her world.  I see the book as I would a movie, only in my head.
  
I loved Ani's strength in Radiant Shadows.  I know a lot of books these days revolve around what I know as "girl power."  That's typically where the girl shows strengths where others couldn't.  But I believe that being strong all the time (and some novels do depict characters that way) is very unrealistic for personalities.  That's why I think Marr has captured the essence of the traditional "girl power"- being strong all the time- and perfected it into the masterpiece of her character Ani.

This novel's fast-paced flow will keep you on your toes.  I couldn't put it down.
 
You'll Like This Book, If You Like:
Wicked Lovely series
strong characters
faeries
Fantasy
 

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2 comments

  1. Sounds like a good book. I love the covers for this series and I've been meaning to pick up Wicked Lovely for awhile now. I really need to get on that. Thanks for the review!

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  2. I thought this one was the best in the series, after Wicked Lovely. You are right that reading one of her books is like a movie in your head! :)

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