Review: Cast in Shadow

Cast in Shadow by Michelle Sagara

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Cast in Shadow is the first in a series (9 books so far) that I’ve been waiting to start for a long, long time. I still don’t know how long the series is going to be, but I figured there are enough books out that I could get started and see if the wait has been worth it, and oh yes it has. I'm going to have to pace myself on this one so I don't have to play the waiting game for too long.

It is a High Fantasy, but with a definite Urban Fantasy feel. It takes place in a single city, with several different races: Humans, Leontines (Lionish), Aerials (Hawkish), Barrani (flawless immortals), and Dragons (also immortals). There are a couple more, but those are the main ones we meet in this book. Each is complete with its own culture and characteristics, making this a vibrant, interesting world.

Kaylin is a Hawk (not to be confused with the Aerial species), which is a sort of police force in the city. Her interactions with her co-Hawks of various races are what really makes the story come alive with both humor and tension, setting an atmosphere that I found addictive without really being able to explain why.

The story starts as Kaylin gets pulled in on a case involving deaths of children that are similar to deaths that occurred in her orphan past, a past she has tried to ignore. What exactly happened is a mystery for a large part of the book, but once we know what happened, the question becomes why, and how to stop it from happening again.

A lot of things are a mystery, some because they aren’t revealed all at once, and some because the world-building is difficult to understand at times. Sometimes, I felt like I was missing basic background information that prevented me from following everything as it was revealed. I didn't always understand as much as Kaylin did during her discoveries - explanations and experiences that she accepted as just another piece of the puzzle were confusing to me. There was a definite feeling of being in the dark at times.

So the world-building doesn’t spell it all out, but I liked what I did understand enough that I just went with it and got the gist of things. I hoped my understanding would fill in later. And it did, more through the events than the explanations. By the end of the book, I felt like I pretty solidly knew what was going on, how the world was set up, who was in it, what the magic was - mostly. There’s still a lot that I need to learn more about, but I think I’ve got the basics down, and having plenty left to learn promises more fun reading the series.

I don’t want to put other readers off with this, because I really liked the book and can see a lot of potential in the series. This is more a warning that it could be easy to get frustrated at first. Just don’t get bogged down in trying to decipher the meaning of every detail straight away. Because even though not everything is totally clear, it becomes clear as the action fills in the picture for you. I learned much more about the world through Kaylin's relationships and through seeing what happens than anything else, which is a great way to learn how a world works. I really got into it, caught by the atmosphere and attached to the characters.

After the last page, I felt a bit lost, and had to go read the beginning of the next book to fill the void. Only the beginning though, because I’m not going to rush through these all at once. This is a series to savor, and I intend to make it last.



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