Shadow's Bane by Karen Chance

A Spoiler Free Review

Well, that was a fun, crazy, but still coherent ride. Dory fights slavers and body-jumping fey and finally kinda figures out how to communicate with Dorina. Kinda, cuz it’s really Dorina who initiates all the communication, but it will do.

Dory and Dorina aren’t the only ones dealing with alternate personalities here. Claire is also learning to deal with her dragon side. She’s also finally slowly accepting the vampires she’s just going to have to deal with if Dory’s around, which I think is a good thing.

We also learn more about the Fey in Shadow’s Bane. Caedmon is an actual font of information, even if it’s mostly the legend of Alfhild. There’s actually a lot packed in there. All the stuff about fey bones and the vargr powers. Very important. I was less pleased with Caedmon deciding to bait Louis-Cesare, but I guess it was kind of fun?

Louis-Cesare and Dory are yet again doing the on-again-off-again relationship thing that I hate. It’s even more annoying because they had it worked out and were being all cute and then Dorina’s suddenly a threat… it’s just ridiculous and they don’t actually talk it over. I’m just really hoping now Dory and Dorina have more or less worked out their shit that the Louis-Cesare stuff is settled. I think Dory and Louis-Cesare would work much better as more of a power couple.

Ray’s back. Cementing himself as Dory’s Second and bringing her a vampire family. I’m interested to see how that works out with her being a dhampir and all.

I quite liked the plot of Shadow’s Bane. It all manages to hang together really well. I’m not entirely sure I like how it was all info-dumped for Marlowe toward the end, but I guess we gotta spell it out somehow.

Shadow’s Bane is definitely more of an introspective book, but Dory’s introspection often comes with action, of which there is plenty. Most of the fight scenes are chaotic but fairly easy to follow. My favorite one was the Louis-Cesare/Kit Marlowe fight. It made me laugh. So yeah, pretty good all around.

Favorite Lines

"Love is sending someone away, because you would rather hurt than hurt them, Love is fighting beside them, bleeding along with them, and putting their well-being above your own. Love is trembling at their touch so much that you do not notice that they are trembling at yours." - Louis-Cesare

"Read a book sometime, you philistine." - Radu Basarab