Review: Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan

Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan
pub Feb 9 2016 by Harper Teen
e-ARC via Edelweiss
Young Adult - Fantasy 

Let me tell you — I didn’t know what to think after the first few pages. Getting thrown into this vastly different fantasy world requires the reader to get their bearings but soon enough I found myself intrigued. Then soon after, there was a moment. (You’ll know when you read it!) It made my jaw drop and I knew if I could be surprised that early in the story, only more good was yet to come. My hunch was right and I was hooked.

For the last seventeen years, the king of Relhok has lived in darkness after an eclipsed permanently blocked out the light. On that same night, our heroine Luna, the princess of Relhok, was born and orphaned when the evil chancellor killed her parents to steal the crown. She would’ve died too if not for two people in the court who whisked her away to the safety of an isolated tower. The world believes her to be dead and its people has dissolved into chaos. All the while, Luna has been growing up in the tower with her two guardians. She knows who she is and why she has to be kept safe but as you can imagine, it’s not easy growing up without any real connection to the outside world or friends. And then things start to get interesting.

It’s easy to love Luna as a heroine. She’s resourceful, never to be underestimated but because she’s been shielded from the outside world, it’s allowed her to retain her innocence and optimism and huge capacity for empathy. So it’s a shock to her when during one of her stolen moments outside the tower (read: she left without telling anyone) she comes across other people, including an archer named Fowler, and their jaded, hardened views. They are unsurprisingly drawn to another and I was pulled into their slow burning romance from the start. When the tower gets attacked, they manage to escape together which only brings the romantic tension and swoon levels even higher. Plus it gives us a view of what the world is truly like now. Their relationship, the dangers of the outside world and the author’s solid writing have turned me into a fan and I seriously want book two like right now.

(Super minor) Reservations

Like I said, I felt a bit discombobulated in the beginning and the book ends on one heck of a cliffhanger. The kind that makes you want to yell that it can’t possibly end here. (But it does.) I was shocked that it would end on that note but if the author wanted to leave us wanting more, it worked.

Do I recommend?

I do! I read this in only a matter of hours because I was so into it.

Collaborative feature with Alexa! 

Which sense would you want enhanced?

This is easy; I would choose sight! On a practical level, I hate that I have to wear contacts (or on worse days, glasses). I would love to have 20/20 vision and not have to worry about that stuff anymore.