A Book Obsession..: Review: Shadow's Bane by Karen Chance

Review: Shadow's Bane by Karen Chance

, by Kt Clapsadl

Shadow's Bane by Karen Chance

Dorina Basarab #4

Half-human, half-vampire Dorina Basarab is back—and facing her biggest challenge yet in the next urban fantasy in the New York Times bestselling series.

Dorina Basarab is a dhampir—half-human, half-vampire. As one of the Vampire Senate’s newest members, Dory already has a lot on her plate. But then a relative of one of Dory’s fey friends goes missing. They fear he’s been sold to a slaver who arranges fights—sometimes to the death—between different types of fey.

As Dory investigates, she and her friends learn the slavers are into something much bigger than a fight club. With the Vampire Senate gearing up for war with Faerie, it’ll take everything she has to defeat the slavers—and deal with the entirely too attractive master vampire Louis-Cesare....

Wow was SHADOW'S BANE a long, but fully packed read. I'm impressed at the sheer length of this book and the fact that I was never once bored. It's been quite a long time since the last Dory novel released, but I had no problem jumping right into Dory's story again. I really appreciated the recapping in the beginning of the book. This of course contributed to this book's massive size, but it was well worth it to bring the reader right back into Dory's headspace.

The plotline of SHADOW'S BANE at first glance felt very arbitrary with many threads seeming to go in many different directions. This especially seemed to be the case when you added in the multiple perspectives with Dorina and Mircea in the past taking the helm at times. But as the book went on things started to intertwine more and more. I really appreciated how the author brought all these seemingly different threads together into one cohesive story. It definitely made for an interesting and engrossing read.

Even better than the plotlines in this book was the great amount of time spent on character growth. Dory makes major headway into accepting herself once and for all. And let me just say, after 500 years, it's about time! I also really enjoyed just how rich and in depth the other characters were. Every single one no matter how small of a role, were fully fleshed out. And let me just say, I need a Louise-Cesare for myself...

Simply put, SHADOW'S BANE was well worth every moment of the wait in between releases. Karen Chance has crafted yet another magical story that kept me turning the pages until the wee hours of the morning. Bravo!

(Received a copy from the publisher)

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