Shadow Study

How time flies. Just in the last novel, we saw Yelena come into her own to become one of the most powerful Magicians of the millennium and the Liason of two countries rather suspicious and distrustful of one another. And what does she have to show for it? Not much. Despite the 6 year fast forward, we see Yelena is still kicking as Liason though many people have tried to kill her. And Valek hadn't proposed. (Stupid man!) It made me sad that she hadn't actually accomplished very much in 6 years politically. The Commander is ever distrustful of Sitia and Sitians on the Council couldn't make a decision if their lives depended on it. Some characters have disappeared (Cahil) and people who were supposed to be dead (no one we knew to begin with) are not quite so dead (the Big Bad of the story arc).I'm not sure how I felt about this next book. Six years have passed since Book 3, and Yelena has plenty of stories and scars to prove it. Unfortunately, I have not been along for the ride and the names of people, places and other stories we are not familiar with are told in passing as the author situates us around Yelena's world again. Without reading the spin-off Glass series about Opal Cowan, I felt a little lost and left out for 1/4 of the story. I was at a serious disadvantage not having read the Glass Series.Intriguing is that the Commander, someone whom I respected in the first three books, may have made a very bad choice that sets Yelena and Valek on a very hard journey and may undo both Ixia and Sitia in the end. Disappointing is that Bain and Irys have no control over the Council and the idiot Council's greed and mistrust will be the end of Sitia. Though I still don't believe the gender bending Commander is evil, some of his choices are questionable and he's been keeping too many secrets, even from Valek.I would say there is no main character in this story arc. I didn't know how I felt about that. Yelena is no longer center stage as a very unfortunate/fortunate accident has rendered her magically useless. The chapters are narrated like a Fallen Kingdom's novel from multiple perspectives with cliff hangers galore for each chapter. A bit unnerving is that the third-person switches to first person when Yelena is narrating, which throws you off even more as the reader. I'm sure there was a reason for it but I still don't know what it was. I don't recall having so many perspectives in the first story arc, but since we have expanded Yelena's world and her circle, we now follow different story arcs from Janco, Yelena, Leif and Valek's perspective. They all come together in the end anyhow.Most delightful is Valek's perspective, which we have never been allowed to see. Maybe his age is catching up with him, since he must be pushing 40 now. He's reminiscing about his training, his old mentor and how he gained his reputation as the King Killer. We see a bit of how he mastered his emotions, how all those carved rocks came to be, and how he avenged his family. That was a great study in the assassin's background. We don't see the point in it until Book 7 but there is a point to all this reminiscing. We then come to realize he did not always do what the Commander ordered if his moral compass told him it was wrong, so the big bad assassin is really a nice guy underneath. We understand now that his holding Yelena for a year in the Commander's prison was just another side of Valek; a guy who wouldn't kill anyone if there didn't seem to be a good reason to. We all know how much he likes puzzles, his heart mate being the puzzle that saved his soul. We also see how the center of his universe gradually shifted from himself, to his Commander, to his Yelena. That journey alone was worth reading about.Like Cahil in the first 3 books, I'm not sure what the point of Onora was, and I couldn't like or connect to her, but I get the distinct feeling that if Valek and Yelena are ever to find their true happiness together, the Commander needs to replace Valek, needs Ixian magicians on his side, the Council needs to find its spine and Yelena and Valek need to find a nice cottage in the middle of nowhere so they can finally have some peace and quiet. Then a new generation of crime fighters needs to rise in these next three books to help the oppressed and downtrodden, and to sustain that uneasy peace between Ixia and Sitia.This story arc is not as dark as the first, but it's politics and intrigue galore. Twists and turns lead you into blind alleys, dead ends, and a deep dark maze of treachery. The never-ending danger of the Big Bad is kind of tiresome and our heroes are always one step behind the bigger plot. Frustrating but entertaining enough to make you buy the next two books without even sampling. You're in it deep by now, and if you're like me, you won't stop until you find out what becomes of our favorite Soul Finder and her heart mate Assassin.

