Guest Review: In Twilight’s Shadow by Patti O’Shea

Wow, the beginning of June has been great so far reading-wise. Not only because there were many books I was looking forward to, but because they all (well almost all) turned out to be good to great reads so far. One of the books I was really looking forward is In Twilight’s Shadow by Patti O’Shea, one of my favorite author.

Genre: paranormal romance (magic)
Series: The Light Warriors, book #2

I remember last year, when In the Midnight Hour (book #1) came out. I was so excited, because I’ve been anticipating it so much. I ended up never reviewing it, because I was too disappointed. I didn’t like the heroine (Ryne) and the storyline was a bit meh. Still, Patti O’Shea is one of my favorite authors so I did hunt down In Twilight’s Shadow last week, as soon as it was released, and read it almost immediately.

In Twilight’s Shadow is definitively better, especially when it comes to the heroine, Maia, who is Ryne’s older sister. The story goes as follow: the Gineals are humans with magical powers and live along normal humans. Their troubleshooters are sworn to protect the innocent from being harmed by magic. Seven years ago, Maia was a troubleshooter who’s been dallying with dark magic for too long and was about to fall to the dark forces. In order to protect her younger sister, Maia chose to give up her powers and has been excluded from the Gineals’ society ever since. However, she is now being pulled back in by Creed Blackwood, another troubleshooter – one that specializes in hunting down demon. Creed is facing a very powerful demon that turns out to be an old acquaintance of Maia – Seth – and who’s after Ryne’s powers. Although Maia is suspicious of Creed, she doesn’t have much choice to team up with him if she wants to protect her beloved sister.

I’ll start with what didn’t work for me in this book: the world building. The world of the Gineals is complex with a lot of rules and what to do and not to do. Add in magic and demons and I find it confusing, partly because Ms O’Shea tried not to dump all the information at once to the readers and instead, incorporate it in the storyline as we go… I feel like I’ve missed some parts of it. This was also an issue for me in the previous book and as a result, I only had vague recollection of the it when I started In Twilight’s Shadow. There are also many unanswered questions such as how the Gineals use magic, what they can do with it, what they need in order to use it and etc. I think that’s what kept me from enjoying this book to its fullest… because aside from the world building, the book is great.

I really liked Maia’s character. What’s refreshing is that she doesn’t have a tragic past and isn’t haunted by anything. She’s simply a woman who made some mistakes in the past and it has cost her greatly. I like how humane she was portrayed… Her qualities were well balanced by her defaults and it made her more realistic. What you have to admire most I think is her sense of loyalty and responsibility towards Ryne. I know that Ryne is all the family Maia has, but to give up so much for your younger sister is admirable… especially when you’re the one who’ll bear all the consequences in the aftermath.

Creed was a nice hero. I think his character was a bit under-developed which is unfortunate… but all the important points were covered. I like that he didn’t have to change too much for Maia. I think that their personalities and attitudes suit and complement each other very well. Love the way he fought for her against the council and how he worked out their relationship. I guess overall I’d have liked to have more personal feelings coming out of him. I think we didn’t get to know “him” as well as we got to know Maia. When we switched to Creed’s pov, we mostly got thoughts on the demons, the future of the Gineals or his feelings towards Maia. What about his thoughts about being a Gineals? Does he enjoy being a troubleshooter or has it become tiresome? Then again, he isn’t attached to anything or anyone besides Ryne, so I guess it’s hard for the author to show his “personal” side.

Story-wise, In Twilight’s Shadow is pretty good. I like the whole demon-mythology thing that Ms O’Shea has going. It was really interesting and I hope we’ll get to know more in future books. Also, it seems that Ms O’Shea is doing some setting up for future books… all I have to say is I can’t wait to read more about it. I really like the direction she’s taking 😛 I also liked how Ms O’Shea explained Creed’s past behaviors and some of his actions and it makes sense. By the way, there’s plenty of action in this book and it was well incorporated in the plot. Where I felt a bit cheated though was the diary/spell book that Maia received. I thought that part was a bit too convenient.

Finally, one last thing that annoyed me: Ryne and Deke. I usually enjoy seeing past characters, but not in this case. I thought Ryne and Deke were annoying, the way they were angry at Creed for something that happened in In the Midnight Hour. To be honest, I don’t even remember why they are angry at him and instead of trying to understand why Creed acted the way he did, they keep him at arm-length, all suspicious.

My Grade: 3.75/5… Overall a good read, but I know that Ms O’Shea can do better and hope she will do so in her next Light Warrior book.

This book is available from Tor. You can buy it here.