A review by annika_de
The Amber Shadows by Lucy Ribchester

4.0

My dilemma with this book: the plot is perfectly fine and I enjoyed reading most of it, but the author leads you to believe that the scope of the novel will be much larger than it actually is. It's kind of like getting on an amusement park ride, thinking it's a roller coaster, and then finding out that there actually isn't a big drop at the end. The issue isn't necessarily the ride - it's having the wrong expectations. I had no expectations going into this book (I downloaded the e-book without reading the description because the cover looked fun), but the first couple of chapters left me thinking that there was a grand conspiracy in play and the main character would be cracking codes the whole time. The book was so fun while I held onto that illusion, but it lost much of its appeal once I realized where it was really going. It's ok that the author wanted this to be a smaller, more psychologically-driven book...but she shouldn't have made us think it was a roller coaster. (More like 3.5 stars, but I'm rounding up for the interesting facts about code-breaking.)