Reviews

Shadows & Dreams, by Alexis Hall

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hashtag_alison's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

annarella's review

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4.0

I wasn't a huge fan of the first instalment but it was is excellent and I enjoyed it.
i loved the gripping and entertaining plot, the humour and the well thought cast of characters.
I look forward to reading the next book in this series.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

see_sadie_read's review

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4.0

I found Shadows & Dreams very similar to [b:Iron & Velvet|18144453|Iron & Velvet (Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator, #1)|Alexis Hall|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1372722799s/18144453.jpg|25492234]. In some ways, this is great. It's an obvious sign of consistency and much of what I loved about book one I still love here. Kate is still a sarcastic, fly-by the-seat-of-her-pants badass, the side characters are still colourful, the writing is still flippant, and the story still engaging. There is a lot to adore here, just like in book one.

However, the flip side of that consistency coin is that all those things that annoyed me about book one are still there to annoy me here too. The prose during sex scenes was still blindingly purple and the sex still felt too clipped (the vampiric bite seemingly used as a substitute for conclusive penetration to signify completion of the act and cutting it off abruptly). Meh. Plus, there was just a vague sense of repeat for some of it, since it all felt so similar to book one.

I did love the addition of Kate and Elise's running gag. They had a bit of a Manzai thing going on; Elise being the straight man and Kate the fool. It worked. It really worked. As did Patrick's completely obsessive and oblivious neuroticism, Ashriel's unexpected nice-guyness, Nimue's patient attentions, Julian's hedonism and Eve's loveable geekiness. There is a huge cast here and with the exception of Corin, who can just go die somewhere, I loved them all.

I'm calling this one another success. I might grumble over little things, but I loved a lot more than I didn't. I really hope there will be more of the Kate Kane, Paranormal Investigator Series.