After the events of Book 2, SHADOWFLAME, I was...well reluctant would hardly cover how I felt. The direction Sylvan took David and Miranda's relationship left me feeling hollow. I want to stress I did not have a problem with WHO David slept with, but rather that he did it at all. I was hoping there would be more fall out and consequences to those actions in the third book. Instead Sylvan jumps our music loving Miranda three years with a Grammy-winning career and holding down her Vampire Queen status pretty smartly.

So in short everything she ever wanted, on a silver plate, with a hot guy attached.

Wouldn't be much of a book if that's all that happened of course, but honestly I'm not sure how much of the middle of the book mattered. Its pretty much the same as the last two books, just different motivations and different people attacking. Different allies coming forward and different betrayals. At the end of the day however its the same old song (see what I did there?) with a would have been shocking cliffhanger.

Where Sylvan went wrong I think is that instead of leaving things lie in the end, she just had to put that nugget of hope in there that undermined the entire chapter before it. All the pain, all the anguish, all the 'We should have done better!' regrets were trivialized by the last line of the book. If the book had ended on 'proceed', well it would have lent an urgency to things. Would have almost made up for the meandering middle.

Instead the reader now knows that eventually things will follow a certain course in the next book (or maybe the book after that if Sylvan is feeling risky). That whatever Miranda goes through until that moment is cheap and can me waved away because it doesn't really mean MUCH. My advice is to read the first book, QUEEN OF SHADOWS, and read it as a stand alone. It works amazingly well as one in fact. Forget any books there after because they will only make you grind your teeth in frustration.

Originally reviewed at Night Owl Reviews ( )

Don't take my rating as any sort of indictment against this book. My issues were personal. This book would have been a 5-star novel for me had I read it in my early 20s when I was heavily into Wicca and Tori Amos and thought vampires were deadly but sexy. A lot of water has gone under the bridge since then, and reflecting on that particular period in my life is uncomfortable. I still think these are good books. If you like all the things I mentioned, then read them. Really. They're excellent. They're colored with a lot of my own worldview, though, and that's my problem, not the author's. ( )

Can't wait for the next one!, That ending blew me away! ( )

It's been three years since the Magnificent Bastard parade. Miranda has managed to have a career as a Grammy winning artist. Miranda have fought hard to have a balance but with the council of Primes being held at the Haven things are about to change. Hart an old enemy is determined to get his vengeance. If that were not enough forces that have been sleeping for centuries are about to awaken and with them comes a change that will rock the entire Shadow World.

Every time I pick up a book in this series, I brace myself for gratuitous rape, misogyny and homophobia. I'm happy to report that this is much lessened in Shadow's Fall but not completely absent. This time around Sylvan chose to largely focus on the politics of the world that she has created. With the Primes of all the nations meeting for the first time in ten years, Miranda is under scrutiny. For the first time we get to meet the other Queens and they really run the gamut.

Miranda has really changed since Queen of Shadows. She has no fear for her sanity, she isn't a traumatised victim and she has settled into her role as Queen. Miranda is no longer impetuous and has learned enough about the Shadow World to be able to negotiate it like the Queen that she is. At times, Miranda even guides David because she has learned to be patient and look at the larger picture. This is a growth I can get behind. Though Miranda has been forced to sever her relationship with Kit, she has learned to keep her own council and take comfort in her music.

Faith, David's second is determined to win the tournament to bring pride to their area but she is about to be tested in ways she never imagined. Faith has been in love with David for a very long time and as a result, she has stopped looking for love and happiness on her own. Her entire life is about serving her Prime. When she meets Hart's second, though she knows that it's not a good idea, she finds herself throwing caution to the wind and have sex with him. This irks David to no end though he knows he has no right to be jealous or even put a stop to Faith's little affair.

Faith's character has always bothered me to some degree. We know that like Miranda, she is a survivor of rape and that she is Japanese but beyond that we don't really know what motivates her beyond her fierce loyalty to David. Faith's ending in this book feels very much like a punishment for choosing to have sex with Jeremy Hayes, Hart's second and secretly the Prime of Australia. It's the first thing that we see Faith do for herself in three books and it comes back to haunt her in the worst way possible - she dies. With Faith's death, we have now lost the most prominent person of colour in this series. Thus far, we have yet to have a book in which a character of colour doesn't die. It feels like characters of colour at this point are all fodder and serve the machinations of the white characters.

In this novel, we have the return of Deven and Johnathon. Both Deven and David are concerned with seeing each other again after the events of Shadowflame. Deven and David are guilt ridden by the fact that they gave into their passion for each other. For Deven, it results in having sex more often with Johnathon and paying more attention to his consort and for David, it results in trying to keep as far away from Deven as possible lest he give into his love for him. David however claim that it's "demons" which bind him to Deven's which is problematic because it suggests that the love he feels for Deven is unnatural and no such assertion is mentioned about his bling love for Miranda.

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Talk about cliffhangers. Miranda just can not catch a break. SHADOW'S FALL is book 3 in the Shadow World series and I would 100% recommend that you start with book 1 QUEEN OF SHADOWS if you are new to the series.

Miranda started out as a broken musician and has grown to the be the Vampire Queen of the south with her vampire king and love David beside her. They have had their ups and downs but are very much in love and rule together perfectly. I loved David in QUEEN OF SHADOWS, was really mad at David in SHADOWFLAME and fell back in love with him again in SHADOW'S FALL. Book 3 ended up being one of those books you wanted to yell at the characters and throw the book across the room at some of the awfully stupid decisions that were made and the bullheaded friends that keep things from each other. Having said that I still could not put it down. I had no clue what was going to happen and was completely shocked at the events that took place. We get to see some characters from book 2 that we loved and hated as well as meet new primes that we had not been introduced to.

The ending. I honestly have no words to explain it but........ WHAT??? WHAT??? NOOOOOO..... is what went through my head. There is a lot of unexpected loss in SHADOW'S FALL and I'm not sure how Miranda could possibly get through it. I'm still in shock and not sure what else to say without giving away spoilers. I couldn't imagine not reading book 4 when it comes out. ( )