Book: Every Dark Shadow by Sarah Zimm
Reviewed by Your_bookish_fantasy
Rating: 4/5
I READ THE AUDIO BOOK
DETAILED REVIEW OF BOTH
Audio Book 1* Book 4.25*
Every Dark Shadow is set between 1800s NYC and a parallel, magical version of it ruled by a brutal monarch oppressing the magic-born.
*CW: The book includes elements of war, mental and physical torture, dangerous situations, blood, descriptive violence, injuries, death, and some graphic language.
Audio review:
I'm not a fan of the narrator on the audio book at all! Far too bland and dull and slow! especially in the foreshadowing or urgent parts! Her voice barely changes. I kept getting confused in the story and muddled up because i wasn't alerted to the important bits by her tone of voice - do you know what i mean? So when im plodding along listening i need to know which bits are important to remember or hold on to and this narrator just couldnt do that, i kept having to rewind and repeat which i have never had to do before as an avid audio reader.(however, she does have a lovely voice, but perhaps better suited to contemporary romance and fluffy things, and just leave the high fantasy to the pro's who can bring it to life! My god I can imagine Laura Horowitz turning this into a movie in your mind!
I would have dnf this by chapter 6 if the book itself wasn't worth fighting for.
BOOK REVIEW:
This has a very rich fantasy world with complexity and attention to detail that I don’t often see. dark atmosphere aside, the content itself was very mild. More to a YA extent. but, as the author has said that the rest of the series is going to be more adult so ill hold judgement for now.
The world building in this book is done so very well. I love the fact that there are parallel universe’s and different time periods running at the same time- this was the first time I've read this type of world building and I thought that it was really interesting and extremely well executed! I was not confused by the time jumps or the different worlds and found this really added to the story.
The characters were AMAZING, the plot was creative, and the setting was beautifully dark and gothic. Sarah Zimm executed a perfect rotating POV, the variety of POVs gave a highly effective story telling experiance.
there are a lot of side characters that come along, which wasn't confusing at the time, but when they were mentioned again later on, I had forgotten who they were and why they're now important. (However this could very well have been because of the narrator not drawing my attention properly)
I would have liked to have seen more depth in the backstory of the Gray King and his motivations, and maybe some more info about the darkwielder and his backstory, because we new we didn't like them but not entirely sure why which didn't really have me hating them as much as I probably should have. But I now realise there is a seperate novella digging into this.
The start of the book is a typical high fantasy beginning with a lot of information laying the groundwork. It's not something you need to get through though as it is well written, but it’s just a lot of information to process and the author needs to set the world and get the characters settling in your heart ready for you to back them or hate them. (Again the narrator was so bland and slow/dull speaking- even sped up to 1.35 that I lost a bit of the set up)
The last few chapters are very high pace.
The way the author builds the relationships between the female main character and the male main characters is done beautifully and very detailed, you really feel your heart pulling for one character or another!
There is not much romance in this book at all. There is flirting, longing and hints of romance but i can see how this will go from the sub plot in this book to the main plot in the next- with 3 guardians and a shadow daddy to choose from who knows how this will go. I would class this as a high fantasy, not a romance fantasy.
Final thoughts:
I would have preffered some romance in my romantasy so I was gutted about that and I'm hoping she chooses all 3 and they share but as the author has been so frigid with this book my guess is it will be just one of them and finally i did read the audio book which was just awful- dont do it to yourself! The book deserves to be picked up and read! - for those reasons, it lost a star for me. But - great story, great characters, incredible magic system - well done Sarah, what an author!