There’s no question that Maria V. Snyder knows how to magical fantasy works. Shadow Study takes the readers back into the fantastic countries of Ixia and Sitia who have a shaky peace treaty in place. The countries are still wary of each other despite the now open boarders.Valek is torn between his forever commitment to the Commander and his love for his heart mate, Yelena. What was really amazing in this book is that we get to see so much more of Valek’s story; including his training as an assassin, how he met the Commander, and his assassination of the king. He’s still the sleek, sexy, and completely deadly assassin we know from the previous books, but in this book we also get to see a more human side of Valek.Yelena has been independent since we’ve met her in Poison Study, but that independency has always included her magic. In Shadow Study she has to relearn how the world works without her magic while being the target of unknown assassins. She struggles, but she’s still ultimately that tough woman that managed to steal the heart of an assassin.We don’t see much of Ari and Janco, but we do have Janco’s POV chapters with a very interesting new character! Onora is paired with Janco on his mission into Sitia, much to Janco’s amusement and Onora’s annoyance. Janco is the same lovable character as ever, fighting with rhymes and pouting to get his way. Letting him have his own POV chapters was a fantastic idea.Onora is a new character introduced in this series. She’s a young, half-trained assassin that’s after Valek’s job. She’s headstrong and pushes to get things done her way, but she’s very clever and I’m looking forward to how her character continues to develop (WITH Janco, maybe? I’d ship it.)The story is told from three POV’s; Yelena, Valek, and Janco with Yelena’s POV being in first person. This was such an excellent choice! Each character where in their own story on their own mission until it all came together in the end. It was like reading three stories that slowly merged together.Magic wasn’t dominate in this book, but it is still a key factor. The action here lies with assassins.Overall, I greatly recommend Shadow Study to fans of romantic fantasy. You will need to read the Study series first, but you can make do without reading the Glass series.

About 40% of the book is worth reading and it's at the end so you have to sit through boring boring boring. The twist at the end is easily guessable by anyone with a brain in the first couple of chapters. The first 60% of the book goes: she talks to this person, then goes to this place, then has a dull conversation with this person, then goes to another place, then has a duller conversation with this person, then goes to this place. The REALLY guessable twist is right at the end on the last page and the story of this book doesn't finish. Bad guys got away. Still chasing them. I guess in the next book they'll have more dull conversations and go to more dull places until something interesting eventually happens. Will read the next in the series but would never read this book again. The only redeeming feature is that it's essentially a prequel and tells Valek's story as a child but they could have just written Yelena out of this one. Should have kept it as a short story about Valek.

Much as I like the storyline and have read all of the preceding related books and having read 'Scent of Magic' I am now forced to say that all of the characters have no depth and are pretty much the same person in different guises. It is a great disappointment because I really loved Snyder's first set of books: the storyline was unique and the characters showed promise. But then they never developed. Rather the contrary, they de-evolved into different sides of the same person and the storyline became far too predictable. At one point in this book I knew exactly what was going to happen and who was going to say what.Among other things, in Scent of Magic, Avry says 'who me?' when talking about herself, exactly as the main character in every other book. To me, this sounds as though Snyder is probably writing about herself rather than creating a unique character in each story which, unfortunately, means all the characters are the same.This story is also pretty much a repeat of the others, but with different scenery and the same thing was happening, but to a different character. I really felt like I was plodding through the book rather than getting lost in its world. Unless Snyder can develop her characters so that the hero, Valek, can really behave and think like a man (albeit one in love) instead of a lovesick teenage girl and the heroine thinks and behaves like the tough character she's supposed to have been trained to be instead of a weakling sap constantly whining about her poor fate and filled with indecision (which would go against her original strong character), then I'm afraid she's lost a previously loyal reader.Yes, terrible things have happened to Yelena, but would someone who has been rigorously trained and gone through serious hardships, including attempted murder on more than one occasion, fall back to being a quivering mouse like the younger girls in Snyder's other books? Or would she more likely have more determination and courage, and probably a sense of revenge to see things through and take her next calculated step like the older and more experienced woman/mentor she's supposed to be?And Valek, his training is described in detail in this very book. The cold determination it would have taken such a boy to go through something like that is at complete odds to the man he is now described as. At one point he is filled with near blind outrage that his love has been injured by someone (which has happened before without his extreme reaction). I would have expected him to behave in a much more calm and focused manner as the leader and fighting man he's supposed to be. As I wrote, the characters have all merged into one.Try Juliet Marillier, Cinda Williams Chima or Glenda Larke to name but three other women writers in this genre. All their characters are individuals with nuances to their behaviours and the storylines are amazing.

