Wow. Best darn thing I have read in ages.
I enjoyed the Wild Pride series, though it had its issues, but Kristen Banet has clearly grown by leaps and bounds as an author. This was beautifully done. Well, except that it needs a good line edit to fix all the prepositions, determiners and other small words missing currently - and there are a lot of them. But it didn't overly hamper my enjoyment of the story.
Honestly, I loved this so much that I kept reading slower and slower and slower the farther I got. I really didn't want it to end, even knowing the next book is to be released in less than two weeks.
Banet has created one of the all-time great main characters in Sawyer. She is fiesty, sassy, and incredibly strong, but also damaged. She has both a dark side and a deep well of sadness with which she is struggling to cope. And she manages very well without being self-pitying or whiny or even so broken that it is hard to read - but all very believably and capably handled by the author.
And Sawyer's men. She has created five very distinct individuals, all of whom are rather unique. Something that is becoming more and more rare as the RH genre grows. Quinn is a tour de force - scary and crazy and strange and utterly unique. And I adore his character! Elijah, Mr. Cowboy, is a doll and sexy as hell. And the others - Vincent, Zander, and Jasper - are coming into their own.
Clearly Banet knows how to write compelling and interesting characters.
The world-building is also wonderful. I love her take on the paranormal with the Magi. The way she has developed that concept is interesting and a unique twist. She has solidly built the world, and it is immersive. I love that she has filled it with as much intrigue and darkness as she has idealism and light. Actually MORE of the dark than the light.
I also loved the fact that she managed to bring solid closure at the end of this first book. I greatly appreciate the lack of a cliffhanger! But the story she has crafted is so compelling that I will be eagerly awaiting the next book.
Honestly, I found very little to criticize in this great first book. Aside from the editing issue, that is.
Oh - and I found all the cigarette smoking that was almost emphasized to be very off-putting. In this day and age, anything that glorifies smoking doesn't seem like a great idea. Not to mention, picturing a love interest as a smoker just makes me want to gag. It's like kissing an ash tray and stinks in general.
(Edit: I have clearly come off as far too judgmental with this comment about the smoking. And it was not my intent. I am not going to remove it, because it reflects my thoughts at the time, and it does bother me. However, it also is part of what makes Kristen's characters so very believable and REAL. We all have vices, and often they are our coping mechanism, so including them in a book that, as Kristen accurately points out, is far from YA grounds a character in something real. And I want to commend the author for that. My knee-jerk reaction to it is my own personal issue - as a former smoker, and one who lost several family members to lung cancer as a result of smoking. I will add, too, for those of you who have not yet read the book, the issue only comes up a handful of times. It is not something that is shoved in your face - it is just part of who the characters are. And Kristen has a very good blog post explaining her point of view in a blog post at KristenBanetAuthor on 05/03/2018 about Character Flaws. It is well worth the read. Sorry I cannot directly link it here, but hopefully that will get you there!)
Overall though, if you haven't read this book yet, you really need to. ASAP!
UPDATE PROGRESS NOTES:
88.0% "The author has some sort of cigarette obsession, I swear :( Yet another smoker. The large percentage of smokers in this book does not match the number of people who still smoke in this day and age. And smoking IN a hospital room? With critically injured people. PLEASE!"
75.0% Pot, meet Kettle...thy name is Sawyer - “Don’t keep secrets from me,” she whispered back after a moment. “Ever again.”
70.0% "Quinn...wow, I totally can't resist Quinn. Finally a POV chapter of his, and I am sunk! Not that I don't kinda have a thing for all the guys in their own way."
68.0% "Sawyer is da bomb. 'Nuff said."
48.0% Great line! "For a mystery wrapped in an enigma with more than a bit of danger topping it off, he was an insanely attractive man."
46.0% "Lots of funny little typos like this (mostly missing words like 'the' or 'with', etc.)."
37.0% "Ugh...in this day and age, why would anyone write smokers into their book?"
34.0% "If they've tied up all Sawyer's funds, how will she keep paying for Liam's apartment and education, and the other good things she is funding? This really sucks :/" (had resolution later)
32.0% "I am really hating the way everything is being handled here in terms of bringing Sawyer in. *sigh* And the tension begins..."
27.0% "You know a book's got you totally hooked when you can't even be bothered to make notes or updates! Loving this one!"
13.0% "Gotta say, I am loving this so far. Compelling world-building and a complex, kick-ass heroine to boot. Plenty of tension and a engrossing backstory. Yay!"
2.0% "The talking out loud to herself to give us backstory about what is going on isn't very believable. Would rather it either narrated or an internal monologue of a checklist. Because who is going to be breaking in somewhere and talking out loud to themselves? Makes no sense."
1.0% "Heh...the glossary is a creative way to dump a lot of worldbuilding/backstory on the reader without reams of exposition. I wonder how many skip over it?"
A Life of Shadows: Redemption Saga Series, Book 1
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Compelling world-building and a complex, kick-ass heroine to boot. Plenty of tension and an engrossing backstory.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 2, 2018Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 8, 2023
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 17, 2019
Top reviews from other countries
NatasjaRH
A FMC with a dark past and a needed to help the needy!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 4, 2019
Kindle Customer
Very glad this was recommended to me ☺️👍
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 9, 2021