I really enjoyed the is follow up to the Study series. Back by popular demand, Yelena, Valek and friends are engaged in another adventure as we follow them through a brilliantly plotted and written story.It begins with Yelena and Valek who going about their day to day lives hidden away in a cottage enjoyed each others company. However, evil lurks and Yelena is attacked and loses her magical ability because of it. This leads both her and Valek down many different paths and with the help of their family and friends and assorted colleagues they become more and more embroiled in the mystery that ensues.This story has a lot of humour, regarding the antics of Ari and Janco, I loved their voices which are heard consistently throughout as the author has chosen to write the novel from the viewpoints of multiple characters. I am not usually a fan of this kind of style of writing but it made sense to do so here as the crew are set on many disparate journeys. It also worked as a thrilling plot device, because just as you were reaching a cliff hanger with one character you would then join another one and becoming equally intrigued regarding their plight.This is a very return to the fantastically imagined worlds of Ixia and Sitia and the magically realms that surround them. I can't wait to visit again.

I LOVED IT.Shadow Study has been a book I have been desperate to read since I first heard about it, I stalked the author, and any place that had the book for pre-order hoping that the publication date had been moved forward. When I got Shadow Study I was torn. I wanted to drop everything to read it, but also had other books I had committed to that were published before Shadow Study, but after a string of books I did not finish, I picked this one up, knowing that I was guaranteed to get out of the slump with Shadow Study.I want to write this review and tell you everything that I loved, share with you what the characters get up to and all the secrets that are hidden within the pages. I want to share with you the final words in the book, and fan girl over them, but I can't. So this review will be vague on exact detail, but know that it is full of so much love for this book and for the author. I demolished every single page of this book, I was hooked and had to keep reading just one more chapter, and finished reading at 4.10am.Shadow Study has three narrators, Yelena, Valek, and Janco. I loved how this played out within the pages, especially as the plot progressed, the three narratives only added to this story. It also made it harder to put down, if you finished Yelena's part, you had to read through Valek and Janco to get back and find out what happened to her. We are introduced to some new people, and they make an interesting mix in the pages along with the characters that we know and love. One of the new characters I never really felt comfortable with, and when their story is mixed with an old face nothing good can come from it.Another thing that I loved in Shadow Study was getting to visit not only Yelena's world, but also Opal's too, catching up with characters from both 'worlds' and seeing how the story lines cross over and intertwine with each other. Shadow Study also gives us another characters world to learn about. We get to revisit Valek's past and find out how he became a feared assassin, and how he gained all of his skills.

Overall I'm very much a fan of the original 3 Study series books, not so much the glass series but I liked them in the end. I was really looking forward to getting my teeth into this one but I felt for the price, it was over very quickly with a predictable cliffhanger to finish. So I was slightly disappointed but as a whole I enjoy the Ixian, Sitian world and so look forward to reading the next installment.Writing: I liked that the author has decided to do multiple POV because as much as I like Yelena as a character, I find singular POV novels can get quite monotonous and repetitive, especially Opal Cowan. There were a good few grammatical errors and missing words, I had to re-read some sections and make sense of them. I felt the book was rushed almost, with a lot of padding for new readers to grasp the book as standalone. I find that quite annoying. Just read the series!The Story: It didn't spam as much time, usually Maria's books in this series cover a number of seasons, and there is a lot more happening. I didn't feel there was any action or drama in this and it was clearly evident why Yelena had lost her magic. I liked that Ms Snyder didn't jump right in with a Janco/Onora romance, definitely a good thing as pairing off is common and predictable in YA novels.